THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 i 
 l 
 
 Cerey MoWillisms
 
 THE STORY OF 
 THE IRISH NATION
 
 THE STORY OF 
 
 THE IRISH NATION 
 
 < FRANCIS HACKETT < 
 
 DRAWINGS BY 
 HARALD TOKSVIG 
 
 JQ ^1|^^^^Mmg2&|^ga|^B^H 2O 
 
 ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI NEW YORK
 
 Copyright, 1922, by 
 FRANCIS HACKETT 
 
 Copyright, 1922 
 (N. Y. WORLD) BT PRESS PUBLISHING Co. 
 
 Printed in U. S. A.
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 lio 
 Hu 
 
 To 
 HERBERT BAYARD SWOPE 
 
 When I came to see you just before Christmas you 
 asked me if I could write a history of Ireland in three 
 days. I said, "not in three days but in three weeks," and 
 on this pure mechanical retort you told me to go ahead 
 for the World. You raised only one point : Do men make 
 the epochs, or do epochs make the men? And you flat- 
 tered and impressed me by inquiring if I agreed with 
 Hegel. Here, then, is the result, though I had to give it 
 more than the heroic three weeks. I owe you much be- 
 cause without your superb confidence I should never have 
 had the courage to attempt even this popular story. So 
 let me thank you and especially for plunging me into 
 the history of Ireland, its "perilous seas," its "faery lands 
 forlorn." 
 
 F. H. 
 
 New York City, 
 March 17, 1922.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE GAELIC PERIOD: PAGAN 5 
 
 II THE GAELIC PERIOD: CHRISTIAN .... 30 
 
 III CLONTARF TO THE NORMAN INVASION . . 60 
 
 IV NORMAN INVASION TO HENRY VIII ... 84 
 
 V THE CONQUEST 106 
 
 VI THE CONFISCATIONS 131 
 
 VII THE ABYSS 162 
 
 VIII THE ANGLO-IRISH PARLIAMENT . . . . 189 
 
 IX THE UNION AND THE REPEAL MOVEMENT . 229 
 
 X THE LAND WAR 261 
 
 XI THE COMING OF SINN FEIN 332 
 
 XII THE IRISH REPUBLIC 370 
 
 INDEX 397
 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ancient Irish Archer, Kings and Harper . . . . 15 
 
 Great Cross of Monasterboice .."....'. 45 
 
 T i_ O T7 A.H 
 
 John Scotus Erigena 47 
 
 m. A j i, r-i. v ^fft* 1 *} i . A 
 
 The Ardagh Chance 50 
 
 mi. TJ-l r> - <V 3 
 
 The Vikings Come .... ,/,.. . . x *, , - . 
 
 Ireland 1171 . .'.... '^A 
 
 Norman Soldiers *!"".''. . . .*'* 70 
 
 4 faiT- T T ' 1 T T T T T T Y 1 -t s~\ 
 
 Ireland Under Henry V11I . . . . ^. . . 110 
 
 Hugh O'Neill ...... ; el . 9U 7 3 . b '. 124 
 
 n r* iv /-i c. j.- 
 
 Pre-Cromwellian Confiscations 136 
 
 Oliver Cromwell 147 
 
 Patrick Sarsfield 159 
 
 William of Orange 164 
 
 Henry Grattan 181 
 
 Parliament House 188 
 
 Theobald Wolfe Tone 204 
 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald 220 
 
 An Irish Insurgent of 1798 ....... 223 
 
 Robert Emmet . 241 
 
 iz
 
 x List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Daniel O'Connell 248 
 
 John Mitchel , . 263 
 
 William E. Gladstone 283 
 
 Charles Stewart Parnell 294 
 
 Michael Davitt . 298 
 
 John E. Redmond 344 
 
 Horace Plunkett 347 
 
 Arthur Griffith 359 
 
 James Connolly 361 
 
 Roger David Casement 373 
 
 Padraic H. Pearse 376 
 
 Ulster Showing Parliamentary Divisions .... 379 
 
 Eamon de Valera 387 
 
 Michael Collins 389
 
 THE STORY OF 
 THE IRISH NATION
 
 THE STORY OF THE 
 '^ IRISH NATION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GAELIC PERIOD: PAGAN 
 
 ON a fine day in the Wicklow Mountains you can 
 survey half Ireland. You can look as far north 
 as the lovely Mourne range in Ulster, and on the other 
 hand as far south as the tip of Wexford, framed in a 
 bright sea. 
 
 To take in the full scope of the Irish story you must 
 climb to some similar height in imagination, some height 
 from which narrow boundaries are released, and the 
 prospect becomes emotionally open. To find this emi- 
 nence, it is perhaps best to go back a few thousand 
 years. Here it is no longer history, as we know it 
 nationally and politically, that takes us by the hand. 
 It is the much calmer genius of science.
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 From this remote period one can construct no cer- 
 tain narrative. There is only the wavering accent of 
 tradition, the hint of geology and anthropology, the 
 literal "footprints on the sands of time." But by 
 great luck we happen to have preserved in Gaelic the 
 oldest existing body of Northern literature. From this 
 literature we are able to judge or guess at the types of 
 men who stand on the sky-line of Irish history. 
 
 This Gaelic past is of intense interest, not only be- 
 cause so many records and memorials of it exist, but 
 because the Irish people to-day are in such vivid rela- 
 tion to their past. Like all invaded and suppressed 
 peoples, they have been repeatedly informed that their 
 past is wild, obscure, and barbaric ; they have been 
 encouraged to forget it. But the past swings the fu- 
 ture into being. The present key to Ireland is in the 
 Gaelic period which flourished so nobly in pagan times, 
 and so generously in the Christian period that followed 
 Patrick. This civilization, however, is not mon- 
 strously peculiar or archaic. The Irish are not racially 
 separate from Europe. Their history is a vital part 
 of European history. By an accident of political and 
 economic suppression the Irish people have been forced 
 for centuries to turn all their energies into making a 
 fight for survival. But, for centuries, like a river that 
 
 4
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 has been dammed and forced out of its channel, the 
 Irish nation has at last pushed through its unnatural 
 obstacle, established its continuity, and begun to flow 
 in freedom. Hence the head-waters of Gaelic civiliza- 
 tion are more important to examine than ever. 
 
 To begin with the earlier human inhabitants of Ire- 
 land, it is by no means established that they were all 
 of one racial stock. It was dark Mediterranean peo- 
 ple, we are told, who worshiped around the glacial 
 boulders which still remain. It was broad-headed 
 "Beaker" people who erected the great burial mounds 
 and laboriously decorated the memorial stones. These 
 prehistoric inhabitants of Ireland are hardly dis- 
 cernible. They are vaguely known as Iberians and as 
 Picts. 
 
 Descendants of early tribes wiry, black- haired 
 Sicilian-like are still to be met in stony Connacht. 
 Perhaps these are "Iberians." Once it was supposed 
 that the famous chronologies of the pagan kings had 
 historical value and gave a clue to the pre-Celtic Irish, 
 but it now appears that their lists of dates and mon- 
 archs were compiled on the model of the Old Testa- 
 ment after Christianity had come to Ireland. But 
 
 5
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 much is to be inferred from the unwritten records 
 from the burial mounds and the big memorial stones 
 and the Druidical circles which are still, to our won- 
 derment, sprinkled over Ireland. On a stone at New 
 Grange there is to be seen the spiral that came from 
 the ^Egean, traced by some pre-Celtic hand about 1500 
 B. c. Near-by in royal Meath are the many hillocks 
 which the fear and awe of a later age raised to the Old 
 Men. Under a seventy-foot mound at New Grange, 
 with a circle of stones outside, one may now climb 
 down to the mysterious set of chambers in which the 
 pre-Celtic chiefs were first buried. Here, up to the 
 time of Christianity, the pagan kings were laid, some- 
 times in urns and sometimes lengthwise and sometimes 
 standing up, in full armor and face toward the enemy. 
 
 The early race of men came to be called Firbolg, or 
 "men of the bags." In these bags, it is recorded, the 
 Greeks, so-called, compelled the Firbolg to haul loam 
 for their hillside gardens. Revolting against their 
 slavery, the Firbolg escaped from their Mediterranean 
 masters, making boats out of their bags. 
 
 However dim this legend, the first man of the pres- 
 ent surviving type certainly came to Ireland oversea, 
 so one may fairly picture the Firbolg sailing to their 
 new country as Lucan pictured the Briton : 
 
 6
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 The moistened osier of the hoary willow 
 
 Is woven first into a little boat; 
 Then, clothed in bullock's hide, upon the billow 
 Of a proud river lightly doth it float 
 
 Under the waterman: 
 So on the lakes of overswelling Po 
 Sails the Venetian; and the Briton so 
 On the outspread ocean. 
 
 Here, as so often, the poet is the antique historian. 
 On the west coast of Ireland the little boat "clothed 
 in bullock's hide" is still in use. 
 
 But there are other memorials of the bagmen. 
 There is a legend that they fought a great battle for 
 survival against powerful new-comers in County Mayo, 
 near Cong. On this ground to-day there are five groups 
 of stone circles, besides a number of burial cairns, 
 which may indicate a battle-field or simply a cemetery. 
 One of these cairns, however, has always been known 
 as the "Cairn of the One Man." Eochy, the king of 
 the Firbolg, was bathing in the opening of an under- 
 ground river that still connects Lough Mask and 
 Lough Corrib. Three of the enemy came upon him 
 and demanded his surrender, but before they had taken 
 him his own body-servant arrived and, at the cost of 
 his life, fought and slew all three. The legend declares 
 that in this "Cairn of the One Man," the king, with 
 great honor, buried his servant. And when this grave 
 was opened, in the middle of last century, by Sir Wil- 
 
 7
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 liam Wilde, father of Oscar Wilde, a single urn was 
 found inside which once had held a man's bones. 
 
 The Firbolg, then, were the primitive stock, and 
 when the Celts or Gaels came oversea to Ireland about 
 350 B. c. (in the so-called Iron Age), they were met, 
 as Pilgrim Fathers always seem to be met, by a group 
 of "natives." These natives of 350 B. c. have left no 
 trace whatever of their language in Ireland, and no 
 certain picture of their appearance and social habit, 
 but enough is known about them to make it clear that 
 they were definitely less far advanced than the fighting 
 Celts to whom they succumbed. 
 
 Almost immediately after the arrival of the Celts, 
 these older inhabitants seem to have become bottom- 
 dog. The Celts were bigger men, they had bigger and 
 better boats, they were better clad above all, they 
 had better implements both for fighting and working. 
 The result, in the dim age of which we speak, was the 
 subjection of the early tribes. 
 
 Who were the Celts? They were a Nordic people, 
 sprung from southeast of the Baltic. Some recent 
 commentators, not without political bias, have denied 
 that the Irish have ever had Celtic antecedents. They 
 
 8
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 assert that the invaders of 350 u. c. were Alpine folk, 
 round-headed and tall and fair ; more primitive than the 
 Nordic type, though "plastic and imaginative and sym- 
 pathetic." But the evidence of race, of the Gaelic 
 language, and of the Latin classics points to the inclu- 
 sion of Ireland within the range of that Celtic expan- 
 sion which took place in the fourth century B. c. 
 
 The Firbolg, however, were not exterminated by the 
 Celts or Gaels who came in the fourth century before 
 Christ. Although it is certain from all the memorials 
 of the North that these Gaelic contemporaries of the 
 civilized Greeks were some hundreds of years behind 
 the Greeks in culture, it is also certain that their state 
 of culture was not primitive. They were far enough 
 along, at any rate, to tax their subject peoples. But 
 they did not kill off the Firbolg. What happened to 
 the brave but less advanced type may, in a plain image, 
 be suggested by the survival of frame dwellings in a 
 modern city like New York. Even latterly a single 
 frame dwelling may stand next to a sky-scraper, while 
 in outlying districts the frame dwellings may persist 
 in groups. The erection of the brownstone type of 
 house suggests a later incursion say the Norse and 
 the survival of this type in a variety of modifications 
 and disguises indicates what may happen even with 
 
 9
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 tenements of stone. As to the succession of human 
 types, one thing seems clear; nothing, not even the 
 skull, is unchangeable in size or shape, and too much 
 may be inferred on the hypothesis that bone is fixed, 
 like cast-iron. But history and tradition in Ireland 
 do indicate that the Firbolg was subordinated, even 
 though he was valued as a fighting conscript and gave 
 the Heroic Cycles some of their noblest figures. The 
 Firbolg generally was pushed into the hills, into the 
 woods, into the less desirable lands and the less desir- 
 able work. Still, because his property descended 
 through the female line, the Gael not only fought his 
 way but married his way into supremacy: he took the 
 Firbolg chieftainess to wife, and then her property 
 went to the Gaelic sept in the natural course of descent. 
 For the Gael came to Ireland with social ideas consid- 
 erably in advance of those matriarchal tribes who at 
 that time supplied the human groundwork of the Brit- 
 ish Isles. The Gael, we may assume as certain, was 
 of the common Northern stock which is the racial basis 
 of modern France, Belgium and Germany. And prob- 
 ably the clearest way to conceive the Irish nation is 
 as part of this vast Northern adventure which became 
 possible once the later inhabitants learned to use iron. 
 The conquest of the Firbolg *by the Gael is now 
 
 10
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 viewed with equanimity by all Irish historians. Yet 
 historically speaking, the Gael was a ruthless oppres- 
 sor. He belittled and misrepresented the people whom 
 he conquered. It is a pity we do not possess a Firbolg 
 history of the Gael. 
 
 The fact that he was so capable of conquest and 
 oppression links him with northen Europe. And his- 
 torically it is desirable to remember the European 
 Southeast Baltic cradle of the Gael, because for many 
 centuries the Gael continued to be an element in the 
 life of the Continent. It is easy to see, in our own 
 time, how the whole fortune of a modern people may 
 change in a few years, how their social margin may be 
 wiped out and their main fight become the primitive 
 fight to survive. That was the case of the Irish Gael 
 after 1600 A. D., and to a great extent after 1200. 
 But at the time when the Continent of Europe had 
 the least cultural margin of its own, in the chaos of 
 the fifth and sixth centuries, it was the Irish Gael's 
 turn to contribute. During that period, as a conse- 
 quence of the conversion by St. Patrick, the Gael was 
 a supreme factor in the life of the Continent. It is 
 impossible, on this account, to comprehend the true 
 story of the Irish nation unless one keeps realizing the 
 fluidity of boundaries that now seem to be fixed and 
 
 11
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 the flexibility of channels that now seem to be rigid. 
 The Gael is a European not only in stock but in cul- 
 tural history. To think of him as separate and iso- 
 lated is to make him unintelligible. 
 
 To return to 350 B. c. The physical Ireland to 
 which the Gaels pushed forward under Continental pres- 
 sure was a fair, fertile land, with probably the same 
 moist climate it has to-day. Like the rest of the 
 Northern world, it swarmed with forest. When the 
 Picts came Meath alone seems to have been cleared. 
 In the shade of its great woods of oak and ash and 
 hazel and holly, the fox, the red wolf, the boar, the bear, 
 the deer, and perhaps the elk were still at large. But 
 one may suppose that the Gaels were rejoiced to find 
 grassy plateaus from which they edged the Firbolg 
 away ; and clear rivers leaping with salmon, and "fishy 
 pools," and sandy shores where boats could easily be 
 beached. The wild swan, we may imagine, swam in 
 the silences of inland lakes. The wild geese flew over 
 Ireland on their journey south. On high hills there 
 were places for Druid worship and sacrifice, and on a 
 plain in Cavan a place for the idol Cromm Cruach, 
 god of the sun, whom the pagan multitudes adored. 
 
 12
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 A very old Gaelic poem, ascribed to Finn mac Cool 
 (Finn mac Cumhail), may be quoted to suggest the 
 country that surrounded and delighted the Gael. 
 "May-Day, delightful time! How beautiful the color; 
 the blackbirds sing their full lay; would that Leahy 
 (Laighaig) were here! The cuckoos sing in constant 
 strains. How welcome is the ever-noble brilliance of 
 the seasons ! On the margin of the branching woods 
 the summer swallows skim the stream. The swift horses 
 seek the pool. The heath spreads out its long hair, the 
 weak, fair bog-down grows. Sudden consternation at- 
 tacks the signs; the planets, in their courses running, 
 exert an influence ; the sea is lulled to rest, flowers cover 
 the earth." 
 
 From the Irish literature that now remains, thou- 
 sands of pages of which are still unpublished and many 
 not yet translated into English, it is not impossible 
 to suppose the kind of life which these pre-Christian 
 groups enjoyed. Each of these groups which occupied 
 the fair lands of Ireland circled socially round the domi- 
 nant local chief and his family. And the group in 
 itself formed a community with a social structure which 
 was fairly proof against internal change. The Fir- 
 bolg, in the first place, seem to have been in most cases 
 "unf ree." They were not slaves ; that lot was reserved 
 
 13
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 for the males and females who were captured in raids 
 or for the general captives of war. But the Firbolg, 
 excellent fighters though they were, formed subject 
 communities to do the mechanical work which the pas- 
 toral Gaels apparently scorned, and to pay tribute, 
 after the fashion of subject communities. The bronze 
 rivet-folk, the shield-folk, the chariot-folk, the wheel- 
 folk, the plow-folk, were castes of Firbolg, and it is 
 suggested that the tameless tinkers of Ireland to-day 
 may be a survival of this type of community life. 
 Everywhere, except in Ossory and in Down and An- 
 trim, the Firbolg succumbed. But besides the "un- 
 free" Firbolg, with their fairs and possible exchange of 
 wives, there were serfs who were too poor to own cattle. 
 They merely had the use of cattle in return for servi- 
 tude. 
 
 Wealth was then, as now, in the hands of a ruling 
 class. As the "pillow-talk" of king and queen in the 
 epic tale of the Raid of Cooley (County Louth) in- 
 forms us, wealth consisted of jheep and herds, of horses 
 and steeds and studs, of droves of swine "driven from 
 woods and shelving glens and wolds," of pails and cal- 
 drons and iron-wrought vessels, of jugs and eared 
 pitchers, of apparel of kingly colors purple and blue 
 and black and green and yellow and vari-colored and 
 
 14
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 rings and thumb-rings and bracelets and golden treas- 
 ures, probably from the rich alluvial gold of Arklow. 
 Slave-women, who were worth three cows or five bul- 
 locks, were also part of the wealth of that harsh Queen 
 Maeve of Connacht who went to war for a bull. 
 
 FROM OLD FRESCOES AND 
 STONE SCULPTURE 
 
 Ancient Irish Archer, Kings and Harper 
 
 In this pastoral life, as might be expected, the great 
 men were the men of personal strength and beauty and 
 pride and skill. When even the petty king traveled in 
 state he was accompanied always by his judges and 
 poets, by harpers and pipe and horn players, by jug- 
 glers and fools, besides his soldiers and stewards and 
 servants. Sport and hospitality were as much a part 
 of his life as war. His lawful occupations, as the old 
 rule laid them down in later times, were legislation on 
 
 15
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Monday, chess on Tuesday, seeing the coursing of 
 grayhounds on Wednesday, the pleasures of love on 
 Thursday, horse-racing on Friday, delivering judg- 
 ment on Saturday, and on Sunday feasting and ale- 
 drinking and distributing ale. These activities have a 
 flavor of the time and place about them, and yet, with 
 the inclusion of the laying of corner-stones, they might 
 bring to mind the liipited sovereignty of Edward VII. 
 
 In the habitation of Ireland by free Gaels, their un- 
 free dependents, and their slaves there was no immedi- 
 ate need for a strong central government. Government 
 centralized for military reasons was attempted in pagan 
 times but not secured. It was hard to secure because 
 it was still possible for compact political agencies like 
 the sept, or group of kinsmen, to be self-sufficient, like 
 small shops before the trusts came. Now, looking 
 backward, we can see how "primitive" the Gaelic septs 
 were, just as by hindsight it will some day very likely 
 be agreed all around that it was wasteful for each rail- 
 way in 1922 to try to keep its independence. But to 
 the Gaels who occupied Ireland in pre-Christian days 
 the main reason they rode to Tara in their chariots 
 with their poets and judges and retainers was to enjoy 
 
 16
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 the enormous triennial assembly in a festival spirit, 
 with tradition and ceremonial in their mind rather than 
 the modern idea of representative government. The 
 hard political problems were not central in an age in 
 which wealth was agricultural, an age content with 
 wooden bridges or fords and a few good roads and 
 houses built from the timber or wattles with which 
 Ireland was so well supplied. The really pressing con- 
 flicts concerned tangible wealth and provincial military 
 power. By what new local combinations could a proud 
 and mettlesome chief hope to aggrandize himself at 
 the expense of his natural or acquired enemies? That 
 was the sort of problem that had point. Until the 
 Strangers came with such strategy that they could 
 grip all pastoral Ireland willy-nilly, the need to com- 
 bine was not clear. When the necessity was felt to be 
 actual, the Gaels did attempt to centralize. Perhaps 
 because they had never lived in towns and had there- 
 fore missed the quick though dangerous adaptability 
 that comes with many contacts and easy associations, 
 they persisted in the old ways long after the European 
 world had learned new modes. This conservatism, 
 joined with their pride in the fighting character of 
 their leaders, was probably one element in determining 
 their subsequent fortunes. 
 
 17
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Another fact of serious social consequence, as Pro- 
 fessor MacNeill defines, was the way in which the sept 
 or true family or derbfine was organized in relation 
 to the kingship. 
 
 A derbfine or true family was not grouped according 
 to the modern idea of the married coupla and their off- 
 spring. The Gaelic family took in all the immediate 
 kinsmen of four generations, the head of the sept being 
 reckoned the great-grandfather, whether living or not. 
 Birth and death were consequently of essential impor- 
 tance to the derbfine. When the first son was born to 
 the fourth generation a new great-grandfather was thus 
 created, and consequently a new unit or derbfine. When 
 any male member of the four generations died his hold- 
 ings went into the family pool and were redivided 
 among every one according to prescription. In case 
 of the kingship, any male member of the derbfine was 
 in line of succession, the monarch being elected by all 
 who were eligible. The bad consequence of this law 
 of succession, as Professor MacNeill points out, was 
 the drive it gave to those men whose fathers and grand- 
 fathers had not held the kingship to seize the kingship 
 for themselves and thus "keep it in the family." 
 
 There was much conflict in early Irish history, and 
 
 18
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 most of it sprang from this system. Powerful men 
 gambled with life rather than resign themselves to an 
 inferior role in their family's district. And where so 
 much depended on the chances of mortality, men's 
 minds naturally tended to elevate the value of power 
 rather than the value of life. To kill a man, as with 
 all Aryans, asked for vengeance, not justice. There 
 was, besides, the provocation that came to fighting men 
 from living near other fighting men whose wealth con- 
 sisted in cattle and sheep. There were innumerable 
 disputes, a few entirely lawless and wanton, but most 
 of them due to the lack of a code supported by force 
 and to the fierce personal partisanships of the septs. 
 The conflicts of territorial chiefs were possible at any 
 time down to the sixteenth century. But there were 
 long periods of tranquillity and order during the whole 
 Gaelic period, and at least one great effort to consoli- 
 date the position of the high-king. A professional 
 soldiery, with its promise of order and threat of domi- 
 nance, was missing in Ireland. It existed so long as 
 the plundering of Britain and Gaul was profitable. 
 But later this fighting militia disappeared, and with 
 it royal Tara, "home of the warrior-bands." 
 
 19
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 6 
 
 There are many popular notions about Ireland 
 which are best explained by reference to this prehistoric 
 period in which the life of Ireland is simply the life of 
 a congeries of small, comfortable, prosperous, belliger- 
 ent chieftaincies. One is the famous myth that a 
 handful of Spaniards wrecked on the shores of Ireland 
 after the dispersal of the Armada became thereafter 
 the fathers of innumerable and consistently black- 
 haired descendants. These black-haired people are 
 now reckoned to come from the Picts or Pretani 
 (Britanni), of whom Professor MacNeill speaks. An- 
 other notion is that which Lord Salisbury indulged 
 when he spoke of the "Celtic fringe." His image was 
 meant to convey the fact that the Celtic traces in the 
 British Isles were around the rim of a territory which 
 some superior group had wiped clean. This theory, 
 supported by Rhys, now seems to be upset. The Hot- 
 tentots, the "miserable shell-eaters" of that remote age, 
 appear to have been the unfortunate Pretani. The 
 Gaelic "fringe" in western Britain, in Argyllshire, in 
 Wales, and in Cornwall, was an embroidery, not a rem- 
 nant. It came from fresh Irish settlements after the 
 collapse of Roman power in Britain. The classic name 
 
 20
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 for the Irish Gaels was Scoti, or raiders. Ireland, 
 known as Eiru, Eire, Iverne, lerne, Hibernia, Ire-land, 
 was also known as Scotia Major. (Scotland, of course, 
 was Scotia Minor, named after the Irish who colonized 
 and Christianized it.) The fame or ill-fame of the 
 Irish Gaels as raiders and plunderers traveled into 
 Gaul as well as to Britain. It was one of the reasons 
 later advanced by Milton toward justifying the coun- 
 ter-incursion of the Normans. 
 
 7 
 
 From these authentic raids of the Gaels we may 
 approach the actual history that precedes the coming 
 of Patrick. But first we must admit the dimness that 
 surrounds Ireland and Britain even as late as the be- 
 ginning of the Christian era. 
 
 It has been brilliantly said, "If communications had 
 been more easy, Queen Maeve might have entertained 
 Caesar Augustus in her palace at Rathcrogan, while 
 the fame of Finn MacCool might have added to the 
 apprehensions of Aurelian." (Grenville A. J. Cole.) 
 This cross-section in chronology suggests how the illu- 
 mination of history, so vivid in Mesopotamia and 
 Egypt and Greece and later Rome, palpitates and pales 
 as one follows the horizontal line to the North. The 
 
 21
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 dimness is utterly impenetrable at a time when the 
 world is already radiant in the South. Where were 
 our ancestors when the Sumerians were writing their 
 tablets? How advanced were they when Socrates 
 played the fine light of reason on gods and men in the 
 glowing Athenian shade? It is only by the aid of 
 happily surviving heroic legends and justly compen- 
 sated tradition that scholars venture to build up the 
 Gaelic past before the time of Patrick. And yet the 
 secrets of the race have been in good keeping in the 
 hands of Irish poets. Each year, as scholarship im- 
 proves, the magnificent epics of Ireland yield up one 
 clue after another to prehistoric Gaelic civilization, 
 and the age of historical disclosure is not over. It 
 was only in 1868 that the superb "Ardagh" chalice 
 was brought to light by a man digging potatoes at a 
 rath in County Limerick; it dates probably from the 
 ninth century. It was only in 1850 that a wayfarer 
 picked up on the strand at Bettystown, near Drog- 
 heda, the admirable "Tara" brooch. Somewhere, per- 
 haps, in a buried shrine, there may still lie hidden in 
 Kildare that glorious manuscript which the emotional 
 Gerald de Barri declared to have been decorated by 
 angels! Time, at any rate, favors our enlightenment 
 on this flowering Gaelic period. 
 
 22
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 8 
 
 The failure of the Romans to conquer Ireland is, 
 in a sense, a landmark of Irish history. By their con- 
 quest of half-naked and primitive Britain the Romans 
 came in sight of Ireland, but they never attempted to 
 extend their empire across the Irish Sea. They lacked 
 the extra legion which would have enabled them to 
 tackle the Gaels. The Gaels, on their side, were un- 
 doubtedly aware of the nearness of that formidable 
 imperial power. And the outside contact of the Gaels 
 with the Roman empire has left a few records in writ- 
 ing and in material form. Once they had established 
 a footing in Alba (Alp-a, now Scotland), the Gaels 
 advanced toward the Roman wall in the north ; Ulster 
 built a defensive rampart after that model in the third 
 century. The Gaels harried the Roman colony before 
 the downfall of the empire, but later, when the "bar- 
 barians" came sweeping from the east in the fourth cen- 
 tury, a division called the First Scots (apparently in- 
 cluding Gaels and pre-Gaels) fought with the Romans 
 "to defend the line of the Rhine.'* New colonies of 
 Celts about the same time settled in that accessible 
 region of Leinster around Dublin which Belgae and 
 Norsemen and Normans and Saxons have always made 
 
 their own. 
 
 23
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Such colonists were not, in the nature of things, 
 objectionable. If the new-comers entered into the 
 right alliances and lent military aid and paid tribute, 
 they were as welcome in Irish politics as the "Polish 
 vote" or the "Italian vote" or the "Irish vote" in twen- 
 tieth-century American politics. Immigration and 
 emigration were more frequent than usually recognized 
 in the early centuries of this era, and the Norse-Irish, 
 especially, formed what might be termed dissolving 
 combinations. 
 
 9 
 
 In the Gaelic land at home early history actively 
 revolves around one central political theme the strife 
 of Ireland in changing from a state of five main divi- 
 sions to a state of seven divisions and sub-kingships. 
 Professor MacNeill says that the oldest certain fact in 
 the political history of Ireland is the "pentarchy." 
 Till 1833 the rock stood near Mullingar from which 
 the five divisions of the country were traced, and the 
 sept names that were identified with each of these divi- 
 sions, either as kings or under-kings, are on record in 
 the genealogies. Dr. Douglas Hyde, in his fascinating 
 "Literary History of Ireland," gives us the names of 
 these septs that were best known. In Leinster there 
 were the O'Tooles, the O'Byrnes, MacMurroughs or
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 Murphys, O'Conor Falys, O'Gormans, and others, trac- 
 ing back to A. D. 123. In Munster were the Mac- 
 Carthys, CKSullivans, O'Keefes, O'Callaghans, the 
 MacNamaras and Clancys, the O'Carrolls, O'Meaghers, 
 O'Haras, O'Garas, Caseys, and southern O'Conors. 
 Ulster had the O'Neills and the O'Donnells. From 
 Brian came the O'Conors, kings of Connacht, Mac- 
 Dermots, O'Rorkes, O'Reillys, O'Flaherties, MacDon- 
 aghs, O'Shaughnesys. And these are by no means the 
 last of the leading genealogies. 
 
 The boundaries of Ireland even now are under dis- 
 cussion; in the past, change was the rule rather than 
 rigidity. From the time of Toole (Tuathal), who 
 exacted the huge Borumha or Boru tribute from Lein- 
 ster, to the time of Cormac mac Art there was probably 
 a constant shifting of power. A new era came with 
 Cormac mac Art (227-266). (Mac means son of, O' 
 means grandson of.) Working his way forward from 
 his own home in Connacht across the central plain, 
 Cormac established his kingly power over Meath. By 
 seating his dynasty at Tara and making the king of 
 Connacht the automatic successor to Tara, Cormac 
 gave a trend to history which, in the century succeed- 
 ing, was developed by the uniting of Connacht and 
 Meath against Ulster and the break-up of that historic 
 
 25
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 division. The domination of Munster, at the same 
 time, was achieved by the powerful kings enthroned on 
 the Rock of Cashel. Internal security seems now to 
 have obtained for a considerable period. The high- 
 kings who came later, Niall of the Nine Hostages and 
 Nath-i (also called Dathi), attest their dominance at 
 home by their militant activity abroad. Niall was 
 slain on board ship in the English Channel (404) by a 
 Leinster prince, Nath-i killed in Gaul (429). Niall *s 
 many sons inherited or conquered small principalities 
 throughout half Ireland. Vassal communities and 
 communities that paid tribute were multiplied under 
 this division of Niall's territory, which has given place- 
 names still in use to countless districts in Ireland. 
 Northeast Ulster, however, remained discordant and 
 split into four sections. The men of South Leinster, 
 at the same time, stood apart. Their mission was to 
 recover by force the power which had belonged to them 
 when a Leinster king reigned at Tara. 
 
 These dynastic struggles, apparently so meaning- 
 less, were the main political activity of the warring 
 Gaels. But the conflicts of power that they indicate 
 did not cease for many centuries. War rather than 
 peace was the chief fact of existence. Love was the 
 
 26
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 incentive arid the reward of heroes, not of the tamer 
 breed of men. 
 
 10 
 
 The barbarous Gaelic king is not a misty figure in 
 the Gaelic past. An official word-portrait of Connac 
 at royal Tara fortunately remains for our edification. 
 It is to be found in the "Book of Ballymote": "Beau- 
 tiful was the appearance of Cormac in that assembly; 
 flowing and slightly curling was his golden hair. A 
 red buckler with stars and animals of gold and fasten- 
 ings of silver upon him. A crimson cloak in wide 
 descending folds around him, fastened at his neck with 
 precious stones. A torque of gold around his neck. 
 A white shirt with a full collar, and intertwined with 
 red gold thread upon him. A girdle of gold, inlaid 
 with precious stones, was around him. Two wonderful 
 shoes of gold, with golden loops, upon his feet. Two 
 spears with golden sockets in his hands, with many 
 rivets of red bronze. And he was himself, besides, sym- 
 metrical and beautiful of form, without blemish or re- 
 proach." 
 
 It is not hard to credit the account of a Firbolg 
 revolution when one reads of Cormac's magnificence. 
 
 27
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 He was attended by a prince of the blood, a Druid, a 
 leech, a judge, a bard, a musician, a story-teller, and 
 three stewards. The great Feis, which lasted a week, 
 consisted of a royal reception, a parliament, a national 
 registry of annals and genealogies, a great festival, and 
 a market. Merchants came to barter from as far as 
 the Eastern Empire. There was also a great banquet 
 in a hall which accommodated a thousand warriors 
 seated beneath their shields. The Fiana, or militia, 
 were no doubt strongly represented, as well as the terri- 
 torial kings and lords. The hall, entered by fourteen 
 doors, was three hundred feet long, ninety feet broad, 
 and forty-five high. It was, of course, built of wood 
 and has long since disappeared. 
 
 The magnificence of Cormac mac Art's gold orna- 
 ments is, however, far from incredible. Antique gold 
 ornaments weighing five hundred and seventy ounces 
 are now in the Irish Academy in Dublin, as against 
 thirty-six ounces of British findings in the British 
 Museum. As for "Tara's halls," the written record 
 must also be taken as credible. The government ord- 
 nance survey has confirmed the actual ground measure- 
 ments recorded in the "Book of Ballymote." 
 
 Cormac built the first water-mill in Ireland, which 
 released many women from working the primitive quern. 
 
 28
 
 The Gaelic Period: Pagan 
 
 Had this pagan king the use of letters? Could he 
 write? Tradition declares he could, and we find in 
 the "Book of Ballymote" his "Instructions to a Prince," 
 which counsel "self-government without anger, affabil- 
 ity without haughtiness, diligent attention to history, 
 strict observance of covenants and agreements, strict- 
 ness mitigated by mercy in the execution of laws," and 
 so on. A king should be elected, he said, "from the 
 goodness of his shape and family, from his experience 
 and wisdom, from his prudence and magnanimity, from 
 his eloquence and bravery in battle, and from the num- 
 ber of his friends." 
 
 This, then, is the Ireland of the epic; of gods and 
 fighting men. And here, in A. D. 432, comes Patrick 
 with his strange message of the Savior, of sin and 
 repentance, of hell and of eternal salvation.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE GAELIC PERIOD: CHEISTIAN 
 1 
 
 ST. PATRICK shines out of the pages of Irish his- 
 tory. Looking at his figure as at a bright flame, 
 a rim of obscurity surrounds him. But this obscurity 
 is unfortunate ; not to see him surrounded by the pagan 
 Gaels is to miss the full value of his dramatic success. 
 
 Patrick is a tremendous figure in the history of the 
 North. He made a bridge between two cultures the 
 Celtic culture of Cuchulain and Finn and Ossian, of 
 Deirdre and Naisi, and the Christian culture of Naza- 
 reth and its humble faith in the eternal. Patrick found 
 Ireland naively pagan. Without arousing passion or 
 confusing the will of those to whom he came, he and 
 the great mission that came with him gave the Gael a 
 new vision of life, a new habit, a new orientation. 
 
 We are familiar with the efforts of Christian mis- 
 sionaries among so-called infidels and heathens in mod- 
 ern times. We know how the uncomfortable Poly- 
 
 30
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 nesians have yielded to being photographed in the stiff 
 calico night-dresses of Christianity. The efforts of 
 heroic missionaries in China, in Japan, among the In- 
 dians, among the Africans, have been witnessed by a 
 world that estimates the cost of conversion at so much 
 per head. But in none of these cases, either among 
 the lowly cultured or the highly cultured, has the whole 
 stream of a people's life been swiftly and smoothly con- 
 verted into a new channel. The victory of the Cross 
 in Ireland, against a paganism that has often been de- 
 scribed as barbaric, has elements in it which demand 
 that the preceding epoch be taken into account. 
 
 2 
 
 The Druid is a dim figure in the ancient Celtic world. 
 Wherever the Celt lived in France, Belgium, parts of 
 Britain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain the 
 legend of the Druid may be picked up in a trail of 
 incantations, ceremonials, and sooth-saying which 
 makes him seem like a particularly forbidding and 
 superstitious medicine-man. But out of the vague in- 
 stitution of the Druid in Gaelic Ireland one gathers 
 that something more than a medicine-man was devel- 
 oped. The archaic Druid in Ireland does not seem 
 to be steeped in the bloody ritual of human sacrifice. 
 
 31
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 He appears to be akin to the Magi from the East. He 
 looked toward the East in his worship. In groves and 
 by streams he invoked the spirit of the earth and the 
 air: there are still mounds and secret places in Ireland 
 where one feels a presence, as if out of the regiment of 
 the past there came a breath of the impalpable. Mys- 
 tery still clings in the hollows and folds of the Irish 
 hills, and in many a quiet wood one feels the tenseness 
 of the unseen, the wind of an enchantment. 
 
 It was in these moods of the earth, still so close to 
 us in Ireland, that the Druid arose in the half-light of 
 the past, feeling his way in a universe where he bowed 
 before the sun and yet unconsciously lifted himself in 
 the majesty of the trees. We discover that as society 
 became more secure and spacious the Druid did not re- 
 main a mere spokesman of the hidden. In Gaul, Caesar 
 found that the Druids had become the custodians of 
 law and the referees of custom. Out of these offices, 
 one surmises, branch the various social functions of the 
 brehon or judge, the file or bard, the ollamh or sage. 
 
 The brehon law did not develop as did Roman law, 
 adapting itself with an empire and changing (as well 
 as law can change) with the social organism. Rewrit- 
 ten and revised though it was, the brehon law clearly 
 remained a body of precepts not different in kind from 
 
 32
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 other Aryan precepts, but stabilized with respect to a 
 conservative form of existence. 
 
 We know from Cormac mac Art's instructions what 
 the ideals of the prince were in the Gaelic period : from 
 the regulations in the brehon law we know the system 
 of fines for acts of violence, the laws permitting cattle- 
 seizure, the ancient custom of fasting or hunger-strik- 
 ing on a debtor. With the allied functions of law- 
 giving, arbitration, deciding and chronicling genealo- 
 gies, and recording traditions, the bards became 
 intimately associated ; and the Druid, the judge, the 
 poet, the chronicler, are generally mentioned in one 
 breath. So important did these offices become that the 
 bards, moving about the country like a swarm of honey- 
 bees and settling on whatever ruling family they elected 
 to patronize, had almost as great privileges as their 
 hosts. They were subdivided in rank among them- 
 selves, but the chief poet ranked next to the king, was 
 attended by a considerable staff of retainers, and lived 
 handsomely at the public expense. To rise to this 
 eminence he had to serve a long apprenticeship. His 
 feats of memory were remarkable, but, having reached 
 a height of privilege, he worked to maintain that scheme 
 of privilege for the sake of himself and his order. 
 
 The bards, as is often said, may have pressed their 
 
 33
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 advantage too hard in pre-Christian times. The fact 
 remains that the bardic institution preserved and en- 
 hanced a genuine culture. This, because of its inherent 
 refinement and civility and rich imaginativeness, is the 
 basis on which alone Patrick and his company could 
 have built. 
 
 "Irish epic story," as de Jubainville says, "barbarous 
 though it is, is, like Irish law, a monument of a civiliza- 
 tion far superior to that of the most ancient Germans ; 
 if the Roman idea of the state was wanting to that civil- 
 ization, and if that defect in it was a radical flaw, still 
 there is an intellectual culture to be found there, far 
 more developed than among the primitive Germans." 
 This culture is not a matter of speculation. The epics 
 in fine meter and in prose are at last finding their way 
 into the English-speaking world where for generations 
 it has been almost a point of etiquette to be ignorant 
 of them. 
 
 3 
 
 Patrick was not the first Christian to come to Ire- 
 land. He did not banish the snakes. The snakes 
 were excluded geologically. The fact that there were 
 no snakes was known in Firbolg times when Irish soil 
 was exported to kill off snakes in other lands. The 
 absence of snakes was noted definitely by Solinus in
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 the third century. As for the Christianizing of Ire- 
 land, it was a mission that beckoned many British 
 Christians of the fourth and fifth centuries: several 
 are recorded to have established themselves in Ireland. 
 But if popular tradition has embroidered the story of 
 Patrick, it has done less than justice to his positive and 
 massive personality. Luckily for us, the man himself 
 is to be found in a poignant document copied from his 
 own text in a manuscript itself over 1100 years old. 
 This is the "Confession," which is as authentic as the 
 "Confession" of St. Augustine. 
 
 What Patrick gives us is nothing like that search 
 in the labyrinth of man's soul which the exiled Augus- 
 tine penned in Hippo. Patrick was not a psychologist 
 but a man of action. His story, however, has pro- 
 found feeling and dignity. It spreads before us a true 
 and telling account of a great enterprise. 
 
 Patrick was a Briton. He was born on one of the 
 rivers in the north of Britain, probably at Dumbarton 
 on the Clyde. The name he gives in his "Confession" 
 seems simply to mean Riverhead Tavern. He was 
 known as Succat till he took the name Patricius. His 
 father was a considerable official of the waning Roman 
 colony. In the time that Patrick was born, at the 
 beginning of the fifth century, the Gaels were out in 
 
 35
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 strong fleets to raid the coast of Britain. At the time 
 he was sixteen years old his father's estate was visited 
 by the troops of the high-king Niall, and he and his 
 sister and "thousands of others" were taken as slaves. 
 "When a mere youth, nay a beardless boy," he says 
 pathetically, "I was taken captive, before I knew what 
 to seek and what to avoid; and therefore I am even 
 to-day ashamed and greatly dread to show my igno- 
 rance, because not being learned I cannot express my- 
 self in a few words." 
 
 This boy was separated from his sister. For six 
 years, in Antrim or Down, homesick and naked and 
 lonely, he worked in the harsh strangers' land. "Now 
 after I came to Hiberione, I herded flocks daily, and I 
 prayed often during the day. Love of God and fear 
 of Him and faith grew in me and moved my soul so 
 that I must have prayed a hundred times a day, and as 
 many times in the night, though I stayed in the woods 
 and on the mountains. I was moved to pray before 
 dawn, and in snow or frost or rain; yet I took no 
 harm." 
 
 When he was twenty-two he had a vision: "the ship 
 is ready for you." He believes that at last he is to go 
 home to his people, among the Britons. When he 
 reaches the ship and offers to work his passage the ship- 
 
 36
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 captain refuses him, but as he turns back to his lodg- 
 ing, praying in his despair, one of the crew hails him, 
 "Come back, they want you!" The ship, the cargo, 
 the crew, the voyage, remain in his memory all his life. 
 Dogs were part of the cargo great Irish wolf-hounds. 
 When they reach port they start overland, and for 
 twenty-eight days they travel through a land famished 
 after the wars against the Huns. At last they come 
 to Italy, but in the end Patrick starts north and 
 reaches his folk in Britain. 
 
 And there, though he was "welcomed like a son," 
 he hears the "voices of the Irish." "Come and dwell 
 with us !" Would he heed these voices ? He was a 
 patrician. He had friends and family who begged 
 him not to heed. But he who had not believed in the 
 living God in his prosperity had been brought to Him 
 in daily hunger and nakedness. With sublime spirit, 
 Patrick says, "These things brought good, for through 
 them I was corrected by the Lord, so that I work and 
 toil now for the well-being of others, I who formerly 
 took no care, even for myself." And so, "for His 
 sake" he "willingly left home and people though they 
 offered me many gifts with tears and sorrow." 
 
 In this fifth century of world war and desolation 
 and upheaval, the pure and exalted faith that Patrick 
 
 37
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 had conceived comes as a new light on life. He is very 
 human. He says : "Not my grace it was, but God 
 who conquered in me and resisted them all, so that I 
 came to the Irish people to preach the Gospel and to 
 bear insults from unbelievers, to hear reproaches for 
 having gone abroad, and to suffer many persecutions 
 even unto chains. My rank of freeman too I had to 
 give up for the sake of others." 
 
 Like John Bunyan, Patrick burns with faith, but his 
 faith is the faith of a great and influential missionary. 
 "Willingly would I see my own people and my native 
 land again, or even go so far as Gaul to visit my 
 brothers, and see the faces of my Master's holy men. 
 But I am bound in the spirit and would be unfaithful 
 if I went. I fear to lose the labor which I began. 
 Yet not I would lose it," he adds quickly, "but Christ, 
 the Lord, who bid me come hither, to spend my whole 
 life in serving, if the Lord should so will." 
 
 Before he came, he says, they all opposed his mis- 
 sion to Ireland. They talked behind his back, saying: 
 * 'He wishes to risk his life among enemies who know 
 nothing of the Lord,' not speaking maliciously, but 
 opposing me because I was so ignorant. Nor did I 
 myself at once perceive the grace that was in me. . . ." 
 There speaks the leader. But Patrick was as hum- 
 
 38
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 ble as he was strong. He lived his life "for the hope 
 of the life eternal," and he governed himself strictly 
 in the ways of poverty and plain living. He took no 
 jewels and lavished his own gifts on those who conveyed 
 him from one domain to another. "You know, and 
 God knows," he declares, "how from my youth I have 
 lived among you with belief in the truth and sincerity 
 of heart. Even with the tribesmen among whom I 
 dwell I have kept faith and will keep it. God knows 
 I have deceived no man in anything, nor ever shall, for 
 God's sake and the sake of His church, lest persecution 
 should be stirred up against them and us all, and the 
 name of the Lord be blasphemed through me." 
 
 And then he says, as though to himself : "I look for- 
 ward daily to a violent death, or to be taken prisoner 
 and sold into slavery or some like end. But I fear 
 none of these . . . but let me not lose His people whom 
 He has purchased here at the very end of the earth." 
 
 It is usually intimated that Patrick came to Ireland 
 alone in 432, probably carrying a crozier. This is 
 fantastic. We learn from the "Book of Armagh," as 
 Dr. Douglas Hyde points out, that he arrived with 
 members of his own family, with bishops, priests, dea- 
 cons, and others. He traveled with a coadjutor, a 
 psalm-singer, an assistant priest, a local brehon, a 
 
 39
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 "personal champion" or strong-arm man, an attendant, 
 a bell-ringer, a cook, a brewer, a chaplain, two waiters, 
 and a commissariat. Three women, one of them his 
 sister, came to make vestments and altar linen. Be- 
 sides, there were three smiths and three artisans. Like 
 the evangelists of the twentieth century, Patrick built 
 his own tabernacle wherever he went, and as he made 
 converts of the right sort he hastily prepared them 
 and ordained them priests and equipped them. 
 
 The Irish were ripe for him ; from A. D. 432 onward 
 he met with one of those responses which remind us how 
 capricious and at the same time how dramatic is the 
 course of history. Patrick came to Ireland when no 
 vested interest really opposed him. He was able to 
 level the idol Cromm Cruach, to "burn the books of the 
 Druids at Tara," and at Armagh, less identified with 
 paganism, to settle down after twenty years to prepare 
 young men for his mission. This was the school to 
 which, two hundred years later, the Anglo-Saxons came 
 in such numbers that one-third of the city was called 
 "the Anglo-Saxon third." 
 
 4 
 
 The waves from Patrick's mission rolled out in circle 
 after circle for hundreds of years. The early Chris- 
 
 40
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 tians in civilized Rome, be it remembered, were not 
 long in encountering the Roman state. In the name 
 of the state they were led to the arena. There was no 
 such state in Ireland and no such arena. There were 
 no Christian martyrs in Gaelic Ireland. The religion 
 of Christ was not introduced by the Irish chiefs as it 
 was by the excellent Olaf Trygvesson, with a cross in 
 one hand and a red-hot poker in the other. But if 
 Christianity flowed into Ireland with astonishing ease 
 it must be noted that Patrick in no sense overturned 
 or indeed challenged the political system. By preach- 
 ing salvation he gave Ireland a religion that overlapped 
 and superseded paganism and drew the whole Gaelic 
 people to a new and wonderful preoccupation. But 
 the self-sufficient, belligerent political units remained. 
 Within a few centuries the king-bishop and the fighting 
 monk were just as ready for warfare as their lay 
 brothers. What was immediately changed was the cul- 
 tural and, in time, the ecclesiastical focal centers of 
 Ireland. 
 
 At first, apparently, the Irish Church was quite inde- 
 pendent of Rome, since Britain, as well as Ireland, was 
 entirely cut off from Rome for a hundred and fifty 
 years. Armagh and lona showed decided reluctance 
 to combine even with the Saxon converts. 
 
 41
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 At the Synod of Whitby, A. D. 664, the Irish Church 
 stubbornly resisted conformity on such points as the 
 date of Easter, the mode of the tonsure, unconditional 
 celibacy, etc. Because Patrick had given Ireland the 
 Jewish way of reckoning time, the Irish Church was in 
 danger of being deemed Jewish until it yielded on its 
 calendar in the beginning of the eighth century. This 
 was not the first conflict with Rome. 
 
 But it is not in ecclesiastical history that one finds 
 the blossoming of the Gaelic period. It is in the found- 
 ing of schools and colleges, the building of stone 
 churches, the illumination of beautiful missals, and the 
 exquisite enamel and metal handicraft of the monas- 
 teries, the teaching of Greek and Latin, of history and 
 geography and mathematics and philosophy and natu- 
 ral science, the enlistment of the bards, and the con- 
 version of kings. 
 
 Patrick's seminary at Armagh had in it the seed of 
 a great scholastic activity. Three hundred and fifty 
 bishops, "mostly Franks, Romans and Britons, but 
 with some Irish," compose Patrick's first order in Irish 
 ecclesiastical reckoning. The second order, to which 
 St. Columcille belonged, are the men who founded those 
 
 42
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 schools of which the Irish manuscripts give so radiant 
 an account. 
 
 The school of St. Enda drew to the Isle of Aran Mor 
 such saints as Finnian of Moville, Ciaran of Clon- 
 macnois, Jarlath of Tuam, Carthach of Lismore, 
 Keevin of Glendalough. Clonard, near the Boyne, had 
 three thousand students around it. Founded in 520, 
 it flourished until the vikings raided it scores of times 
 in the bloody ninth century. Clonfert on the Shannon, 
 founded by Brendan in 556, had at its head the man 
 who wrote "Navigatio Brendani." It lasted until rav- 
 aged in the twelfth century. Clonmacnois, founded in 
 544, became the proudest university of this period. To- 
 day, as Dr. Douglas Hyde records, "its church-yard 
 possesses a greater variety of sculptured and deco- 
 rated stones than perhaps all the rest of Ireland put 
 together." The kings of Connacht, the O'Conors, had 
 their own church there. So had the Ui Neill of the 
 South. The MacCarthys of Munster, the MacDermots 
 of Moyburg, the O'Kellys of Hy Maine, had their own 
 mortuary chapels. Alcuin, "the most learned man at 
 the French court," was educated there, as a grateful 
 letter of his testifies. On ten occasions the Northmen 
 penetrated to Clonmacnois and commenced the work 
 of destruction which the English of Athlone completed. 
 
 43
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 At Bangor, on Belfast Lough, a school was founded in 
 550, described by St. Bernard as "a noble institution, 
 which was inhabited by many thousands of monks." 
 From Bangor came Columbanus, the evangelist of Bur- 
 gundy and Lombardy; St. Gall, who preached in 
 Switzerland ; and Dungal, the astronomer, who founded 
 the University of Pavia. The fate of Bangor was more 
 dreadful than that of the other colleges, nine hundred 
 monks being slain by the raiding Norse. 
 
 Dr. Hyde enumerates Lismore, attended by Gauls, 
 Teutons, Swiss, and Italians in 700; Moville, whose 
 founder became Frigidius of Lucca in Switzerland; 
 Clonenagh near Maryborough; and the famous and 
 beautiful Glendalough. Of these Glendalough was 
 sacked by the Danes. Strongbow's son began in 1174 
 the harrying of Lismore, which, after a Norman was 
 killed near-by, ended in its complete obliteration as a 
 "reprisal" in 1207. Cork, Ross, Innisfallen, Iniscaltra, 
 are other schools on which Douglas Hyde dilates in his 
 admirable "Literary History of Ireland." 
 
 6 
 
 The degree of learning attained in these Irish schools 
 is the subject of present discussion. The free creative 
 mind, certainly, was not the object of medieval system. 
 
 44
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 These schools had closed minds. But if no such fresh 
 fountain gushed forth as distinguished the Age of 
 Pericles, the actual service to scholarship must not be 
 
 Great Cross 
 
 of 
 Monasterboice 
 
 minimized. Cummian's famous letter, says Professor 
 Stokes, proves "that in the first half of the seventh 
 century there was a wide range of Greek learning, not 
 ecclesiastical merely, but chronological, astronomical, 
 and philosophical, away at Durrow in the very center 
 
 45
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 of the Bog of Allen." "The classic tradition," says 
 Darmesteter, "to all appearances dead in Europe, burst 
 out into full flower in the Isle of Saints, and the Renais- 
 sance began in Ireland 700 years before it was known 
 in Italy. During three centuries Ireland was the asy- 
 lum of the higher learning which took sanctuary there 
 from the uncultured states of Europe. At one time 
 Armagh, the religious capital of Christian Ireland, was 
 the metropolis of civilization.'* "Ireland," Zimmer 
 puts it, "can indeed lay claim to a great past ; she 
 cannot only boast of having been the birthplace and 
 abode of high culture in the fifth and sixth centuries, 
 at a time when the Roman Empire was being under- 
 mined by the alliances and inroads of German tribes, 
 which threatened to sink the whole Continent into bar- 
 barism, but also of having made strenuous efforts in 
 the seventh and up to the tenth century to spread her 
 learning among the German and Romance peoples, thus 
 forming the actual foundation of our present Conti- 
 nental civilization." 
 
 These are big words. Professor Eoin MacNeill, who 
 does not deal in words of this size, believes that Arch- 
 bishop Theodore, who taught Greek at Canterbury 
 from 664 till 690, was the man who gave Greek its cur- 
 rency in Irish schools. "During the sixth, seventh, 
 
 46
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 and eighth centuries," says the realistic MacNeill, "Ire- 
 land, enjoying freedom from external danger and hold- 
 ing peaceful intercourse with the other nations, made 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 John Scotus Erigena 
 
 8IO 88O 
 
 no inglorious use of her opportunity. The native learn- 
 ing and the Latin learning throve side by side. The 
 ardent spirit of the people sent missionary streams 
 into Britain and Gaul, western Germany and Italy, 
 even to furthest Iceland. And among all this world- 
 
 47
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 intercourse there grew up the most intense national 
 consciousness." 
 
 One powerful original mind, however, must not be 
 forgotten. John Scotus Erigena was an Irish layman 
 in the middle of the ninth century whose Greek erudi- 
 tion astounded the Vatican librarian. But he stood 
 for more than erudition. His thinking was indepen- 
 dent enough to allow him to produce a system of phi- 
 losophy which set the church councils in motion to 
 condemn and demolish him. 
 
 7 
 
 Of the Irish missionaries who went afield, the fiery 
 Columcille (also called Columba) founded his great 
 monastery in lona in 563. This was the base from 
 which Scotland was evangelized. Columbanus, from 
 Leinster, went among the Franks with a company of 
 missionaries and from 590 till he died at Bobbio in 615 
 he labored among barbarians with power and intre- 
 pidity. St. Gall, an Irishman who was with Colum- 
 banus, gave his name to the famous Swiss monastery. 
 Dagobert, the Merovingian king, who was educated in 
 Ireland, retired in 656 to a cloister founded by an Irish 
 abbot in France. Into Bavaria missionaries spread 
 from Luxeuil, Columbanus's earlier headquarters. The 
 
 48
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 Irish pilgrims continued to pour into the continent as 
 evangelists and scholars and scribes, a process which 
 continued until Ireland itself came within the savage 
 sweep of the vikings. 
 
 The English have contributed virtually nothing to 
 the study of Gaelic relics. Continental scholars, luck- 
 ily, have not been so insular. Dr. Douglas Hyde 
 remarks "the keenness with which their relics have been 
 studied by European scholars French, German, and 
 Italian. The most important are the glosses found in 
 the Irish manuscripts of Milan, published by Ascoli, 
 Zeuss, Stokes, and Nigra; those in St. Gall, published 
 by Ascoli and Nigra ; those in Wurtzburg, published 
 by Zimmer and Zeuss ; those in Carlsruhe, published by 
 Zeuss ; those in Turin, published by Zimmer, Nigra, 
 and Stokes in his Goidelica ; those in Vienna, published 
 by Zimmer in his Glossse Hibernicffi and Stokes in his 
 Goidelica; those in Berne, those in Leyden, those in 
 Nancy, and the glosses on the Cambrai Sermon, pub- 
 lished by Zeuss." This, of course, is not an exhaus- 
 tive list. 
 
 Enough has been quoted, possibly, to carry the mind 
 beyond the circle of Ireland to that nightmare Europe 
 of which so little is known and to which the Irishman 
 seems to have brought sweetness and light. But one 
 
 49
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 must return to Kells and Armagh and Durrow, where 
 a love of beauty led the early monks to lavish on their 
 illuminated manuscripts an almost indescribable in- 
 vention and care. Theirs was not an emancipated art. 
 
 The 
 
 Ardagh Chalice 
 
 About Ninth Centur 
 
 It was an art cloistered within the limits of a few 
 square inches, intensive far beyond the point of naked 
 vision. It shut out the world and looked with shining 
 concentration at the infinite minutiae of interlacing pat- 
 terns and the jewels of the spectrum shining in a drop 
 of dew. But if the end is microscopic, the means that 
 
 50
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 are employed toward it are ravishing. The "Book of 
 Kells," now in Trinity College, Dublin, is of its kind 
 incomparable. No one can contemplate it without joy- 
 ous amazement. 
 
 The Ardagh chalice and the Tara brooch have the 
 same quality of distinctive design and exquisitely re- 
 fined handicraft. With such esthetic beginnings as 
 these established in the eighth and ninth centuries much 
 might have followed. . . . 
 
 8 
 
 But before touching upon the Northman or the 
 Norman we must glance at the political and economic 
 course of Ireland from the time that Patrick arrived, 
 and with him the era of more direct and reliably re- 
 corded history. The advent of Patrick had one 
 politico-moral effect; it put an end to the Irish raids 
 on Britain. Saxon raids on Ireland were later chroni- 
 cled; Egfrid was killed on Irish soil in 684, and from 
 that date for nearly thirty years there were Saxon 
 incursions, coinciding with Pictish pressure from the 
 north and the strained ecclesiastical relations. No 
 matter how the Irish battled, however, it was no longer 
 on the barbaric principle of Cormac mac Art that it 
 was the duty of a king to war on the foreigner. That 
 
 51
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 principle, which underlies imperialism, has not ap- 
 peared in Irish polity since St. Patrick. It was for 
 power inside Ireland that the Irish chiefs contended, 
 until Brian Boru (spelled Boromha in the Irish lan- 
 guage) became "emperor of the Irish." 
 
 The making of the Irish state was a task of supreme 
 difficulty, not fully achieved; but the same must not 
 be said about the making of the Irish nation. Though 
 there were a hundred territories and a hundred local 
 groupings, there was a unification of land tenure and 
 judicial habit and a community of religion. To the 
 Firbolg or plebeian population the church gave as good 
 standing as to the Gael. This gradually merged the 
 two peoples into one, and quickened the process of 
 nationality. The consciousness of Ireland, a country 
 beloved, is to be found as early as Columcille, 563. 
 Few poems breathe such passionate love of land as 
 Columcille's. He looks back on the shore as he sails 
 in his middle age to his final mission in Scotland : 
 
 There 's an eye of gray 
 Looks back to Erinn far away: 
 While life last, 't will see no more 
 Man or maid on Erinn's shore! 
 
 This is only one of the countless times that Irishmen 
 of every age in Christendom have yearned to their land 
 
 52
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 as to a person, their fiber knitted to the earth of Ireland 
 so that to leave it is a death. 
 
 The political process in Ireland, even after the com- 
 ing of Patrick, was still one of sept warring with sept. 
 The Gaels sought rather than avoided the arbitrament 
 of war. In the two hundred years of Connacht's domi- 
 nance in the limestone plain, the men of Leinster, safe 
 in their own fastnesses, tried continually to recover 
 Tara. A new unrest came from within. Connacht's 
 power was dispersed with the subdivisions that were 
 made to provide for Niall's many sons. Through those 
 subdivisions there were more Ui Neill outside Con- 
 nacht than in Connacht. These Ui Neill, north and 
 south, combined to displace the western branch from 
 the monarchy of Ireland. They smashed Connacht at 
 the battle of Ocha, 483. This gave the high-kingship 
 to the Ui Neill for centuries, but Munster had yet to 
 make a bid for supremacy. The kings of Cashel grew 
 strong and aggressive until, after a predatory career 
 of extraordinary ferocity, Feidlimid came in conflict 
 with the reigning Niall over the domination of Leinster. 
 In 908, at the Battle of Belach Mugna, the king-bishops 
 of Cashel played their last game of royal chess. Their 
 defeat and subordination left the Ui Neill in power. 
 
 53
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 In the weakening of Cashel, however, the rest of Mun- 
 ster was brought into the arena. Under Brian Boru 
 this new power combined with Connacht so as to give 
 him the headship of Ireland. West Munster, in the 
 end, did not hold the supremacy. This was one of the 
 elements that gave opportunity to the Anglo-Normans. 
 
 9 
 
 But it would be unhistorical to think of these con- 
 flicts as peculiar to the Irish nation. One has only to 
 consider the condition of Britain in the same period 
 to realize the essential disorder of the ninth, tenth, and 
 eleventh centuries. The eruption of the vikings at the 
 same time adds one more wild distraction to the preda- 
 tory life of northern Europe. 
 
 The vikings came sweeping the ocean toward the end 
 of the eighth century. The most formidable pagan 
 fighters of the North, they mastered the seas and the 
 islands of the seas in their swift, light, stalwart sea- 
 craft. In 795 they first came to Ireland. In the be- 
 ginning they had no political purpose: they were con- 
 tent to fall on the rich and pacific monasteries near 
 the coast, kill the monks, whom they surprised, and 
 help themselves to vestments, gold ornaments, chalices, 
 
 54
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 fine hangings, stores, and wines. These expeditions 
 brought terror to Christian Ireland: they stimulated 
 the Northmen to repeat them. An uneven fight raged 
 for fifty years. In the meantime the tidings of Chris- 
 tianity came to the North itself. Thereafter the inva- 
 sions of Ireland became part of the tremendous and 
 almost successful effort of the Scandinavians to con- 
 quer the British Isles. 
 
 For one must see the Scandinavians as penetrating 
 Russia, conquering Sicily, sailing up the Seine and the 
 Thames, settling Normandy, holding the Hebrides for 
 centuries, dominating England, and seeking to bring 
 all Ireland under control. 
 
 When the Norsemen first got their footing in Ireland 
 it was as predatory chiefs. The names Carlingford, 
 Strangford, Howth, Dublin, the Skerries, Leixlip, Wex- 
 ford, Waterford, and Limerick testify to their suc- 
 cesses, which built up towns where the Irish knew no 
 towns. The heathens, as they were, reached a Dublin 
 which was a cluster of huts. They made it a stockaded 
 settlement. By 853 Olaf and Ivar were joint kings 
 of Dublin. For many years they had no great secur- 
 ity in Ireland, though Dublin was a safe base for their 
 attacking Britain, but their incursions scarred and 
 seared the eastern half of Ireland from 879 to 920. 
 
 55
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 The downfall of Cashel allowed the Norse to slip round 
 the coast in 914. In that year they secured Water- 
 ford, held it against Niall, and in 920 secured Lim- 
 erick. Within a few years they were thick in the con- 
 flicts of West Munster. Brian beat them on the plain 
 where Limerick Junction is now situated, twenty miles 
 from Limerick. After his brother was murdered with 
 the connivance of the Cashel chiefs, Brian went on to 
 striking victories. In these conflicts, however, the 
 Norse were not lone-handed. They merged with the 
 Irish in the general tribal alignments of the time. 
 
 10 
 
 Brian's victories gave him a very great prestige. 
 A man of intellectual force, he saw the waste of dissen- 
 sion and the necessity for a strong central power. He 
 equally realized that Ireland must be cleared of "for- 
 eigners." He proceeded firmly, a diplomat rather than 
 a conqueror. 
 
 Except for the forces of Leinster, which evaded the 
 fight at Clontarf on Good Friday, 1014, all Brian's 
 ranks stood close against the Fair Foreigners and the 
 Dark Foreigners. The Irish chronicles describe the 
 stupendous combat. It is such as one might expect 
 from two races who regarded valor as the true test of 
 
 56
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 a man and the chronicle as valor's celebration. Lined 
 up on both sides as shock troops, gold helmets gleam- 
 ing, standards waving, poisoned spears and swords the 
 weapons, at least three thousand Norse were in the 
 end to meet their death. "There was a field and a ditch 
 between us and them," reports one witness, "and the 
 sharp wind of spring coming over them toward us ; and 
 it was no longer than the time that a cow could be 
 milked, or two cows, that we continued there, when not 
 one person of the two hosts could recognize another 
 we were so covered as well our heads as our faces and 
 our clothes with the drops of gory blood carried by the 
 force of the sharp cold wind which passed over them 
 to us." 
 
 The battle began at high tide. Lasting until high 
 tide, the laboring Norsemen in armor were pursued 
 across the Liffey and slain "in hundreds and in bat- 
 talions." A heap of their weapons was dug up some 
 years ago in Rutland Square. 
 
 Then it was that Brian's daughter spoke: 
 
 "It appears to me," said she, "that the Foreigners have gained 
 their inheritance." 
 
 "What is that, O girl?" said Amhlaibh's son [a Norwegian], 
 
 "The Foreigners are only going into the sea as is hereditary to 
 them. I know not whether it is the heat that is on them, but never- 
 theless they tarry not to be milked." 
 
 The son of Amhlaibh became angered with her, and he gave 
 her a blow which knocked a tooth out of her head. 
 
 57
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Brian, too old to fight, stayed with his horse-boy 
 behind the battle. There he prayed for victory, asking 
 between times "how the battalions were circumstanced." 
 "I see them," the horse-boy reports, "and closely con- 
 founded are they . . . and not more loud to me would 
 be the blow in Tomar's wood if seven battalions were 
 cutting it down than are the resounding blows on the 
 heads and bones and skulls of them." Now the banner 
 of Murchadh is standing, now it droops. . . . The old 
 king hears that the Foreigners are defeated, and all but 
 one group fled. He refuses to leave the field. He 
 foretells his death, giving orders for his burial at 
 Armagh. Then the Northman Brodir reaches him and 
 slays him, to meet his terrible fate in a few minutes 
 at the hands of Brian's followers. 
 
 A touch of chivalry: 
 
 Then flight broke out throughout all the host. 
 
 Thorstein stood still while all the others fled and tied his shoe- 
 string. Then Kerthialfad asked him why he ran not as the others. 
 
 "No, thank you," said Thorstein, "I can't get home to-night; I 
 live in Iceland." 
 
 Kerthialfad gave him peace. 
 
 As described in the Icelandic record, Brian was 
 
 victor : 
 
 I have been where warriors wrestled, 
 High in Erin sang the sword, 
 Boss to boss met many bucklers, 
 Steel rung sharp on rattling helm; 
 
 58
 
 The Gaelic Period: Christian 
 
 I can tell of all their struggle; 
 Sigurd fell in flight of spear; 
 Brian fell, but kept his kingdom 
 Ere he lost one drop of blood. 
 
 This battle did not drive the Scandinavians from 
 Dublin, but it saved the Irish nation. In 1016 Cnut 
 conquered England, but Ireland could not be reckoned 
 in the Scandinavian empire of the North ft 
 
 The Vikings Come 
 
 59
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CLONTARF TO THE NORMAN INVASION 
 
 BRIAN BORU had a strong policy for Ireland. 
 "The peace of Erin was proclaimed by him, both 
 of churches and people, so that peace throughout all 
 Erin was made in his time." He dealt severely with 
 criminals, stopped trespass and robbery, repaired 
 fortresses and forts, made bridges and causeways and 
 highroads. He rebuilt the monasteries that the North- 
 men had shattered, constructed churches and at least 
 one round tower, and reestablished the schools. He 
 sent men abroad "to buy books beyond the sea and the 
 great ocean." The word boru, which means tribute, 
 was not, however, attached to his name for nothing. 
 We learn from mac Liag how the flocks and herds came 
 pouring to his palace at Kincora, in Clare. Many a 
 fat hog, and many a fat cow, and a hundred and fifty 
 butts of wine from the Danes of Dublin and a tun of 
 
 60
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 wine for every day in the year from the Danes of 
 Limerick. 
 
 But, like so many strong rulers who seize power 
 irregularly, Brian Boru conquered a sphere of respon- 
 sibility which he left no one to fill. It is true that he 
 broke the Northmen. He freed the territory where a 
 cow "durst not be milked for an infant of one night, 
 nor for a sick person, but must be kept for the steward 
 or bailiff or soldier of the foreigners." But to do this 
 effectively he had to override the succession to the high- 
 kingship, and the men who came after him copied only 
 his irregularity. Till well after the coming of the 
 Normans the O'Conors of Connacht, the O'Neills of 
 Tyrone, the MacMurroughs of Leinster, and the 
 O'Briens of Thomond kept the kingship in contest and 
 reigned, if at all, "with opposition." When the reign- 
 ing chiefs made common cause and restored the mon- 
 archy in 1258 it was only for a few years. 
 
 This situation seems anarchical, from the point of 
 view of modern city-dwellers, who cannot survive for 
 six months without a strong central government. But 
 in the age of Brian Boru, we must recollect, the modern 
 military state had not developed. Commerce was 
 young. Tuns of wine, we have seen, came overseas to 
 
 61
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Ireland. For many centuries "noble clothes'* were sold 
 at the Kildare fair by Greek-speaking Gauls, and for- 
 eign gold was weighed out and paid for Irish hides and 
 salted meat and wool. From the sixth century Spain 
 had traded with Ireland, and for many centuries up 
 to 1170 the English slave was an article on the Irish 
 market. But, in spite of the sea-power of the North- 
 men and the international commerce which followed 
 piracy, trade had not yet demanded or matured the 
 type of state to which we are now habituated. Dis- 
 order was prevalent everywhere in the North. 
 
 The massacre of the Danes in England in 1002 was 
 scarcely an orderly event, and yet Angle-land was too 
 feeble to emancipate itself even by massacre. "Wessex, 
 Mercia, and Northumbria," says John Richard Green, 
 "remained separate political bodies which no efforts of 
 force or policy seemed able to fuse into one." 
 
 Under Harthacnut (1040-42) there was an inferno. 
 "Every tenth man was killed, the rest sold for slaves, 
 and JElf red's eyes torn out at Ely. Harthacnut, more 
 savage even than his predecessor, dug up his brother's 
 body and flung it into a marsh; while a rising at Wor- 
 cester against his hus-carls was punished by the burn- 
 ing of the town and the pillage of the shire." 
 
 And yet it was these barbarous Northmen, now be- 
 
 62
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 Ireland 
 
 come the Normans, who, under William the Bastard, 
 Duke of Normandy, completed the conquest of England 
 in 1066. 
 
 63
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation, 
 
 But order, as we now conceive it, was far to seek 
 even in the France which mingled Northman with 
 Frank. "Brute force," James Harvey Robinson tells 
 us, "governed almost everything outside of the church. 
 The feudal obligations were not fulfilled except when 
 the lord was sufficiently powerful to enforce them. The 
 bond of vassalage and fidelity, which was the sole prin- 
 ciple of order, was constantly broken and faith was 
 violated by both vassal and lord. . . . 
 
 "We may say that war, in all its forms, was the law 
 of the feudal world. War formed the chief occupation 
 of the restless aristocracy who held the land and exer- 
 cised the governmental control. The inveterate habits 
 of a military race, the discord provoked by ill-defined 
 rights or by self-interest and covetousness, all led to 
 constant bloody struggles in which each lord had for 
 his enemies all those about him." 
 
 So much for the high civilization of these days of 
 the first pendulum-clock. What is clear is that, under- 
 neath, (1) wealth was accumulating, (2) the contacts 
 of the Northmen were spreading the pollen of Byzan- 
 tine civilization and importing certain valuable non- 
 feudal administrative principles, (3) the trading towns 
 
 64
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 were growing in importance, (4) the church was becom- 
 ing spiritually, politically, and economically strong, 
 as evidenced in the Crusades. But it was a consider- 
 able period before the binding effects of a money 
 economy, which enabled the expensively armed Nor- 
 mans to employ Welsh and Flemish mercenaries, swung 
 out in the aggressive policy of Henry II. William 
 the Conqueror, son of Robert the Devil, it is true, de- 
 signed to invade Ireland after he had floored the Eng- 
 lish with a single blow, turned them into Norman ten- 
 ants, monopolized their bishoprics and places of power, 
 and bribed the Danish fleet not to attack him. But 
 he was kept busy in England and France ; a state based 
 on feudalism was a state based on force. Good as it 
 was for England to have the master-builders and arti- 
 sans of castle and cathedral, the weavers of Flanders, 
 the merchants of Caen and Rouen, it was still no 
 amusement for the common people to endure the fright- 
 fulness of William. 
 
 "Fugitives he sought out and put to the sword, But 
 even so he was not satisfied. Innocent and guilty were 
 involved in indiscriminate slaughter. Houses were 
 destroyed, flocks and herds exterminated. Supplies of 
 food and farm implements were heaped together and 
 burned. With deliberate purpose, cruelly carried out, 
 
 65
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 it was made impossible for men to live through a thou- 
 sand square miles. Years afterward the country was 
 still a desert; it was generations before it had fully 
 recovered." (G. B. Adams.) 
 
 Perhaps it was better for the common English to take 
 it lying down, but the Conquest imposed a ruling class. 
 It stratified England economically in a manner which 
 the Revolution of 1688 did not eradicate, and which 
 has not yet been eradicated. The town laborer and 
 the country laborer had a long misery ahead of them 
 in Merrie England. 
 
 The Irish, on the other hand, had escaped the Cnuts 
 and Harthacnuts. Not until Normandy and England 
 were better welded, and the Papacy better linked with 
 the new imperialism, and sea-power more secure, could 
 the Normans try their arts on Ireland. When they 
 did so, however, they did it with the plea that "the 
 natives were commonly engaged in tearing the bowels 
 of their fatherland by their intestine feuds." 
 
 The church was the first Irish body to feel the pull 
 of the changing world. Men like Cormac mac Culinan 
 
 66
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 of Cashel (d. 908), who knew Danish, Latin, Greek, and 
 Hebrew as well as Gaelic, left worthy successors in 
 Clonmacnois, Armagh and Monasterboice; and the 
 Irish monks of the twelfth century spread to Ratisbon, 
 Wiirzburg, Nuremberg, Constanz, Vienna, Eichstadt. 
 But a different story was now heard from the time when 
 the monks of Lindisfarne "looked for their ecclesiastical 
 tradition, not to Rome, but to Ireland ; and quoted for 
 their guidance the instructions, not of Gregory, but of 
 Columba." (Green.) Anselm and Lanfranc at Bee 
 represent the birth of a new power in Europe. The 
 power of Rome was working with and through feudal- 
 ism. From St. Bernard (visited in 1139 by St. 
 Malachy at Clairvaux), we find the disparaging esti- 
 mate in which the ancient Irish Church is already held. 
 It is "outside" and weak. Abuses in morality and 
 discipline are insisted upon, but especially abuses, bar- 
 barisms, which indicate its isolation and independence. 
 Synods in 1158 and 1162 precede the Synod of Cashel, 
 which marks the crushing subordination of the Irish 
 Church to the Normans. Meanwhile, up to that feudal 
 triumph, the early Irish Romanesque architecture, the 
 sculpture of great crosses, the illumination of manu- 
 scripts and such beautiful work as the Ardagh chalice 
 
 67
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 and the cross of Cong, were thriving under ecclesiasti- 
 cal influence. After the Normans the church ceased to 
 be free, and these creative impulses dried at the source. 
 Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster, is the 
 human link between Ireland and the Normans, but be- 
 fore telling Dermot's story one must first glance at the 
 geography of Leinster. "The whole spirit and policy 
 of Leinster," as G. A. J. Cole so admirably explains, 
 "were dominated by the great chain of granite, eighty 
 miles in length, that served as a natural fortress, ap- 
 proached only by narrow lateral glens. The rocky 
 walls of these valleys, with their wooded clefts, pro- 
 vided ambushes that told strong in defense." ("Ireland 
 the Outpost," p. 45.) This chain of Leinster moun- 
 tains, facing the southeastern approaches to Dublin 
 and the wooded plains, was to mean much in Irish his- 
 tory from the beginning up to 1550, or from the age 
 of iron to the age of gunpowder. Unlike the chiefs of 
 the cow country, the Leinster chiefs could take the 
 aggressive. On the defensive they were virtually im- 
 pregnable. The military road of 1798 is a testimony 
 to the importance of holding "the barrier of Leinster." 
 It is equally a testimony to the initial advantages of 
 Dermot MacMurrough in being able to force his en- 
 emies to bite on granite. 
 
 68
 
 Clontarf to tlie Norman Invasion 
 
 Dermot collected enemies. The dominant man in 
 Leinster, he made life unpleasant for his compatriots 
 in the plains by his "grievous and intolerable manner." 
 In 1152, during the absence of O'Ruarc of Meath, he 
 eloped with the elderly Devorgilla, O'Ruarc's wife. 
 This episode apparently closed with Devorgilla's return 
 to her husband, but by 1166 Dermot had become so 
 detested that he was dispossessed of his territory and 
 forced to leave the country. He thereupon made his 
 way to Aquitaine to enlist Henry II. 
 
 "Now Dermot was a man tall of stature and stout 
 of frame; a soldier whose heart was in the fray, and 
 held valiant among his own nation. From often shout- 
 ing his battle-cry, his voice had become hoarse. A 
 man who liked better to be feared by all than loved 
 by any," so the inimitable Gerald de Barri, who came 
 to Ireland with the Normans. 
 
 Henry, as we shall see later, had a trump up his 
 sleeve in the game for Ireland, but he was not ready 
 to play. Very busy, as usual, he had little time for 
 Dermot. "He received him kindly and graciously 
 enough," but despatched him to England, saying: "We 
 have taken Dermot, Prince of the men of Leinster, into 
 
 69
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 the bosom of our grace and good will. Wheref ore, too, 
 whosoever within the bounds of our dominions shall be 
 
 Norman Soldiers 
 
 willing to lend aid to him, as being our vassal and liege- 
 man, in the recovery of his own, let him know that he 
 hath our favor and permission to that end." 
 
 70
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 The grandiose manner was already in vogue. But 
 at Bristol Dermot had to find the lads who would do 
 business. He began by making a splash with Henry's 
 money. He "made liberal offers both of land and 
 money to many persons, but without effect." At last, 
 however, he met his man. Richard FitzGilbert de 
 Clare, son of Strongbow and himself called Strongbow, 
 came to see the big, tough Irishman. What would Der- 
 mot put up? Dermot said, my eldest daughter, Eva 
 (Aoife) and succession to the kingdom! Knowing 
 nothing of Irish succession, this offer tempted Strong- 
 bow, but first he let a few of the lesser fellows under 
 Robert FitzStephen go over in 1169 to try it out. 
 And with them he took the precaution of sending his 
 lanky uncle, Hervey de Montmaurice, "a man of broken 
 fortunes, without equipment or money ; not so much to 
 take a part in the fighting as to act as a spy for" him. 
 
 5 
 
 Landing near Wexford with 300 Welsh archers in 
 May, 1169, FitzStephen and his followers promptly 
 went against the Ostmen or Northmen in the walled 
 town of Wexford. The Northmen repulsed them 
 hardily, but on a Sunday morning sent out two bishops 
 and some citizens to find out what was behind the 
 
 71
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 attack, and, debating it with MacMurrough and his 
 mercenaries, decided to make terms. Donnell of Os- 
 sory was not so complacent. Retreating before the 
 heavily armed Norman leaders (Maurice de Prender- 
 gast, Meiler FitzHenry, Milo FitzGerald, and the rest), 
 he harried them desperately from the woods on their 
 return to camp; and although they managed to kill 
 some hundreds of Donnell's men in a flanking move- 
 ment, Maurice de Prendergast was sufficiently impressed 
 to swap masters and go over to Donald of Ossory. 
 
 The news of the knights in full armor traveled fast. 
 The high-king, Rory (Roderic) O'Conor of Connacht, 
 was a slow man, but he sent a messenger of peace to 
 MacMurrough in the name of "their common country," 
 offering to acknowledge Dermot king of Leinster. In 
 response to this offer Dermot actually agreed to peace. 
 He acknowledged O'Conor high-king of Ireland, gave 
 his own son Conor as hostage, and secretly pledged 
 himself to have no more to do with foreigners. But 
 Maurice FitzGerald, then arriving at Wexford with 
 two more ships of fighting men, Dermot flatly went 
 back on his word, hurried to secure Dublin, sent Fitz- 
 Stephen to help O'Brien of Thomond against O'Conor, 
 and designed to become high-king himself. For this 
 purpose he needed his Normans. To FitzStephen and 
 
 72
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 FitzGerald in turn, who in each case were so clumsy as 
 to be already married, he tendered his daughter Eva, 
 and to both of them, with a broad disregard for Irish 
 law, he gave grants in fee. Meanwhile Strongbow had 
 learned of the successes of the preliminary force. Pick- 
 ing up everybody along the way to his embarkation in 
 Wales, he rolled up 200 men-at-arms and 1000 archers. 
 He landed near Waterford in August, 1170. The cap- 
 ture of this Gael-Gall town was a bloody fight. The 
 two Sitrics were killed, and Ragnal and O'Phelan spared 
 for good reason. At the first moment Strongbow 
 wedded Eva, who, in the most literal sense, was given 
 away by her father. 
 
 The situation was now sufficiently serious. Rory 
 O'Conor was probably not alarmed by the intrusion of 
 foreigners as such; that was no new story. But Der- 
 mot MacMurrough had the O'Briens on his side, and 
 by the evidence of every encounter these men in armor 
 were proving formidable. It was known that they had 
 a new military technic, had conquered England, and 
 were builders of castles had aeroplanes, so to speak, 
 and machine-guns and tanks. A religious offensive 
 was at the same time being conducted. The fact that 
 Henry II had not come gave some reassurance, but by 
 a rapid excursion over the mountain ridges and through 
 
 73
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Glendalough Dermot MacMurrough had reached Dub- 
 lin with a handful of Normans and rushed the walls 
 while a parley was being made. The Norsemen took 
 to their ships. O'Conor decided to act. He advanced 
 to besiege Dublin, but was caught napping in a sally 
 which, by Norman accounts, was quite one-sided : 
 
 At prime we numbered of the kerne 
 
 Full fifteen hundred dead; 
 While stricken of our Engiishrie 
 
 A single footman bled. 
 
 It was a most threatening invasion. Ireland, in the 
 language of the Four Masters, was "a trembling sod." 
 But the very fact of this first success aroused Henry II 
 to anger. He knew his compatriots and wanted no 
 rivals. He was furious when Strongbow's uncle Hervey 
 came to him in Gloucester. Hervey pledged fealty ; 
 gave him Dublin and Waterford and Wexford and the 
 castles, and made him sole legatee of Ireland. This 
 placated the full-blooded Henry, but he still vibrated. 
 Ever since 1155 he had planned to devolve Ireland on 
 some member of his house and in that year he had se- 
 cured his trump card from Nicholas Breakspear, Pope 
 Adrian the only English pope. This was the needful 
 moral window-dressing which was the beginning of Eng- 
 lish foreign policy. It was the papal "bull" called 
 "Laudabiliter." It laid down that the Irish were an 
 
 74
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 "unlearned and savage race." It also laid down that 
 Henry was full of enthusiasm for religion, in love with 
 the creed, and desirous "to instruct the Irish nation in 
 the ways of virtue." In the most eloquent phrases, 
 worthy of their sacred cause, Henry was despatched 
 to check crime, correct immorality, engraft virtue, and 
 glorify the religion of Christ to which end the Irish 
 people "shall receive you with fitting honor and do 
 homage to you as their overlord." This in 1155. 
 
 But 1170 was not a happy year for Henry IPs flour- 
 ishing the "Laudabiliter." It was the year of the mur- 
 der of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, by 
 Henry's over-enthusiastic friends. Still angry, he as- 
 sembled 400 ships, 500 knights, 4000 men-at-arms, and 
 several thousand archers and sailed for Waterford. 
 He reached there October, 1171. He imprisoned Fitz- 
 Stephen and scowled generally. "The island was now 
 tranquil," says Gerald de Barri, "in the presence of 
 the king, and enjoyed the blessings of peace and rest.'* 
 MacMurrough and his friends submitted to him. From 
 beyond the Shannon Roderic said "the whole of Ireland 
 was rightly his," and not until 1175 did he conclude a 
 treaty. This he did in the Treaty of Windsor, which, 
 as G. B. Adams says, Henry II paid no attention to 
 "any longer than suited his purpose." 
 
 75
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Meanwhile, on his visit to Ireland, the "Laudabiliter" 
 was not so much mentioned. He had still to answer 
 for Becket. A synod of the clergy met at Cashel, pre- 
 sided over by the Papal Legate Christian. It was a 
 mild synod. It ordained that children should be bap- 
 tized in water, not milk; that tithes be paid to the 
 churches ; that marriages be solemnized ; that church 
 lands be exempt from imposts ; that the clergy be ex- 
 empt from the "eric"; that wills be made in due form 
 and burials with due obsequies ; and, the real point, that 
 the usages of the Irish Church should conform to the 
 Anglican. Thus the "unlearned and savage race" was 
 to be redeemed. Henry went on to Dublin, named him- 
 self "Lord of Ireland," chartered Dublin to Bristol, 
 feudalized the Pale, held court from November to 
 Easter Monday, and left to answer for the murder of 
 Becket before he had ringed the Dublin district with 
 castles. He did not depart until he saw to it that in 
 future Ireland should have none but Norman arch- 
 bishops. 
 
 Now, what were the ideas of the Norman invaders 
 and what manner of men were they? 
 
 Their ideas, we may take it, varied with their dis- 
 
 76
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 positions, but on the whole were simple. They were 
 strong, strong-smelling, hard-fighting, extremely defi- 
 nite, and hard-headed petty barons, ready to call Henry 
 their overlord if they must, but looking on Ireland as 
 a good thing and their own. They worked under Der- 
 mot, to begin with, but they felt the superiority that 
 men encased in hardware always feel for opponents 
 who have less hardware. Being Normans, however, 
 they equally despised their English mercenaries, whose 
 speech they could not understand, and their Welsh con- 
 scripts, who were valued merely for their nimbleness 
 and their archery. "Our men in Ireland," wrote de 
 Barri concerning the second instalment in 1185, "fell 
 into three distinct divisions the Normans, the Eng- 
 lish, and my own countrymen [the Welsh, who were 
 very numerous]. We of the court came mostly in 
 contact with the first; we had few dealings with the 
 second, with the last none." 
 
 They nominally formed a close ring of feudal con- 
 federates, "thirsting for plunder and renown," but 
 inside that ring there was intense animosity and com- 
 bativeness. One has only to turn to the chronicle of 
 the Rev. Gerald de Barri (related to the FitzHenrys 
 and the FitzGeralds and the FitzStephens) to gather 
 the fear, hatred, and rivalry which seethed within this 
 
 77
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 grasping enterprise. The outcome was not to be won- 
 dered at. 
 
 In history written under the influence and direction 
 of Norman ascendancy a great deal is made of "con- 
 stitutional liberties," starting with eulogies of Magna 
 Charta (1215). But this is against the genius of 
 history, which, unlike literature, is perverted by the 
 romantic spirit. Magna Charta was chiefly an in- 
 cident in the struggle between crown and baron. It 
 was "a baronial manifesto, seeking chiefly to redress 
 the grievances of the promoters, and mainly selfish in 
 motive." (McKechnie.) In Ireland such "bulwarks 
 of liberty" could not be erected by the scrambling 
 barons. For four hundred years their occupation was 
 precarious and dwindling. The main purpose of legis- 
 lation in Ireland during this period did not touch the 
 Irish, who, though "occupied," were independent. It 
 strove in a futile way to keep the Norman occupiers 
 in line. It was not until the wealthier country tem- 
 porarily settled its own disorders and came to Ireland 
 with gunpowder that the English path was blasted 
 through the Irish nation. 
 
 8 
 
 The chief actors in this drama we have from Gerald 
 de Barri: Strongbow, "a man with reddish hair and 
 
 78
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 freckled face, bright gray eyes, delicate, even feminine 
 features, a high voice and a short neck," seems to have 
 been the bottle-shouldered type of aristocrat, "rather 
 a tactician than a fighting man." "A man whose fam- 
 ily was better than his fortune; who had more blue 
 blood than brains, and whose pedigree was longer than 
 his purse," he was of little importance, dying in 1176. 
 He was, in any case, no match for Henry II, the Roose- 
 velt of his time, "a man with reddish hair, a big bullet- 
 head, bloodshot gray eyes which in anger flashed 
 fiercely, a fiery face, and a broken voice. He had a 
 bull-neck, a square chest, muscular arms, and a fleshy 
 body. . . . He was attached beyond measure to the pleas- 
 ures of the chase. . . . He was by nature not a truthful 
 man, and would habitually break his word without the 
 slightest excuse. . . . Scarcely could he spare an hour 
 to attend the holy sacrifice of the mass, and even then 
 so great, forsooth, was the press of public business 
 that he spent more time in discussion and conversation 
 than in prayer." 
 
 Maurice FitzGerald, related to de Barri, was an 
 unassuming, dignified man, "his features regular, his 
 complexion embrowned by exposure; of medium height." 
 Reimund FitzGerald "was a man not much above middle 
 height, but very stout. He had rather curly yellow 
 
 79
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 hair, large round gray eyes, a somewhat high nose, and 
 a sunburnt face of bright and cheerful expression. 
 Although corpulent, the natural vivacity of his tem- 
 perament seemed to carry off his bulky appearance. 
 . . . Patient in trying circumstances, the extremes of 
 heat and cold he bore with equal fortitude, and no toil 
 drew from him a murmur." Meiler FitzHenry, not a 
 relative, "was a swarthy man with fierce black eyes 
 and a keen visage. Below the middle height, yet very 
 powerful . . . intense his thirst for fame." Hervey de 
 Montmaurice, not a relative, "a tall man with promi- 
 nent eyes, crafty, plausible and false." John de Courci 
 "was a tall, fair man, with big-boned, muscular limbs, 
 large of frame and powerfully built. He had great 
 personal strength and his intrepidity was remarkable 
 ... he kept the country under by building castles in 
 advantageous positions throughout the whole of 
 Ulster." 
 
 "FitzStephen was a well-favored man of burly make 
 and sound and vigorous health ; in stature slightly 
 above the middle height. A free liver and open-handed, 
 he had a hearty way with him; in short was a right 
 good fellow, but given overmuch to wine and women." 
 
 Hugh de Laci was "a swarthy man with small, black, 
 
 deeply sunken eyes, a flat nose, and his right cheek dis- 
 
 80
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 figured down to the chin by an ugly scar caused by some 
 accidental burn; a man with a short neck and a hairy 
 and muscular body, though small and ill-made. With 
 all this, however, he had considerable strength of char- 
 acter and resolution, and for temperance was a very 
 Frenchman. He was a careful man in his private 
 affairs, and when in office most vigilant in the discharge 
 of public business." 
 
 These were not English Picts, then. They began to 
 run the "English-speaking world" without a word of 
 English. They were the cool, military blond type that 
 still persists, and the dark French type, energetic and 
 systematic, with which we are familiar. They had two 
 rules to build castles and hold land in fief and they 
 gave no more to the church than they could help, except 
 the verbose and jocular Hervey, who gave himself. 
 
 9 
 
 Through the eyes of these confident, practical, and 
 class-conscious adventurers the conquest of Ireland 
 looked easy. For their part, the Irish chiefs were 
 frankly set back by these intruders, especially by the 
 speed with which the archers shot and "the might of 
 the heavy men-at-arms." But these novelties wore off. 
 "By gradual and careful training in the use of the bow 
 
 81
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 and other weapons," de Barri admits in a few years, 
 "by learning caution and studying the art of ambush, 
 by the confidence gained from frequently engaging in 
 conflict with our troops, lastly taught by our very 
 successes, these Irishmen, whom at first we could rout 
 with ease, became able to offer a stout resistance." 
 This in 1185. And he adds solemnly, "a campaign in 
 France is a very different thing from a campaign in 
 Ireland or Wales. In the former case it is carried on 
 in an open country, in the latter in broken country; 
 there we have plains, here woods ; there armor is held 
 in esteem, here it is reckoned cumbersome and out of 
 place ; there victory is won by weight, here by activity." 
 The Irish proved to be exceedingly active. The coun- 
 try, said de Barri, "should be thickly sown with castles 
 and so strengthened and protected." Connacht, too 
 hard to conquer, too poor to plunder, must pay a trib- 
 ute, but Limerick must be held. "It were better, far 
 better, at first to set up our strongholds by degrees in 
 suitable places, and to carry out a coherent system 
 of castle building, feeling the way, so to speak, at every 
 step." This was the method of bringing Ireland to 
 Christ and "engrafting virtue." At the same time a 
 public edict "should, as among the Sicilians, forbid on 
 pain of the severest penalty all bearing of arms." 
 
 82
 
 Clontarf to the Norman Invasion 
 
 10 
 
 With the Normans, it is evident, the spirit was will- 
 ing, but the flesh was weak. From the twelfth to the 
 sixteenth century Gerald's outspoken plan interpreted 
 the mind behind the Irish invasion as clearly as von 
 Bissing's outspoken plan interpreted the mind behind 
 the recent Belgian invasion. But it was one thing to 
 talk conquest, another thing to accomplish it. A light 
 but flexible mesh of national custom, national person- 
 ality, and national will fell upon and enwrapped the 
 struggling Normans until, in the sixteenth century, 
 their rulers saw that this creative and spiritual essence 
 must be destroyed in order to subdue Ireland. The 
 lesson of the earlier period, however, is the insufficiency 
 of their means rather than the uncertainty of their 
 end. From the start they meant that Ireland should 
 follow England's example go to work submissively for 
 the ennobled and privileged feudal Englishman.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 NORMAN INVASION TO HENRY VIII 
 
 WITH its language, its land system, its art and 
 music and literature, its church and its dynas- 
 tic succession, Ireland was a nation when it came within 
 the sphere of Norman arms. In resisting Norman 
 arms and the lordship of England it was, for four 
 hundred years, increasingly successful. But the price 
 of resistance was exorbitant. Even if Ireland kept it 
 so hot that the Normans stood from one uneasy foot 
 to the other, changing deputy after deputy and gen- 
 eral after general, the vitality of Ireland was enslaved 
 to this single task of dealing with an invader. 
 
 To Gaelicize the new-comers was the involuntary 
 instinct of the nation, which had within itself the power 
 of all healthy organisms to turn what it consumes into 
 the stream of its blood. But the Norman process dis- 
 tracted Ireland between resisting and assimilating, and 
 did not give the Irish nation a chance. 
 
 84
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 No sooner was a generation of Norman intruders 
 converted into "Irish rebels," people who could live on 
 human terms with the "Irish enemy," than there came 
 a new batch of prelates, adventurers, broken men, am- 
 bitious youngsters, and gentlemen of the royal blood 
 who believed they could saddle Ireland. They could 
 not saddle Ireland because Ireland was a nation and a 
 personality. But this fact was not clear even to the 
 Irishmen of the time. Many of the chiefs contradicted 
 their true position. They sought one modus vivendi 
 after another, responding to the twist of circumstance. 
 It seemed best, one year, to throw out the Norman. 
 At another time, in different political weather, it seemed 
 best to win him over. Whichever side of the dilemma 
 the Irish agreed to take, if they did agree, one thing 
 was certain, their whole natural development was being 
 sacrificed. 
 
 "Now began," says Dr. Douglas Hyde, "that perma- 
 nent war very different, indeed, from what the Irish 
 tribes waged among themselves which, almost from 
 its very commencement, thoroughly arrested Irish de- 
 velopment, and disintegrated Irish life" The italics 
 are Dr. Hyde's. "It is not too much to say that for 
 three centuries after the Norman Conquest Ireland pro- 
 duced nothing in art, literature, or scholarship, even 
 
 85
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 faintly comparable to what she had achieved before.'* 
 "For four centuries after the Anglo-Norman, or more 
 properly the Cambro-Norman invasion, the literature 
 of Ireland seems to have been chiefly confined to the 
 schools of the bards, and the bards themselves seem 
 to have continued on the rather cut-and-dry lines of 
 tribal genealogy, religious meditations, personal eulo- 
 gism, clan history, and elegies for the dead. There 
 reigns during this period a lack of imagination and of 
 initiative in literature; no new ground is broken, no 
 fresh paths entered on, no new saga-stuff unearthed, 
 no new meters discovered. . . ." 
 
 For his part in the death of Thomas Becket, Henry 
 II did penance. Head bowed and barefooted, he walked 
 his humble way to the tomb. He kissed the spot where 
 Thomas bled, he confessed to the bishops and lay flat 
 on the ground weeping and praying; stripped to his 
 shirt, he bent his head and shoulders while the clergy 
 flayed him, five blows from each prelate and three from 
 each monk. This for one victim, behind whom the 
 church stood in grim power. But for Ireland, whose 
 body was broken and spat upon by another group of 
 his liegemen, he neither wept nor prayed. . . . Men 
 amuse themselves with tears for single crimes, while they 
 
 86
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 invade millions, spread famine and disaster, and bring 
 civilizations to the dust. 
 
 Henry II, an English chronicler puts it, "was the 
 first monarch to drive from their lands the loathsome 
 Irish tribes, and to allot the conquered territory to 
 Englishmen on feudal terms." It was indeed feudal- 
 ism, as this man saw, that laid the ax to the root of 
 Irish life. Feudalism came not simply to dispossess 
 the chief for a landlord and to change the inheritance 
 of the whole family group into the heritage of the 
 eldest son; it came also to contradict the political 
 system by which the people themselves elected the head 
 of their territory. In England, after all, the Normans 
 came in at the top without destroying the social foun- 
 dations of every Saxon tenant. But in Ireland the 
 chiefs were dispossessed, and when they were dispos- 
 sessed the whole Irish population found itself out- 
 lawed. 
 
 However the purple cloaks and flowing locks, the 
 easy horsemanship and free gait of the Irish chiefs 
 might seem to the courtier Normans, these chiefs, with 
 their brehons and bards, were at the head of a system 
 
 87
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 which was the only one the Irish as yet desired. Theirs 
 was a pleasant land with a way of life that suited a 
 frugal, hardy, outdoor people. Their festivals and 
 games, their passion for education, their enjoyment 
 of poetry and music, pointed to a likelihood that Erinn 
 in its own manner would move with the rest of Europe 
 into the sunlight of the Renaissance. But a savage 
 feudalism fell on Ireland and held it in a murderous, 
 brainless deadlock. From that deadlock Ireland al- 
 most succeeded in extricating itself. You watch Ire- 
 land in that long fight, free to escape time and again 
 and yet itself so murderous and brainless in the evil 
 excitement of fighting that it could not even see the 
 open door and the waiting road. When the O'Neills 
 saw that Ireland must move or be destroyed, it was 
 too late. 
 
 At first the conquest looked simple. On the one 
 hand you had the Norman invaders superior in the art 
 of war, frankly assured in morale, entrenched in their 
 "legal" status (except in Connacht and partsof Ulster), 
 and associated with a powerful monarch. On the 
 other hand you had the invaded Irish making prompt 
 submissions to Henry II as overlord, brave and adroit 
 in fighting but not soldiers by profession, inferior in 
 equipment, divided and subdivided in their social sys- 
 
 88
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 tern and absolutely alone in the world, except possibly 
 for Rome. 
 
 Easy as it looked, success was illusive. The seeds 
 of tragedy and failure were in the enterprise from the 
 beginning, and there were plenty of swords to reap 
 them. 
 
 To get an idea of the first Norman settlements you 
 may imagine a horizontal air-line about five hundred 
 feet in the air. Below that air-line, in the plains of 
 Meath and Leinster and Munster, the Normans hope 
 to claim everything. Above that air-line, in the moun- 
 tains of Leinster and Munster, they hope to keep the 
 outlawed Irishmen. Their plan is to hold all the walled 
 towns on the coast Carrickfergus, Dublin, Wexford, 
 Waterford, Cork, and Limerick and to pepper the 
 plains with impregnable stone castles ; then go on brave 
 excursions into Connacht, up to Ulster, to complete 
 the symmetry of conquest. 
 
 The "wild Irish," of course, are to stay in the bogs 
 and the hills, watching Piers the Plowman, just over 
 from England, as he whistles at his work in the fruitful 
 fields. 
 
 If the Irish were "wild," this was calculated to make 
 
 89
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 them more wild. The prompt outcome was a series of 
 unfortunate incidents. A young Irishman with an ax 
 in his hand stood by the governor de Lacy when de Lacy 
 stooped to mark out the spot for a new castle, and it 
 was too much for the youth one blow was enough. 
 The Normans then tried to outlaw the ax. 
 
 On Easter Monday, 1209, the citizens of Dublin, 
 five hundred in number, all loyal and not long imported 
 from Bristol, thought they 'd have a picnic out in the 
 enemy country, two miles out. It was too much for 
 the O'Byrnes. Before the benefits of Norman civiliza- 
 tion they had held that territory. Now they lived with 
 the goshawks and the crows. The O'Byrnes massacred 
 the picnic-party. 
 
 It began to be clear that there might be a certain 
 amount of ill-feeling generated by the conquest. Prince 
 John came over, and the Irish chiefs were asked to a 
 fresh party in Dublin. They came, and many young 
 Normans with Prince John. Being witty and well- 
 bred, they pulled the chieftains' long hair and their 
 cloaks, and they tried to trip them. The Irish, being 
 unaccustomed to Norman civilization, went home feel- 
 ing that the bond between the French and Gaelic-speak- 
 ing peoples was not yet secure. 
 
 90
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 It is idle to follow the process, especially through the 
 mists of intervening hypocrisy. The Irish were "bar- 
 barians,'* yet de Clare had married Eva MacMurrough 
 and de Lacy married Rose O*Conor and de Burgh mar- 
 ried the daughter of de Lacy. In the fighting the 
 Irish steadily improved. But a profound rottenness 
 crept into their life. Here were the Normans with a 
 feudal parliament at Dublin but the country was 
 too upset, too dangerous, for them to attend. And 
 here were the Irish without any chance to work out 
 their own central government. The effect on both 
 groups was precisely the same ; they split into separate 
 units which sought combinations of any and every kind 
 for profit. What made it indescribably bad, from the 
 Irish point of view, was the double choice that con- 
 fronted every Irish chief; when it suited his interests 
 he could elect to act feudally and favor his elder son, 
 and when it suited him he could favor the tanist or 
 second-chief chosen by his kinsmen. The temptation 
 to play both games ripped Irish tribal integrity to 
 pieces. The O'Neills, the O'Donnells, the O'Briens, 
 especially the O'Conors, engaged in the fiercest and 
 
 91
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 most complicated feuds. There were murders, battles, 
 violations of sanctuary, and cold-blooded massacres. 
 The Normans were not one atom different. De Berm- 
 ingham who beat Bruce in 1315 was killed by two 
 hundred English tenants in 1329. Edmund and Ulick 
 Burke stole a march on their girl cousin, became Irish 
 chiefs, took Irish names (macWilliam), and divided 
 her estates. The Desmonds, the Geraldines, the de 
 Lacys, the Butlers, the Berminghams emulated the 
 O'Carrolls, O'Dempseys, O'Reillys, O'Kellys, O'Byrnes, 
 O'Tooles, macMurroughs, macMahons, in the blood- 
 thirsty ferocity and political meaninglessness of their 
 quarrels. The moral level of this activity was high 
 as regards courage but low as regards purpose. In 
 most of it one searches in vain for any trace of what 
 we now call public spirit. 
 
 In the thirteenth century there was one brave effort 
 to do the work of Ireland. O'Brien of Thomond saw 
 that a combination with the North could alone help Ire- 
 land. Rising above his own claims to the kingship, he 
 traveled the Erne in 1258 with his principal kinsmen 
 and sub-chiefs, and there he and Hugh O'Conor agreed 
 on naming Brian O'Neill king of Ireland. In 1260 
 
 92
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 O'Neill made war but was defeated and slain by the 
 Earl of Salisbury at Downpatrick. The will of Ire- 
 land, however, was at work. In 1263 an approach was 
 made to Hakon of Norway, to offer him the kingship. 
 From then till 1315, with men from the Hebrides land- 
 ing to fight by the side of the Gael, the Irish warred 
 with the Norman through Ulster, Meath, and Con- 
 nacht. By that time Robert Bruce had fought Ban- 
 nockburn. Himself declining the sovereignty of Ire- 
 land, his brother Edward accepted the crown and 
 landed in Antrim with 6000 Scots. In 1317, the year 
 Robert Bruce came to fight to free Ireland, Brian 
 O'Neill's son wrote a spirited letter denouncing the 
 invasion to Pope John XXII. But where the pope 
 had deferred to the victor of Bannockburn he reproved 
 and threatened the Irish. In 1317 the friar preachers 
 and mendicants were ordered by papal mandate "to 
 desist from stirring up the people of Ireland to resist 
 the king's authority." 
 
 Edward Bruce failed. At first he swept the country, 
 but his second year was wasted. At Athenry his ally 
 O'Conor was slain with 8000 men. He himself won 
 every battle except his last. He defeated 30,000 at 
 Athy and 15,000 at Kells. Besieging Dublin unsuc- 
 cessfully and too late, however, he stood in the third 
 
 93
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 year against a huge combined army, and, at Faughart, 
 near Dundalk (where he had been crowned), he lost 
 his life and Ireland. 
 
 These campaigns drained Ireland. Their effect was 
 recorded in bitter reproaches to the dead Bruce, who 
 had left a desolation, famine, and pestilence that was 
 soon deepened by the Black Death. Friar John Clyn 
 of the Kilkenny Franciscans says in 1348 that "pesti- 
 lence deprived of human inhabitants villages and cities, 
 and castles and towns, so that there was scarcely found 
 a man to dwell therein." But it was the Normans and 
 English more than the Irish who suffered. The great 
 policy by which the mysteries or guilds were made ex- 
 clusively English and by which the towns were planted 
 "to treat with the Irish enemy and reform them, also 
 to make war on them," could not stand the depletions 
 of the plague. 
 
 The dykes of the colonists began to give way before 
 the Irish race and the Irish language, and for two cen- 
 turies to follow there was an increasing Irish resur- 
 gence, up to the rampart of the Pale. Mrs. Alice Stop- 
 ford Green has shown in scrupulous detail the part 
 that Ireland took in medieval commerce and industry. 
 
 94
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 She has listed the names of Irishmen who went to Ox- 
 ford, until the Pale decreed that "no Irishman adher- 
 ing to the enemies shall be suffered henceforth to pass 
 over the sea, by color of going to the schools of Ox- 
 ford, Cambridge, or elsewhere." Already Irishmen 
 were "on the run." But this did not prevent their 
 taking a share of the markets that were opening all 
 over Europe. In "The Making of Ireland and its 
 Undoing, 1200-1600," Mrs. Green has given the sur- 
 prising evidences of Irish commerce, from the great oak 
 beams that went to support the roof of Westminster 
 Hall in 1200 to the oaks that went to the Dutch Stadt- 
 haus at Amsterdam in 1700. Ireland traded with 
 England, France, Spain, Holland, Flanders, Florence, 
 Naples, Genoa. Out from Ireland were sent fine 
 leather, Irish cloaks, cloth and linen, gloves, baskets, 
 shoes, hemp and flax, cheese, butter and honey. Em- 
 broidered silk, fine serge, ware of Irish and Spanish 
 iron these went with salmon and herring, with corn, 
 with meat and wool. Gold came in, "with coal and 
 fruit and wine, carpets, broadcloths and kerseys, 
 velvet and silk, satin and cloth of gold and em- 
 broideries." And small Irish ships manned by Irishmen 
 thronged Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford, Wex- 
 ford, Dublin, and Drogheda. Ardglass, Trim, Youg- 
 
 95
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 hal, and Kinsale were also ports, with Ross and Kil- 
 kenny as trading towns. 
 
 To keep the Irish out of Irish towns was the first 
 rule of what now begins to be English imperial policy. 
 "No Irishman nor any man with a beard above his 
 mouth was to be lodged within Dublin walls, nor his 
 horse nor his horse-boy." Such severe prohibitions, 
 however, were not operative in a country where the 
 Irish were like the moisture in the air. Who were to be 
 "priests, doctors, clerks, nurses, messengers, harpers, 
 porters, millers, bakers, shoemakers, butchers"? The 
 decline of Anglo-Norman fortunes drew into Dublin 
 "O'Byrnes, O'Tooles, Ryans, O'Heyns, Hanlons, Der- 
 mots, Kavanaghs, Connors, Coynes, Flanagans, Con- 
 nells." It was impossible to hold "the rallying city 
 for men of the 'better race.' ' 
 
 But while the unfree classes in Ireland had no share 
 in the class revolts of John Ball and Wat Tyler, there 
 was a temporary promise of relief from invasion. "Our 
 Irish dominions," cried King Edward in 1361, "have 
 been reduced to such utter devastation, ruin, and mis- 
 ery that they may be totally lost if our subjects there 
 are not immediately succored." This was the period 
 of the Statute of Kilkenny which, by the way, was 
 written in French, still the language of the aristocracy 
 
 96
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 and the law. The case was so bad that the crown had 
 to make a demonstration. It made a huge one. In 
 1394 Richard II arrived (at Waterford, as usual) with 
 an army of 34,000 to engraft more virtue on the 
 wild and barbarous Irish. 
 
 A different macMurrough from Dermot the For- 
 eigner was now king of Leinster. From 1377 to 1417 
 Art macMurrough was the goad of the English. Work- 
 ing with the O'Byrnes. O'Tooles, and O'Nolans, he 
 showed the offense-power of the "mounteine enemie." 
 He mauled Richard's troops on the way to Dublin, 
 having blocked their passage by the east. The ruse 
 which de Bermingham had worked with the Offaly 
 family in 1305, when twenty-nine nobles were murdered 
 at a banquet in his castle, was later tried in Dublin 
 Castle on macMurrough. But as armed men stealthily 
 surrounded that feasting-place of death, the unsuspect- 
 ing macMurrough caught his battle-song played in 
 earnest by a watchful harper, his only attendant ; "he 
 made his escape despite of them, by the strength of his 
 hand and bravery, and they were not able to subdue 
 him." This was the end of the knighthood that Richard 
 had given to macMurrough as well as O'Conor, O'Brien, 
 and O'Neill. 
 
 At Kells, in 1398, King Richard's deputy, Mortimer, 
 
 97
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 was defeated and slain. In revenge thereof Richard 
 returned with 20,000 men in 1399. Only by luck did 
 he arrive at Dublin with his force partly intact. The 
 (^Byrnes were beaten at Bray, with heavy losses, in 
 the following year. But Art raacMurrough persisted. 
 He dominated Leinster. Wexford, Carlow, Kildare, 
 he scavenged of his enemy, and held his own till he 
 died at sixty, 1417. 
 
 This was an age, however, in which the primitive 
 and desperate process of armed raids and sallies was 
 not enough to liberate Ireland. To carve Dublin Castle 
 out of Ireland's side was necessary ; but macMurrough 
 opened that wound without extracting the spear-head. 
 Meanwhile great developments were taking place on 
 the Continent and even in England. The names of 
 Petrarch and Boccaccio spring to mind at this period ; 
 and if French feudalism was sprawling in the mud of 
 Agincourt like a crustacean on its back, with Henry 
 V's murderers finishing it, and if John Huss was burned 
 alive in 1415 as Joan of Arc was burned alive in 1430, 
 the spring of Europe was in blossom. Life surged in 
 the medieval towns and hope in the rediscovery of work- 
 manship. France devised a military system that ended 
 
 98
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry Fill 
 
 "chivalry" and prepared the state for the terrible uses 
 of gunpowder. The Hundred Years' War concluded 
 in 1453, the English retreating from France to enter 
 on the miserable wrangle of the Wars of the Roses. 
 It was, on the Continent, the beginning of the Renais- 
 sance, a movement that released the energies of man 
 and allowed him to satisfy his most varied and colored 
 desires. Copernicus, Cabot, and Columbus were names 
 on the horizon. A race of subject human beings, 
 mute and grimy, still hung on the side-lines of this 
 vivid human procession toward knowledge and culture; 
 only the center of the social stream flowed gleamingly 
 in the sun. But everywhere the break-up of feudalism 
 was the end of an enslavement to the battle-ax. The 
 New Learning was almost within man's grasp, to lift 
 him out of barbarism into a reason which meant that 
 life was to be valued, glorified, sweetened, and refined. 
 The church, so far the custodian of the higher values, 
 was enough in league with feudalism to become the 
 object of contention and revision. Men who had new 
 values, men who craved emancipation, tried their 
 strength against Rome. In some cases tolerance and 
 reason were most in mind, and the rights of man; in 
 other cases a mere change of masters and formulae. 
 But in any case the world turned on a new axis. 
 
 99
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 8 
 
 For this renaissance (a Continental word) England 
 was not yet ready; and Ireland, dragging in. the 
 troubled wake of England, was permitted no natural 
 evolution. Poynings* law, passed in 1394, gives the 
 best indication of the tiny extent to which "constitu- 
 tional liberties" had penetrated to Ireland. So un- 
 certain was the English crown of its feudal barons in 
 Ireland that the exclusively Anglo-Norman parliament 
 of Dublin was led by a strong deputy into agreeing that 
 no bill should even be presented in Ireland until it had 
 been submitted for approval to the English crown. 
 This was intended to offset and hold down the Gerald- 
 ines. The Geraldines (FitzGeralds of Kildare and 
 Munster) had by now begun to show their sea-change, 
 after four generations of Ireland. They were no longer 
 Normans but Norman-Irish, speaking French, English, 
 Irish, and Latin, and bidding fair to become the real 
 lords of the realm. Set against the prudent Ormondes 
 (Butlers by name and often butlers by temperament) 
 these FitzGeralds rose on their manifold compromise 
 between feudalism and the Irish land system, while 
 the Irish chiefs marked time and collected "black rent." 
 
 The FitzGeralds grew in strength and in national 
 100
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 favor until, with skill and luck, they came within sight 
 of dominating Ireland. The degree to which the union 
 of Irish and Anglo-Irish had proceeded may be guessed 
 from these alliances: "A daughter of the seventh Earl 
 of Kildare married Henry O'Neill, Prince of Tyrowen. 
 Of the daughters of the eighth earl, Alice was married 
 to her first cousin, Con O'Neill, Eleanor to MacCarthy 
 Reagh and afterwards to Manus O'Donnell, Margaret 
 to the eighth Earl of Ormond, and Eustacia to Mac- 
 William Uachter. Mary, daughter of the ninth earl, 
 was married to Brian O'Conor, chief of Offaly, and her 
 sister Ellen to Fergananim O'Carroll of Ely." Here 
 was a mighty union of Irish and Anglo-Irish against 
 the crown, after four hundred years of conquest. But 
 statecraft set a trap, and youth fell into it. The 
 downfall of the Geraldines was black as the pit. 
 
 To English history belongs the Geraldines' espousal 
 of the Yorkish pretenders, and the picture of Ormonde's 
 faction and the Geraldines brawling in St. Patrick's 
 Cathedral. It is enough to know that Ormonde "put 
 a great stay" on Geraldine and Geraldine on Ormonde. 
 
 But with Garrett Mor (Gerald), the Great Earl of 
 Kildare, there comes a vigorous and defiant personality. 
 
 101
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 He died in 1513, "a mighty made man, full of honor 
 and courage." He was the earl of whom it was said, 
 "All Ireland cannot rule this man." "Then," said 
 Henry VII, "this man shall rule all Ireland!" To 
 succeed him came Garrett Oge (Gerald the Younger), 
 again the governor of Ireland. Garrett was a man 
 who saw aid for Ireland in Spain and France. At a 
 time when the Pale was narrowed to a swathe of Louth, 
 Meath, Kildare, and Dublin, he was a power in the land. 
 At Maynooth, his castle, there was artillery that should 
 have been in Dublin. In spite of his culture (he had 
 a library, large for the time, in which twenty Irish 
 books are recorded, twenty-two English, thirty-four 
 Latin, and thirty-six French), he sneered like a fron- 
 tiersman in his conflict with the sumptuous Wolsey. 
 "I would you and I had exchanged kingdoms but for 
 one month. I could trust to gather up more crumbs in 
 that space than twice the revenues of my poor earldom. 
 I sleep in a cabin when you lie soft in your bed of 
 down. I serve under the cope of heaven, when you 
 are served under a canopy, I drink water out of a skull, 
 when you drink out of golden cups." 
 
 Lord deputy by his very courage, he was called to 
 London in 1534 to answer to Henry VIII for treason, 
 
 102
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 and this time he was clamped in the Tower. While he 
 was there word was sent back to Ireland that Henry had 
 executed him. The report traveled to his son, Silken 
 Thomas, a handsome youth left as deputy by his 
 father: his gorgeous trappings gave him his name. 
 
 The young man wanted no more of Tudor fealty. 
 He rode through Dublin with his harper and a troop of 
 horse. On the north of the Liffey he made his way 
 to St. Mary's Abbey where the king's council was sit- 
 ting. There he flung his sword of state among them. 
 
 "Now I have need of my own sword," he said, "I am 
 none of Henry's deputy. I am his foe." 
 
 His elders trembled for him. "I will not hold him for 
 my king," the youth cried. "If it be my hap to mis- 
 carry . . . catch that catch may. I will take the 
 market as it riseth." 
 
 Galloping off after this defiance, Silken Thomas 
 began a campaign which enlisted the O'Tooles, mac- 
 Murroughs, O'Conors, O'Moores, O'Briens, O'Carrolls, 
 O'Neills. He had enough success to enable him to 
 control the Pale and to take the Castle. But there 
 was no heart in the rising, and much dissension The 
 archbishop of Dublin being murdered by his followers, 
 Lord Thomas was promptly condemned by the church; 
 
 103
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 and Henry VIII sent over Skeffington the Gunner. 
 
 With the aid of artillery, Skeffington captured May- 
 nooth ; thereupon he executed the garrison. One after 
 another the six Geraldine fortresses were assaulted and 
 taken. A promise of pardon was indubitably given to 
 Lord Thomas (now Earl of Kildare since his father 
 had died in the Tower). He and his five uncles were 
 brought prisoners to London. There they were held 
 for more than a year, in mean neglect and misery, the 
 gallant youth now barefoot and in rags. The delay 
 was designed to cool off feeling. In 1537 the six 
 Geraldines were "drawne, hanged, and quartered at 
 Tiburne," and their heads set on six spikes on London 
 Bridge. 
 
 Antagonists though they were, the ruin of the Ger- 
 aldines was terrible enough to win the tears of Ormonde. 
 No Anglo-Irish family was to take their place, or to 
 weld Ireland under an outside leader. But a young 
 boy, the last of the Geraldines, was hurried by his 
 aunt from the reach of the English. She brought him 
 safely to Donegal. Then, in the saffron shirt of a 
 peasant, he was shipped to France. The English 
 Government learned he was in Paris and demanded him. 
 Again he escaped, eventually to Rome, to appear in 
 middle age on the Irish scene. 
 
 104
 
 Norman Invasion to Henry VIII 
 
 10 
 
 It has spirit, this recovery from the Norman in- 
 vasion, but one thinks of that Irish priest, Shemus 
 Cartan, in his exile in France, writing these manly lines 
 in Gaelic, translated by Lady Gregory : 
 
 Let us put down the sum of our sins; 
 Oppression of the poor, thieving, robbery, 
 Great vows held in light esteem; 
 Giving our soul to the man that is the worst; 
 The strength of our pride was greater than our life, 
 The strength of our debts was more than we could pay. 
 
 It was with treachery Ireland was lost, 
 And the ill-will of men one to another. 
 There was no judge that would give a hearing 
 To the oppressed people whose life was under hardship. 
 Outcasts and widows crying aloud 
 Without right judgment to be had or punishment. 
 
 We were never agreed together, 
 But as one ox bound and one free from the yoke; 
 No right humility to be found. 
 All trying for the headship of Ireland 
 At the time when her enemies were doing their work. 
 No settlement to be made of any quarrel, 
 
 The share of the wheat-ear for the man that was the strongest; 
 It is long that this has been the hurt of Ireland; 
 It is thus that the battle ended with the Gael. 
 
 The battle had not "ended with the Gael." It had 
 only begun. But the age of the swash-buckler was 
 over. Now came a period in which feudalism gave 
 place to absolute monarchy. Ireland had to meet the 
 policy of conquest which was dictated by Tudor fears, 
 Stuart cowardice, and the godly brutality of Puritan- 
 ism. 
 
 105
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CONQUEST 
 
 r 1 1 HE Irish question was now three hundred and fifty 
 JL years old. Without the existence or aid of a 
 single Ulster Presbyterian or a single Southern Prot- 
 estant, without the existence of one "Scotch-Irish- 
 man," the problem of an Irish nation was full grown 
 in the reign of Henry VIII. With him, however, and 
 with his comprehensive policy, commences the Ireland 
 that we know to-day. Modern landlordism sprang 
 from his polity. So did the religious question. So did 
 the administration of Ireland by non-Irishmen and 
 anti-Irishmen. So did modern Irish patriotism. 
 
 In his reign, on the surface a benign one, originated 
 the most serious of all political evils ; the implantation 
 of a national problem which divides the will and yet 
 cannot be solved without unity of will. That problem 
 was first implanted by peaceful methods, in the belief 
 that conquest would be unnecessary. But when these 
 
 106
 
 The Conquest 
 
 methods failed, because too arbitrary, England went 
 to work with sword, with fire, with famine, with mas- 
 sacre, torture, poison, exile, and execution. Her plan 
 was weighed and deliberate. It had the aim of legality 
 in the beginning, but later it appeared without disguise 
 in its desire for profit and dominance, working on the 
 theory of race-superiority to the ends that England's 
 success seemed to demand. "Christ did not die for the 
 Irish." The resulting shame and ruin were afterwards 
 generously ascribed by patriotic Englishmen to "blun- 
 ders" and "mistakes." But the burning of state papers 
 had not then become an accomplishment of the English 
 Government. And from state papers the history of 
 English policy is to be fully derived. 
 
 In 1521 the Duke of Norfolk (then Earl of Surrey) 
 unfolded his plan about Ireland. 
 
 "The land shall never be brought to good order 
 and subjection but only by conquest, which is, at your 
 Grace's pleasure, to be brought to pass in two 
 ways ..." 
 
 Henry VIII did not see eye to eye with Surrey. He 
 weighed the policy of conquest, especially after the 
 crushing of the Geraldines, but he had no spare money. 
 
 107
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 He had his complications with France and Spain, and 
 he had his young Reformation to nourish. In addition 
 he agreed with Machiavelli that it was better to win a 
 people's confidence than to depend on fortresses. And 
 the fiasco of the Geraldine rebellion gave him his chance. 
 
 First he planned to launch Reformation in Ireland. 
 Since the Normans, there had, of course, been no "re- 
 ligious" question except the question of having pro- 
 English bishops. The Gaels from Scotland and the 
 Hebrides, "piratical marauders," were now firmly set- 
 tled in Down and Antrim, but of course they were 
 Catholics. The English in the walled towns were tena- 
 ciously Catholic. The Anglo-Irish lords, who traced 
 their moral right to be in Ireland to a papal bull, were 
 ardent in their faith. The higher clergy, appointed 
 from England and sanctioned by Rome, had no theo- 
 logical difficulties. 
 
 Perhaps the only people questioned as good Catho- 
 lics were the beggar friars who went amongst the 
 country people and kept God and education alive in 
 the windowless hovels. Now these friars, and the occu- 
 pants of five hundred monasteries, were to be sup- 
 pressed. Neither Irish nor Ango-Irish welcomed 
 this disorganization. The monasteries, for one thing, 
 served as inns. The English who imported the Refor- 
 
 108
 
 The Conquest 
 
 mation found themselves intensely unpopular for rea- 
 sons of heart, head, and belly. But the new bishops 
 and their hangmen peddled their reform through the 
 country, amid "angers, slanders, conspiracies, and, in 
 the end, the slaughter of men." 
 
 3 
 
 Yet this transfer of the church and the schools went 
 hand in hand with a policy of political conciliation. 
 
 Irishmen were not citizens. They stood outside the 
 Pale, the "little place," and consequently outside Eng- 
 lish law. "The mere Irish were not only accounted 
 aliens but enemies, and altogether out of the protec- 
 tion of the law, so as it was no capital offense to kill 
 them . . . every Englishman might oppress, spoil and 
 kill them without controlment." (Sir John Davies.) 
 Thus conciliation had a way to travel, especially as 
 Lord Leonard Gray was about to be executed for hav- 
 ing practised it. But statecraft is nimble. 
 
 The "five bloods" or royal septs were technically 
 within the law. But they had helped Lord Thomas in 
 his rebellion. So long as the Government planned to 
 exterminate them, they would not dare to "come in." 
 But the Government made it plain that it wished to 
 
 109
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 conciliate them, and they weakened. They were worn 
 out and bled white. Years of warfare had devastated 
 
 Ireland 
 
 under Henry "SET 
 
 IRISH TERRITORIES 
 UNSHADED 
 
 the country. Scotland and France had delayed to help, 
 as they always did delay, and the new deputy led them 
 
 110
 
 
 The Conquest 
 
 man by man to the door of negotiation. By promising 
 peace and offering territorial titles a surprising number 
 of fresh "submissions" was collected this time com- 
 pelling the chiefs to acknowledge Henry VIII as lord 
 of Ireland and to deny and forsake the bishop of Rome. 
 The chiefs cheerfully and unequivocally "denied" and 
 "forsook." Then, in 1541, they came to Dublin, ex- 
 penses paid, to a parliament. McGillapatrick, now 
 the Baron of Upper Ossony, was there, and Mac- 
 Murrough, now MacMurrough Kavanagh, and an 
 O'Neill and an O'Moore and an O'Brien and an O'- 
 Reilly. Kildare's kinsman, the Earl of Desmond, was 
 there, with Barry, Roche, FitzMaurice, and others of 
 the "degenerate" English. Lord Ormonde, adept at 
 languages, translated the proceedings for the Irish; it 
 seemed that the master wished to be known hereafter 
 as the king of Ireland. King of Ireland they made 
 him without a pang. 
 
 This was not all. In 1542 Con O'Neill went to 
 London to be created an earl! One of the de Veres 
 sponsored him. Next year Ulick Burke and the 
 O'Briens followed. The king gave them cash and 
 golden chains, each worth sixty pound odd. The 
 London records bulged with Irish letters-patent and 
 sparkling professions of allegiance. 
 
 Ill
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 4 
 
 The common people of Ireland, meanwhile, were 
 as chattels. When the O'Neill "came in" it was by 
 English statecraft that his people must come in, and 
 when he forsook the bishop of Rome it was assumed that 
 they must give up Rome. What happened, of course, 
 was nothing so automatic. The Irishmen in their great 
 blanket-cloaks brooded at their fires over the journey 
 of O'Neill to London, and dark eyes flashed out of the 
 blackness, and dark oaths, at the conversion of chiefs 
 into landlords. The women and men, foster-mothers 
 and god-fathers to the chiefs, now meditated on being 
 "vassals." In the hills the herdsmen made note of the 
 rumor. The bards sang of it. The harpers played 
 it. The beggars mused on it, huddled outside the closed 
 monasteries. Coming with the new "religion," the 
 patriarchial brehons and seannachies had food for 
 thought. No more, it was said, was Gaelic to be spoken, 
 or the Irish cloak to be worn. No more hurling. No 
 more music. Everything and everybody was now to be 
 English, except the bad money. The news flew from 
 dining-tables to the kitchens, from kitchens to horse- 
 boys and dog-boys, from these to the bogs and moors. 
 And firearms, of course, were to be illegal. And Irish-
 
 The Conquest 
 
 men were to cut their hair like the new parsons, and to 
 wear legal pants. 
 
 Here, at last, by the silken thread, "by circumspect 
 and politic ways," his Grace had led the Gaelic chiefs 
 into the English system. "Proceed politically, pa- 
 tiently and secretly," Henry VIII had told Surrey, 
 "that the Irish lords conceive no jealousy or suspicion 
 that they shall be constrained precisely to live under 
 our laws or put from all the lands by them now de- 
 tained." Now, by policy, patience, and secrecy, the 
 Irish had been landed. Laws that were not their laws, 
 customs that were not theirs, a new language, a new 
 habit, a brand-new religion, were all condensed in the 
 letters-patent and embraced by the gold chain. And 
 rebellion meant no more land. 
 
 For long the Irish chieftains had played whichever 
 way suited them. Now they were hooked. They could 
 take over monasteries and secretly retain the monks. 
 They could obstruct sheriffs, judges, coroners, baliffs, 
 and the small fry of the English system. But their 
 own people knew an Irish chief when they saw one; 
 how could the people be deceived? Between the Irish 
 folk and the English Government these chiefs were 
 
 113
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 now to decide. Their irresponsible days were over. 
 
 For the lordlings who were Catholic on Monday 
 and Protestant on Tuesday there was no problem ex- 
 cept the serious problem of remembering the days of 
 the week. For O'Neills and O'Briens and O'Conors and 
 O'Donnells there was this choice of black or white. 
 
 In forcing the choice there was a sincere English 
 belief that as landlords the chiefs would be better off. 
 There was, besides, another sincere English belief, the 
 belief that the Brito-Romo-Celto-Anglo-Saxo-Dano- 
 Franco-Cambrian ruling class was a ruling class very 
 superior in its way of life to the barbarous Gaelic. 
 And at bottom there was practical politics. The Eng- 
 lish people, according to the French and Spanish naval 
 peoples, could not tell a tub from a cat-boat, and had 
 no place on the sea. That being the insolent Con- 
 tinental attitude, and the O'Neills and O'Donnells al- 
 ready having learned to solicit France and Spain, it 
 was simple statecraft that the Irish should be mastered. 
 The only way in which they could securely be mastered, 
 in this view, was by being nationally made over. If they 
 could be made into Englishmen, the Tudor statesmen 
 felt, much might be done with them. It was this notion 
 which led Henry VIII to conciliate the chieftains and 
 offer them good feudal titles. It was this notion which 
 
 114
 
 The Conquest 
 
 led England to devise for Ireland (even in the seven- 
 teenth century) a system of state education. Plans 
 for exterminating the Irish were prepared, for crossing 
 them on the better stock by shipping in English women, 
 for deporting them in large numbers as slaves. These 
 plans, most of them attempted, sprang from a mixture 
 of swelled head and cold calculation. 
 
 These crude plans were framed in the days of Sir 
 Thomas More and Erasmus. The bird of imperial 
 monarchy, said Erasmus, is the eagle; "a bird neither 
 beautiful, nor musical, nor good for food, but murder- 
 ous, greedy, hateful to all, the curse of all, and with 
 its great powers of doing harm only surpassed by its 
 desire to do it." Henry VIII applauded the immortal 
 Erasmus. But, in those first years of the New Learn- 
 ing, gunpowder as well as the printing-press came into 
 the hands of the Englishmen. Though each weapon 
 was double-edged, printing was undoubtedly the great- 
 est weapon ever forged for the liberation of man, and 
 gunpowder was the greatest weapon for his enslave- 
 ment. Yet while the printing-press in England was 
 to make public opinion, and public opinion was to 
 revolutionize parliament, the state concluded to de- 
 prive Ireland of the printing-press and to monopolize 
 gunpowder. And so drunk were Englishmen with 
 
 115
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 power and conceit that the very idols of English liberty 
 could not reach Ireland fast enough to carry out their 
 policy of conquest. 
 
 The first chapter of conquest is soon opened. After 
 Edward VI, a youth who died of tuberculosis, came 
 Mary who married Philip. Mary was "Bloody Mary" 
 in England because she persecuted the persecutors. 
 In Ireland her Catholicism had far less effect than 
 her inheritance of Henry's valueless "submissions." 
 For already the Gaelic system had revolted against 
 the system of feudal tenure. The people of each sept 
 had their candidate and hero. There were people's 
 Burkes and people's O'Briens to battle with the choice 
 made by England. In Ulster, protected by lake and 
 wood, the fight was most unqualified. Manus O'Donnell 
 had astonished the lord deputy by not wearing a 
 loin-cloth ; he was "an elegant, somewhat foppish gentle- 
 man, magnificently attired in crimson velvet, and at- 
 tended by his chaplain." But this Queen's O'Donnell, 
 "the lion in fight," had a battle with his son, and Con 
 O'Neill had to duel with the man he had named his heir. 
 The "Redshanks" or Scottish Gaels, MacNeills and 
 MacDonnells, used the favor of disorder to expel the 
 
 116
 
 The Conquest 
 
 MacQuillans and to levy "black rent" on the Eng- 
 lish colonists. The English Government, on its side, 
 gave aid and comfort to whichever Irishman would 
 kill most Irishmen. Manwhile Shane the Proud, the 
 Irish O'Neill, killed the English O'Neill in battle and 
 resumed the headship of the sept. 
 
 Shane O'Neill was a rugged specimen of his race, 
 "a great, aggressive invader of the territories of 
 others." He fought against Elizabeth and maneuvered 
 with her for the return of his power, went to her court 
 and there intrigued with France and Spain, attacked 
 the Scottish Gaels to suit her deputies and yet defied 
 her deputies. They, in turn, tried to poison him. As 
 Froude says so sympathetically, "the lord deputy's as- 
 sassination plots were but the forlorn resources of a 
 man who felt his work too heavy for him." 
 
 Fighting the O'Donnells, Shane was in the end forced 
 to flee to the men of the Hebrides. An English officer 
 called Piers was with them. "At a given signal, the 
 banqueting-room was filled with soldiers, and all the 
 Irish were slain. O'Neill's head was sent to Dublin, 
 and Piers received a thousand marks from the Govern- 
 ment as a reward for the murder." (Taylor.) 
 
 With the approach of Elizabeth's reign, as this story 
 shows, came the finale of Henry's compromise with the 
 
 117
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 chiefs, and the beginning of thorough conquest. Al- 
 ready the legal excuse of their submissions had been 
 used by Mary against the Leinster septs of Leix and 
 Offaly. When the O'Conors first bared their teeth, 
 as the result of a dispute, the whole population was 
 clean expelled from their lands, which now became 
 King's County and Queen's County. Philip graciously 
 gave his name to Philipstown and Mary to Mary- 
 borough. In revenge for dispossession the rebellious 
 (yMoores and O'Conors ravaged the new settlers. It 
 was not till 1577, on New Year's day, that the policy 
 of conquest dealt effectively with these rebels. They 
 were invited to a conference at Mullaghmast, there- 
 upon surrounded and massacred. This bit of frightful- 
 ness settled one main group of Leinster chiefs for ever. 
 The hideous massacre of Rathlin Island of 1575 was 
 part of another clearance in Antrim. But these were 
 curtain-raisers. The big first act in conquest was 
 five years later, in Munster. 
 
 Since the early part of Elizabeth's reign had a 
 religious motive, it is necessary to diverge for a minute. 
 The Reformation in its turn called for the use of force, 
 and force was supplied in the name of Christianity. 
 
 118
 
 The Conquest 
 
 In an age when Irishmen themselves could ill-treat 
 one another as Tadhg the bard was ill-treated, 
 it was not incredible that Dermot O'Hurley, Arch- 
 bishop of Cashel, should be tortured. "We have neither 
 rack nor other engine of torture in Dublin Castle to 
 terrify Dr. Hurley," the commissioners complained. 
 But they did without a rack ; they oiled his feet, encased 
 them in metal boots, and roasted them till the flesh came 
 away with the boot. Then, after a delay of some weeks, 
 Dr. Hurley was hanged. The finer points of doctrine 
 were scarcely considered in this Reformation, which 
 was in essence the establishment of a loyalist political 
 church. There were time-servers on both sides, some 
 of the Anglo-Irish exceeding the New English in their 
 zeal for Protestantism. But the people in the towns, 
 many of the nobility, and virtually all of the people 
 remained Catholics. And the "heretic" clergy now 
 moved through Ireland, hunted, disguised, perpetually 
 "on the run." 
 
 8 
 
 Now we come to the drastic and ferocious conquest 
 of Munster. It must first be said that the policy to be 
 described hereafter did not have the hearty assent of 
 every one in the English Government. Some balked at 
 
 119
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 assassination, some at massacre, some at the killing 
 of women. Lord Burghley, the great statesman of his 
 day, said that "the Flemings had not such cause to 
 rebel against the oppressions of the Spaniards as the 
 Irish against the tyranny of England." But, as the 
 English historian Froude points out, the gentlemen 
 who actually had Ireland in their power "had been 
 trained in the French wars, in the privateer fleets, or 
 on the coast of Africa, and the lives of a few thousand 
 savages were infinitely unimportant to them." Besides, 
 the Continental powers being Catholic and Ireland 
 being Catholic, it was assumed that the conquest could 
 not be too soon or too savage. 
 
 So, when the FitzGeralds, faced by confiscation and 
 beggary, at last committed themselves to a rebellion in 
 Munster, with the aid of two thousand Scots in the 
 North, with the aid of the O'Byrnes in Leinster, who 
 won a signal victory, and with the aid of the Spanish 
 from across the sea, the Elizabethans had an opportun- 
 ity to carry out their frightfulness. 
 
 At Smerwick, where the Spaniards landed, the gallant 
 Sir Walter Raleigh appears in Irish history. "When 
 the [Spanish] captain had yielded himself, and the fort 
 appointed to be surrendered, Captain Raleigh, to- 
 
 120
 
 The Conquest 
 
 gether with Captain Macworth, had the ward of that 
 day, entered into the castle, and made a great slaugh- 
 ter, many or most part of them being put to the 
 sword." The bodies of those unarmed men whom Ral- 
 eigh and his band had butchered, six hundred in all, 
 were stripped and laid out on the sand, " 'as gallant 
 goodly personages,' said Grey, 'as ever were beheld.* ' 
 
 The state papers for Ireland, 1580, are blunt. 
 "The ffortes were yielded, all the Irishmen and women 
 hanged, and four hundred and upwardes of Italyans 
 and others put to the sworde ... A ifrayer and others 
 kept in store to be executed after examination had of 
 them . . . Next day was executed an Englishman who 
 served Dr. Saunders, one Plunckett, and an Irish Priest 
 theire armes and legges were broken and hanged upon 
 a gallows." 
 
 But Christianity was already demanded by foreign 
 policy. "The queen," said Lord Bacon, "was much 
 displeased at the slaughter." 
 
 "The queen," said a later historian, "expressed the 
 utmost concern and displeasure at this barbarous ex- 
 ecution." 
 
 The queen, on the contrary, expressed herself as 
 pleased. Her letters, "written in Roman hand by her
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Majesty," found the enterprise "greatly to our 
 lyking." She thanked Grey for "performing this so 
 acceptable service." In a later letter, complaining 
 only of the cost of conquest, she renewed her thanks 
 for great good services, "chiefly in the late exploit 
 you did against the strangers . . . Proceed on cheerfully 
 to do your best." 
 
 From the mouths of Bingham, Walter Raleigh, and 
 others, we learn how the fighting proceeded. In Con- 
 nacht the English planned a land settlement, provoked 
 a rising, and slew "fourteen or fifteen hundred, besides 
 boys, women, churls and children, which could not be 
 so few, as so many more and upwards." Sir Peter 
 Carew "murdered women and children, and babies that 
 had scarcely left the breast." Malbie and Zouche 
 report killing "men, women, and children." "There 
 escaped not one, neither of man, woman, nor child." 
 
 A great estate fell to Walter Raleigh, in reward for 
 his part in this "Mahometan conquest." Another 
 estate, with two abbeys, fell to the poet Edmund Spen- 
 ser. He served as a secretary. From him, who agreed 
 in this bloody policy, we have that famous passage on 
 the scene he himself beheld: 
 
 Munster "was a most rich and plentiful country, 
 full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought
 
 The Conquest 
 
 they should have been able to stand long, yet ere one 
 year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness 
 as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out 
 of every corner of the woods and glens they came 
 creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could 
 not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death; 
 they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves ; they 
 did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find 
 them; yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as 
 the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of 
 their graves ; and if they found a plot of watercresses 
 or shamrocks, there they flocked as to feast for 
 the time, yet not able long to continue there withal; 
 that in short space there were none almost left, and a 
 most populous and plentiful country suddenly left 
 void of man and beast." 
 
 9 
 
 This was the first act, as savage as the most savage 
 Elizabethan tragedy. By 1583 Munster was a waste, 
 with the Earl of Desmond whipped and hunted to 
 Kerry. There, in a hovel, he was found by a few 
 straggling soldiers. "I am the Earl of Desmond. 
 Spare my life," he pleaded. Instead, his rescuer 
 
 123
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 dragged the elderly man out and killed him, for the 
 Government reward. 
 
 Now followed confiscation, after the example of 
 Leix and Offaly. About 250,000 acres were actually 
 
 Hugh O'Neill 
 
 granted by the crown to English settlers, as Antrim 
 had already been granted to Essex. An enormous 
 number of legal disputes were originated, especially 
 concerning the MacCarthys ; but some of the claimants 
 were rudely disturbed by the next O'Neill rebellion.
 
 The Conquest 
 
 10 
 
 Hugh O'Neill succeeded Shane O'Neill. He was a 
 man of finer metal. Trained at the Elizabethan court, 
 where his father had left him, he realized that he had to 
 deal with a statecraft which was not nice in point of 
 honor. He himself had no scruple to play double with 
 Elizabeth. He was undoubtedly waiting for the Ar- 
 mada to come to Ireland. Up to then and after he 
 took as good pains as any Tudor not to reveal his 
 hand. He lied, he dissembled, he bent the knee. 
 Secretly he armed and trained his troops. The head 
 of the O'Donnells, Hugh Roe (Red Hugh) O'Donnell, 
 he could not reach. When a boy an English captain 
 had invited O'Donnell on board ship to buy wine, and 
 had kidnapped and delivered him to Dublin Castle. 
 That was in 1587. In 1591, on Christmas night, 
 young O'Donnell managed, as so many Irishmen have 
 managed, to escape from his English jail. He and Art 
 O'Neill, who was in prison with him, dragged their way 
 as far as Glenmalure. There, in the snow of the moun- 
 tains, their strength gave out; they were numb when 
 found by a servant of the O'Byrnes. The O'Neill boy 
 was already dying. Hugh Roe was revived, and, al- 
 though partially crippled, he recovered. 
 
 125
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Four years caged in Dublin Castle had made Hugh 
 Roe O'Donnell ready to think of England as his enemy. 
 He found Hugh O'Neill of the same judgment and 
 faith. By 1595 the two Hughs were ready for a war 
 which would drive out the English. 
 
 In that war O'Neill and O'Donnell gathered up all 
 the matters of state that had created grievances in 
 Ireland since England professed to reclaim Ireland 
 "from barbarism to a godly government." It had 
 previously been reaffirmed that Englishness be made 
 obligatory, that "all brehons, carraghes, bards, rhym- 
 ers, friars, monks, Jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such 
 like," be executed by martial law. Now O'Neill and 
 O'Donnell demanded complete religious liberty, political 
 independence in Tir Owen and Tirconnell, a Catholic 
 university, freedom to go overseas for learning, and no 
 Englishmen as churchmen. 
 
 "Ewtopia," wrote Cecil on these demands: the war 
 proceeded. 
 
 11 
 
 Success attended O'Neill and O'Donnell. They de- 
 stroyed an English army at Yellow Ford, with Burke 
 of Sligo and MacDonnell of the Isles fighting for them. 
 This victory aroused the whole country. Essex arrived 
 
 126
 
 to lead the English. There were still some Irish without 
 any sense of unity. Securing the help of O'Conor Don, 
 Richard Burke and Maelmuire MacSwiney, the English 
 leader, Clifford, attempted to reach the North ; he suf- 
 fered a heavy defeat in the Battle of the Curlew Hills. 
 A prompt truce between Essex and O'Neill brought 
 Essex into Elizabeth's disfavor and removed him from 
 Ireland. A cool and competent deputy, Mount joy. 
 took Essex's place and turned the tide. 
 
 The spirit of this rebellion was deeper than Ulster 
 alone. Lewy O'Clery has left us a contemporary life 
 of Hugh Roe O'Donnell which quotes his talk to his 
 soldiers before the Battle of the Curlews : "We, though 
 a small number, are on the side of right as it seems 
 to us, and the English whose number is large are on 
 the side of robbery, in order to rob you of your native 
 land and your means of living, and it is far easier for 
 you to make a brave, stout, strong fight for your native 
 land and your lives whilst you are your own masters 
 and your weapons are in your hands, than when you 
 are put in prison and in chains after being despoiled 
 of your weapons ..." 
 
 But Spain was still the hope. Both O'Neill and 
 O'Donnell knew the hopelessness of matching a coun- 
 try of less than a million inhabitants against a country 
 
 127
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 of six million or so. So O'Donnell had, in his own 
 good Spanish, implored Spain to come to Ireland's 
 aid. Not till 1601 did 3000 Spanish arrive, however; 
 and when they arrived Mount joy and Carew had 12,000 
 troops to blockade them in Kinsale. 
 
 A lightning march from Ulster failed to unite the 
 Irish with the Spanish. A day's march of forty-two 
 miles across frozen country enabled O'Donnell to evade 
 pursuit but when O'Neill and O'Donnell reached Kin- 
 sale, impatience (against O'Neill's advice), led them to 
 hasty attack. A confused retreat, which became a 
 panic, brought the insurrection to an inglorious finish. 
 Hugh O'Donnell escaped to Spain, An English agent 
 named Blake followed and, in 1602, earned his fee by 
 poisoning O'Donnell in his castle at Simancas. The 
 evidence of this assassination was revealed in letters 
 that have since come to light. 
 
 This was a catastrophe to Irish arms and Irish 
 courage. Carew was merciless to O'Sullivan Beare at 
 Dunboy. The rest of Munster was cowed. Mount joy 
 in the North roped in Rory O'Donnell, and then he 
 opened negotiations with O'Neill. During those nego- 
 tiations Elizabeth lay dead in England but Mount joy 
 
 128
 
 The Conquest 
 
 kept this news from The O'Neill until he was once again 
 "Earl of Tyrone." 
 
 This is the Mount joy whose family name is immor- 
 talized in an Irish prison. 
 
 Concurrently with the war, the towns which Irish and 
 Anglo-Irish had built up were handed over to English 
 adventurers. From 1589 onward the towns were "occu- 
 pied by soldiers, crushed by impositions, and forbidden 
 to trade." Galway, Limerick, and Waterford were 
 marked for isolation. "With every generation," says 
 Alice Stopford Green, "the struggle was renewed 
 through centuries of wilful ruin, till of the flourishing 
 markets and fair towns of the Irish nothing was left 
 but a starving village, a dim tradition, a crumbling 
 wall, or the name of a silent meadow, while the ports 
 lay empty and rivers and lakes deserted." 
 
 13 
 
 The Earl of Tyrone was a beaten man. He and 
 O'Donnell, his fellow-earl, were surrounded by Castle 
 spies and English agents. Every needy scamp "re- 
 vealed" plots to Dublin Castle. In 1607, their patience 
 worn out, came the Flight of the Earls. O'Neill and 
 O'Donnell entered Rome like princes, after a dangerous 
 and terrible journey. Pope Paul V "received them with 
 
 129
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 the utmost state and ceremony." But Ireland was 
 never to see either of them again. Hugh O'Neill, the 
 chief soldier and coolest leader in Ireland since the 
 Norman invasion, lived in fruitless and melancholy 
 exile till 1616. He and O'Donnell, who died in 1608, 
 are buried in Rome. It was not for a generation that 
 another of this manful race, Owen Roe O'Neill, was to 
 attempt again to free Ireland by arms. 
 
 In the meantime Ireland lay prostrate. The plan 
 of conquest could not be perfected until every potential 
 rebel was actually and physically uprooted, women as 
 well as men. But in the reign of Elizabeth the Irish had 
 at least been permanently mown away in four Munster 
 counties, parts of Connacht, Leinster, Clare, and Tip- 
 perary. The accompanying military treatment had 
 cleared the path for judges and lawyers. Confisca- 
 tions were in order, and the implanting of Presby- 
 terians in Ulster. 
 
 130
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CONFISCATIONS 
 
 THE war after the war now began. With the 
 abdication of the Ulster chiefs and with the im- 
 possibility of further armed resistance, the Stuarts had 
 a comparatively free field. What they designed at 
 first was to put Ireland at ease in Zion. They wanted 
 to make Ireland wholly subordinate, but a real part 
 of the English system. The conquest of Ireland had 
 cost Elizabeth about three million pounds a vast sum 
 in 1600. The Stuarts saw nothing in that. They 
 needed revenue, especially from Ireland, and they sent 
 Wentworth to make Ireland economically sound, for 
 that reason. This enlightened selfishness benefited 
 Ireland. It is true that Wentworth hampered the 
 woolen industry, which England wanted to hog, but he 
 went out of his way and put his own money into 
 improving the very old and nation-wide linen industry. 
 These useful economic policies, however, were accom- 
 
 131
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 panied by a sinister social policy which in time wrecked 
 everything. 
 
 This policy can be defined in an Englishman's words. 
 Before Elizabeth died Francis Bacon had analyzed the 
 three fundamental difficulties with Ireland from the 
 point of view of England's policy. 
 
 "The first, the ambition and absoluteness of the 
 chiefs of the families and septs." 
 
 The chiefs, in other words, stood in the way of 
 English "ambition and absoluteness." 
 
 "The second, the licentious idleness of their kerns and 
 soldiers, that lie upon the country by cesses and such 
 like oppressions." 
 
 In brief, the soldiers. 
 
 "And the third, the barbarous laws, customs, their 
 brehon laws, habits of apparel, their poets or heralds 
 that enchant them in savage manners, and sundry 
 other dregs of barbarism and rebellion." 
 
 In other words, the Irish national culture and co- 
 hesion. 
 
 To root out the chiefs, the soldiers, and the national 
 culture was now the task to which English statecraft 
 applied itself. 
 
 132
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 -'n'T 
 
 2 
 
 It was, on the whole, not meant to be malicious. 
 Scotland and England were no longer embroiled, and 
 King James was no longer in need of Hugh O'Neill's 
 kerns or money. The royal mind could be given to the 
 business of settling a country which had long been a 
 distraction but which now was silent, leaderless, and 
 limp. 
 
 It was from Machiavelli's political philosophy that 
 England gleaned its principles at this juncture, not 
 from the King James version of the Bible. Machiavelli 
 counseled colonies. "A prince does not spend much on 
 colonies, for with little or no expense he can send them 
 out and keep them there, and he offends a minority 
 only of the citizens from whom he takes lands and 
 houses to give them to the new inhabitants ; and those 
 whom he offends, remaining poor and scattered, are 
 never able to injure him; whilst the rest being uninjured 
 are easily kept quiet, and at the same time are anx- 
 ious not to err for fear it should happen to them 
 as it has to those who have been despoiled. In con- 
 clusion, I say that these colonies are not costly, they 
 are more faithful, they injure less, and the injured, as 
 has been said, being poor and scattered, cannot hurt." 
 
 133
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 This suited James down to the ground. "From 
 Machiavelli," says Lord Acton, James "took the idea 
 of the state ruling itself, for its own ends, through ex- 
 perts, not depending on the forces of society or the 
 wishes of" common men. 
 
 James's experts agreed on the desirability of loyal 
 colonists. Blennerhasset wanted to crush the Irish 
 harder, on Machiavelli's theory that injury ought to be 
 of such a kind "that one does not stand in fear of 
 revenge." But Blennerhasset's recommendations were 
 considered excessive. Ireland had been decapitated. 
 It looked absolutely powerless to the advisers of James. 
 
 The first practical business in Ulster was to clear the 
 Irish out, the second to move the non-Irish in, the 
 third to let no Irish return except safe Irish, in safe 
 territory, at double the settlers' rent. 
 
 The legality of the clearance is interesting. The 
 crown had pardoned O'Neill and O'Donnell and had 
 at last made the Irish people legal "denizens" of their 
 own country. With the departure of O'Neill and O'- 
 Donnell it was held right and proper to attaint them. 
 This brought Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, and Armagh 
 into the receptive lap of the state^ O'Dogherty's suurt 
 
 134
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 of rebellion in 1607 cost him his life and whatever land 
 he had held in these counties. As to Fermanagh and 
 Cavan, Maguire and O'Reilly had also been "traitors," 
 which gave the crown its legal grip on two more 
 counties. 
 
 Unfortunately for British law, the judges had 
 played fast and loose. They had made some grants on 
 the English theory that the land belonged to the chief, 
 but in other cases on the Irish theory that the land 
 belonged to the clansmen: in Cavan and Fermanagh 
 they had clearly committed themselves in respect of 
 the clansmen as occupiers and freeholders. But to 
 make the Irish into tenants at will was now demanded 
 by the clearance policy, and it was necessary for 
 England to break its word. 
 
 The English took all of these six counties except 
 about one-eighth. Nearly three hundred Irish pro- 
 prietors were given English title to 586,000 acres in 
 view of their showing a right attitude toward the 
 crown. The remaining 3,000,000 acres went to Eng- 
 lishmen and Scotsmen; "laborers in the vineyard," as 
 the Welsh lawyer Sir John Davies termed them. 
 
 These laborers in the vineyard were recruited from 
 two nations and two classes but all from the state 
 Protestant or Scottish Presbyterian religion. The 
 
 135
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 large grants (of three thousand, two thousand, and 
 one thousand acres) were made to English and Scottish 
 
 Pre- Cromwellian 
 Confiscations 
 
 proprietors who were called undertakers because they 
 "undertook" to colonize, build castles, and defend the 
 
 136
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 territory as knights. (Hence "baronetcies" were first 
 devised by Bacon, to give honorific standing to under- 
 takers.) Next, these proprietors, including the Lon- 
 don companies, who got and still have the fatness of 
 Londonderry, brought in English settlers and Scot- 
 tish settlers of the sort that seemed required for the 
 job. 
 
 The English had a longer distance to transport their 
 cattle and equipment. The Scottish poured in so fast 
 that the ferrymen profiteered scandalously, pirates 
 came all the way from Barbary to raid them, and 
 only the efficient Dutch fleet made their passage safe 
 in the end. Even at high rents, many Irish Tenants 
 crept in. 
 
 Perhaps 40,000 Scottish came at once. They were 
 self-selected in part, but chosen where possible on the 
 ground that they had proved to be lively on the border 
 and would turn that liveliness in the Irish direction. 
 "The energetic scouring of the Scottish border," says 
 Henry Jones Ford, "contributed some elements to 
 Ulster plantation that did not make for peace and 
 order." Vagabonds, masterless men, wife-deserters, 
 and gentlemen sought by the law made rubble for the 
 
 137
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 basement of the Ulster edifice. "Divine Providence," 
 the Rev. Robert Blair declared in 1663, "sent over some 
 worthy persons for birth, education, and parts, yet 
 the most part were such as either poverty, scandalous 
 lives, or, at the best, adventurous seeking of better 
 accommodation, set forward that way." 
 
 "From Scotland came many, and from England not 
 a few," said the Rev. Andrew Stewart, "yet all of them 
 generally the scum of both nations, who, from debt, 
 or breaking and fleeing from justice, or seeking shelter, 
 came hither, hoping to be without fear of man's justice 
 in a land where there was nothing, or but little as yet, 
 of the fear of God." 
 
 Henry Jones Ford believes that these seventeenth 
 century accounts are exaggerated. 
 
 The result, at any rate, was the transfer of seven- 
 eighths of this Ulster property from Irish chiefs and 
 Irish clansmen. The new occupants were strong-handed 
 men, willing to act as despoilers and ready to defend 
 their spoils; men differentiated from the Irish by lan- 
 guage, religion, habit, and political allegiance. They 
 were better agriculturists than the fighting clansmen. 
 But their very technic brought Irishmen back to the 
 
 138
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 land at any cost and very soon inculcated in all Ulster 
 the old Irish custom of fixity of tenure or tenant right. 
 What the Irish Jailed to do was "to grow civil and 
 become English." 
 
 To make them English filled the colonizing mind with 
 zeal and a kind of religious glee. The Earl of Sussex 
 and Perrot were good governors, yes, but "they did 
 not abolish the Irish customs nor execute the law in 
 Irish countries, but suffered the people to worship 
 their barbarous lords and to remain utterly ignorant of 
 their duties to God and the king." So Sir John Davies. 
 
 God now has a place in state papers. The king's 
 amnesty, says Davies, immediately "bred such comfort 
 and security in the hearts of all men as thereupon en- 
 sued and the calmest and most universal peace that 
 ever was seen in Ireland." The law reigned everywhere. 
 "Which visitation, though it were somewhat distasteful 
 to the Irish lords, was sweet and most welcome to the 
 common people, who, albeit they were rude and bar- 
 barous, yet did they quickly apprehend" order and law. 
 The people in County Wicklow "are become civil and 
 quiet." The streams of the public justice water the 
 land, "without distinct or respect of persons." Sir 
 John Davies, himself secure in a big Irish estate, quotes 
 the Bible freely.
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Lord Morley, called "Honest John" in England, does 
 not in the least corroborate the Welshman : he sums up 
 the treatment of the O'Byrnes to which Davies refers. 
 If you want to understand "Irish turbulence," Morley 
 suggested, you "should read the story how the 
 O'Byrnes were by chicane, perjury, imprisonment, mar- 
 tial law, application of burning gridirons, branding- 
 irons, and strappado, cheated out of their lands." 
 
 The British justice that the O'Byrnes received came 
 from men who got their slice of the land. The fate of 
 the O'Byrnes indicates why O'Neill and O'Donnell 
 thought it better to leave while flesh was still on their 
 bones. 
 
 6 
 
 Wentworth, afterward Earl of Strafford, now came 
 over with his economic policy. He was a man of prac- 
 tical ability who stood no nonsense. He imported 
 Flemish weavers to teach the Irish the best linen manu- 
 facture. He improved flaxseed and corn-seed. On the 
 question of land proprietorship, however, he pursued 
 the English policy depress and degrade Irishmen of 
 property who won't become Englishmen. It had been 
 established that "no length of occupation could give 
 an Irishman any right to lands which had once been 
 in English hands." This had shaken out more natives 
 
 140
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 and brought grants to Nugent, the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, etc., in Longford, Wexford, Leitrim, Westmeath. 
 In their frantic eagerness to secure their titles, the 
 Dublin Anglo-Irish parliament voted a large payment 
 to the crown, on the understanding that they were now 
 to be secure. Wentworth went behind this agreement. 
 He invited the Galway grand jury (Anglo-Irish, of 
 course) to decide that certain titles were the crown's. 
 The jury refused. The sheriff went to jail, where he 
 died, and the jurors were fined 4000 each. A more 
 imaginative jury found a title for the crown in April, 
 1637. 
 
 The O'Brennans' territory in Kilkenny went to 
 Wandesforde, Wentworth's secretary. Wentworth 
 chuckled sardonically at the alacrity with which the 
 other landowners did anything and everything in order 
 to retain their means of livelihood. "I, that am of 
 gentle heart," he wrote, "am much taken with the 
 proceeding." 
 
 The Irish, meantime, were beginning to be acutely 
 conscious of their fate as a nation despoiled. We know 
 from Geoffrey Keating, whose Irish history was written 
 in this period (1610), how the English propaganda 
 of the period was revolting Irishmen. Keating wrote: 
 "I belong, according to my own extraction, to the Old 
 
 141
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Galls (foreigners) or the Anglo-Norman race. I have 
 seen that the natives of Ireland are maligned by every 
 modern Englishman who speaks of the country. . . . 
 There is no historian who has written upon Ireland 
 since the English invasion, who does not strive to vilify 
 and calumniate both Anglo-Irish colonists and the 
 Gaelic natives. We have proofs of this in the accounts 
 of the country given by Cambrensis, Spenser, Stani- 
 hurst, Hanmer, Camden, Barclay, Morison, Davies, 
 Campion, and all the writers of the New Galls [English 
 new in Ireland] who have treated of this country" But 
 Keating's contempt for the dung-beetles, as he called 
 the propagandists, was nothing to the growing exas- 
 peration and rage and despair of those who experienced 
 what has been termed "systematic iniquity." The 
 outcome was the insurrection of 1641. 
 
 7 
 
 In this insurrection, which extended into a war, 
 there was a serious conflict of motives. In the world 
 at large Rome strove to intensify and force Catholic 
 claims and England commenced to be intolerant. This 
 enlisted against England such divers groups as the 
 Scottish Covenanters, the Anglo-Irish Catholic aristoc- 
 racy, and the Irish common people. The Covenanters 
 
 142
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 were already in revolt in the Lowlands and soon put an 
 army into Ireland. But the question at once arose, 
 which England to fight, the Royalist England or the 
 Parliamentarians. The Parliamentarians were "Eng- 
 land" as much as the Royalists; they indeed believed 
 that, underneath, Charles was not only an absolutist 
 but a papist. Since the Thirty Years' War, really 
 religious war, was raging on the Continent, it was 
 natural that the religious passion should enter into 
 every phase of this crisscross conflict. 
 
 Rory O'Moore (an O'Moore of Leix), Richard 
 Plunkett, Sir Phelim O'Neill, a Maguire of Cavan, were 
 all engaged in planning an insurrection. Spain was to 
 help, and General Owen Roe O'Neill to come from 
 Flanders. This plot was complicated by the fact that 
 the Anglo-Irish gentry had their own general, Preston, 
 a Royalist, who later took the field. The crown 
 authorities in Ireland learned of the plot from a 
 drunken babbler (drunkenness now appears in Irish 
 chronicles), but before they could act the North was in 
 upheaval with a rising of the "injured and dispos- 
 sessed." Because the Scots were in arms against Eng- 
 land about the prayer-book, Sir Phelim O'Neill's peo- 
 ple picked no bone with the Scottish settlers. They 
 concentrated against the English settlers, and started 
 
 143
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 a clearance. At first there was little manslaughter, 
 though ruthless expulsion and cattle-driving. But the 
 Scottish settlers would not stand by. They joined 
 with the troops from Dublin to stop the insurrection. 
 What began as a clearance became a melee of disorder, 
 violence, and vengeance. It alarmed and enraged the 
 English in Ireland as nothing had before. It meant 
 that confiscation might not work. A great number of 
 English were killed by the Irish, in many cases under 
 ferocious and cruel circumstances worthy of Raleigh, 
 Gilbert, and Carew. The number used to be given as 
 300,000, but, under modern analysis, is believed to have 
 been 4029. To make matters worse, Sir Phelim 
 O'Neill, the leader of the insurrection, had cut a great 
 seal of Scotland and tacked it on to a forged "com- 
 mission" from Charles I, which was supposed to sanc- 
 tion a rising of the papists. The object of this dis- 
 honesty was to enlist the Anglo-Irish Catholics. O'Neill 
 eventually was captured and executed. He admitted 
 the forgery, and declined to accept a Puritan pardon 
 on condition that he assert the commission to be au- 
 thentic. 
 
 8 
 
 Now Owen Roe O'Neill arrived in Ireland "a good 
 soldier," according to Morley, "a man of valor and 
 
 144
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 character, the patriotic champion of Catholic Ireland." 
 He found, of course, that Gaelic Catholic Ireland 
 needed coordination above everything; coordination 
 with the Catholic Anglo-Irish and peace with the 
 Royalist Anglo-Irish. For this purpose the Confed- 
 eration of Kilkenny was called. It was virtually a 
 supreme council of the allied Irish, which lasted most 
 of the nine years. 
 
 In August, 1642, England split asunder. The Par- 
 liamentarians took the field against the Royalists. 
 This gave Owen Roe O'Neill and Preston and Ormonde 
 a common enemy in the Parliamentarians, but they 
 were not ready yet to make common cause. The Old 
 Irish were still "papist rebels" to the conservative 
 Ormonde: his idea of a sound alliance with the papists 
 was to whittle their aims. The terms of such compro- 
 mises were bitterly contested at Kilkenny, where the 
 allies met with much pomp. The papal nuncio Rinuc- 
 cini stood out for the Old Irish and complete freedom. 
 The Anglo-Irish landlords and the Anglo-Irish towns- 
 men had too much race prejudice to care for their 
 Old Irish rural confederates. The Parliamentarians, 
 meanwhile, had managed under Parsons, Coote, and 
 Lord Inchiquin to live up to the best traditions of 
 savage warfare. Lord Inchiquin, known as Murrough 
 
 145
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 the Burner, was an O'Brien of the old stock, now more 
 Protestant than the Protestants. "Nits will make 
 lice," was the principle on which Coote killed infants. 
 The Scottish Covenanters, at first shocked by Charles's 
 execution, at last joined Coote and company on the side 
 of the Parliamentarians. They came down through 
 Ulster. At Benburb (July, 1646), they were badly 
 beaten by Owen Roe O'Neill. Murrough the Burner 
 won in Munster, however, and massacred his own coun- 
 trywomen at Cashel. Ormonde, beaten by the parlia- 
 mentarians at Dublin, threw in the sponge. Later, 
 after Owen Roe had tried direct methods, Ormonde 
 manoeuvered the Old Irish out of the policies of the 
 Confederation. In 1649, on the last day of January, 
 Charles I was executed. In November, frustrated and 
 worn out, Owen Roe O'Neill died at Cavan. 
 
 9 
 
 This left the field in Ireland to Ormonde: he was 
 already working for young Charles II and the ascen- 
 dancy of his own class in Ireland. But Ormonde had 
 a tough nut to crack in Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 This brutal fanatic arrived in Ireland August, 1649. 
 He got to Drogheda in September. At Drogheda the 
 Ormonde soldiers, in part English and in part men 
 
 146
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 from Kilkenny, were stormed and beaten. Their com- 
 mander was disarmed and, "being in the heat of ac- 
 tion," as Cromwell expressed it, "I forbade them to 
 
 Oliver Cromwell 
 
 spare any that were in arms in the town." About two 
 thousand disarmed men were stabbed and slashed to 
 death. Eighty ran for their lives, to a steeple. 
 "Whereon I ordered the church steeple to be fired, when 
 one of them was heard to say, 'God damn me, God con- 
 
 147
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 found me; I burn, I burn!" Fifty were dragged from 
 the steeple and killed. Thirty burned to death. A 
 thousand more had taken refuge in the church. There, 
 on the previous Sunday, the crime of saying mass had 
 been perpetrated. These also were followed up and 
 killed. The friars were now sought for. "All the 
 friars," Oliver tells his parliament, "were knocked on 
 the head promiscuously but two. The enemy were 
 about three thousand strong in the town. I believe we 
 put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. 
 I do not think thirty of the whole number escaped with 
 their lives." 
 
 Cromwell had 10,000 Ironsides with him against 
 3,000. He lost sixty-four killed. 
 
 "It was the spirit of God," he told the parliament, 
 "who gave your men courage . . . and therewith this 
 happy success. And therefore it is good that God 
 alone have all the glory." 
 
 This is not the verdict of commentators like Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt. "It was the fighting of the Puritan 
 troops in the battle itself which won, and not their 
 ferocity after the battle," says Roosevelt, "and it was 
 Cromwell who not merely gave free rein to this ferocity 
 but who inspired it. Seemingly quarter would have 
 been freely given, had it not been for his commands. 
 
 148
 
 The Confiscation* 
 
 Neither in morals nor in policy were these slaughters 
 justifiable. Moreover it must be remembered that the 
 men slaughtered were entirely guiltless of the original 
 massacres in Ulster, more than a decade before. 
 
 "Drogheda and Wexford," Roosevelt adds, "are 
 black and terrible stains on Cromwell's character." 
 
 Cromwell's account of his behavior sounds as if he 
 were conforming to the current usages of war. What 
 he did at Drogheda and later was contrary to the 
 usages of Owen Roe O'Neill in the same period. O'Neill, 
 in 1642, according to Lecky, "expressed, in the most 
 emphatic manner, to his predecessor his horror of the 
 crimes that had been tolerated. He sent all the English 
 who were prisoners in his army safe to Dundalk. He 
 burnt many houses at Kinnard, as a punishment for 
 murders which had been committed on the English. 
 He openly declared that he would rather join the 
 English than permit such outrages to be unpunished. 
 He enforced a strict discipline among his riotous fol- 
 lowers, and showed himself, during the whole of his 
 too brief career, an eminently able and honorable 
 man." 
 
 The massacres of 1641, however, had inflamed Eng- 
 lish feeling to fever-heat. For nine months Cromwell 
 conducted his crusade of Jesus, who died that men may 
 
 149
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 live, in the familiar spirit of reprisal. Against the 
 Royalists, Anglo-Irish Catholics, and remnants of the 
 Old Irish, he waged his war. With his celebrated 
 guns and his big army he took Dundalk, Wexf ord, New 
 Ross, Kilkenny, Clonmel. At Clonmel, however, Crom- 
 well lost more than 1000 men in one assault, and disease 
 had eaten away hundreds of others. After Clonmel he 
 left Ireland. His General Ireton took Waterford, 
 Limerick, Athlone, and Galway, while Ormonde's 
 frightened garrisons gave up nearly all the Munster 
 towns. 
 
 In addition to his method of slaughtering men who 
 had laid down their arms, Cromwell deported a large 
 number of Irishmen and of boys and girls to the West 
 Indies and the American colonies. These were sold as 
 slaves. 
 
 10 
 
 The eleven years from the 1641 insurrection to the 
 peace of 1652 were enormously destructive. From a 
 population of 1,500,000, as estimated by Petty, slaugh- 
 ter and disease had brought the number down to 900,- 
 000. The extinction of these lives was accompanied 
 by a ravenous consumption and wilful destruction of 
 property. But more was to follow. A peace was dic- 
 
 150
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 tated by which both Irish and Anglo-Irish were to pay 
 for their conquest out of whatever land they had left. 
 In this remarkable settlement two strains of reasoning 
 were combined. One was the reasoning of the Round- 
 head who wished to punish the Anglo-Irish Royalist. 
 The other was the effect of a rabid fear and hatred 
 of the papist. Cromwell was a fanatical extremist of 
 that dangerous type which substitutes righteousness 
 for history. "Remember, ye hypocrites, Ireland was 
 once united to England," he shouted in a manifesto 
 answering the Catholic bishops. He talked in this 
 strain as only a profoundly ignorant and ferocious 
 righteous man can talk, declaring that Ireland had had 
 "equal justice from the laws." Thereupon he arranged 
 for more confiscations, his supporters and kindred hav- 
 ing subscribed for Irish land in advance of the con- 
 quest. 
 
 This Cromwellian settlement conveyed every acre in 
 Ireland. Unless men could show that they had been 
 right all the way through (anti-papist, anti-Royalist, 
 anti-Irish, but also pro-Parliamentarian and pro- 
 English), they lost their shirts. Cripples, invalids, in- 
 fants, old men, and old women who failed to prove 
 that they had borne arms for the Parliamentarians 
 all lost their land. Only twenty-six Catholic land- 
 
 151
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 lords in Ireland were able to qualify under terms that 
 so heavily taxed both honor and invention. These 
 white blackbirds proved their "constant good affec- 
 tion" and retained 80,000 acres. 
 
 Eleven million acres were confiscated in all. "Of 
 these," says W. F. T. Butler in his masterly book on 
 "Confiscation in Irish History," "about half a million 
 belonged to loyalist Protestants such as Lords Or- 
 monde, Inchiquin (who had quarreled with Parliamen- 
 tarians), and Roscommon. The other ten and a half 
 millions belonged in 1641 to Catholics." 
 
 Of the t eleven million acres confiscated, Catholic 
 landowners received back 1,100,000 in Connacht and 
 Clare. The remaining ten million acres half Ireland 
 were the spoils of war. 
 
 Half the forfeited lands were given to civil "adven- 
 turers" who had ad-ventured 360,000 for the sup- 
 pression of the rebellion. The other half went mainly 
 to Cromwell's officers and soldiers. These latter re- 
 ceived Irish land in lieu of back pay. Contractors 
 were included in this scheme of reparation, and seventy 
 eminent republicans helped themselves to 120,000 acres 
 "of some of the best lands." Cute men like Sir William 
 Petty did very well a few years later in buying out 
 bored or improvident settlers for a little ready money. 
 
 152
 
 The Confiscations 
 11 
 
 "To hell or Connacht" was a hope, not an achieve^ 
 ment. Mr. Butler points out that the first men 
 threatened with transplantation were those Scottish 
 denizens of Down and Antrim who had bought land 
 there from Montgomery and Hamilton. (Down and 
 Antrim had never been confiscated. The crows that fol- 
 lowed the plow of confiscation got good pickings, but 
 Down and Antrim were private pickings.) But these 
 Ulster Covenanters escaped, dangerous as their prox- 
 imity to Scotland was felt to be. And most of the 
 unfree Irish escaped. These men, at the bottom of 
 the Gaelic social system, were now at the bottom of 
 the new system. Who else were to hew wood and draw 
 water for the New English landholders ? A tremendous 
 plea went up for "poor laborers, simple creatures." 
 In the end, "only landowners, their families, and such 
 of their tenants as chose to accompany them were 
 forced to move into Connacht or Clare." "In all," 
 Mr. Butler computes, "there were 1073 landlords and 
 nearly 27,000 persons" driven from Munster and Lein- 
 ster to new lands. The people who suffered most were 
 the chiefs and free clansmen who had retained half 
 Ireland up to Cromwell's time. About six thousand 
 
 153
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Catholic landowners who had established their titles 
 were now debased in the social scale by being entirely 
 deprived of lands. 
 
 The serfs had to endure it, but not the fighting Irish 
 or the Catholic townsmen of Anglo-Irish stock. More 
 than thirty thousand of the population, depleting the 
 trading towns of Waterford, Galway, and Kilkenny in 
 particular, went out of Ireland. Countless Irishmen 
 enlisted in the armies of France and Spain. 
 
 When Charles II came back the lingering gentry 
 cheered up. The lawyers got a stupendous crop of 
 clients. But this was a test of cleverness and sophisti- 
 cation in which the people who recovered their estates 
 were Ormonde, Clancarthy, Clanrickard. "The lesser 
 men," Mr. Butler assures us, "were deprived of every- 
 thing." MacCarthy, O'Sullivan Bere, Viscount Ma- 
 gennis of Iveagh, the O'Conor Don they "lost every 
 acre." "There is something curiously modern about 
 all these proceedings," Mr. Butler drily observes. "On 
 the one side we have the credulous optimism of the Irish, 
 their idea that logic and right should override might, 
 their belief in the justice of the cause leading them to 
 ask for the unattainable, their inability to realize the 
 dislike with which they were regarded by all parties in 
 England, their failure to perceive that in the minds 
 
 154
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 of Englishmen the interests of England outweighed all 
 other considerations, their want of union, the selfish- 
 ness of their great men, in other words a complete ab- 
 sence of political insight and ability. 
 
 "On the other side there is the grim determination to 
 make no concession without a struggle, the threat in 
 the last resort of the sword, the appeal to race hatred 
 and religious prejudice, the amazing dishonesty of indi- 
 viduals seeking for place and profit." 
 
 tyirf V. noHnt, 
 
 12 
 
 The English, in short, had won. Out of the 1,100,- 
 000 in Petty's estimate, 600,000 papists were living in 
 one-room hovels without any hearth. "If you value 
 the people who have been destroyed in Ireland as Slaves 
 and Negroes are usually rated," says the pragmatic 
 Petty, "the value of the people lost will be 10,335,- 
 000." Petty's tone is unmistakable; the tone of com- 
 placent victory. Trinity College, founded by Eliza- 
 beth to convert the papist, is flourishing. So is the es- 
 tablished church. But the Catholics are already half- 
 fed, mangy, dingy, pulling the devil by the tail. Old 
 bores tell the young people about "the flight of the 
 earls." The young yawn, partly from fatigue, partly 
 from hunger. The women of the family listen to great 
 
 155
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 talk about the Restoration and wonder in secret what 
 is in the cupboard half a candle, perhaps, a cracked 
 pitcher, a broken rosary beads, a few pages of a torn 
 genealogy. Those were great times, but now who is 
 here? A wild, shy retainer who creeps to his corner 
 without a word, a seannachy with gray beard who is 
 like a violin with one string, a hunted priest with hollow 
 eyes in a frieze mantle, a purple-faced ex-chief who used 
 to have six thousand acres in Kerry these are all 
 that come to windy rooms where the Restoration of big 
 estates is cogged and conjured. There is "credulous 
 optimism," a bottle of it, right by the man who has 
 lived from 1610 to 1690, who has remembered well the 
 day when the New Englishman arrived at Liss : he went 
 to the roof of the castle and said, yes, this was now his 
 property, as far as the eye could reach. That hap- 
 pened not to one, but to every Catholic proprietor. 
 It tore a thousand heart-strings. And our dreary 
 friend with red-rimmed eyes had been born when the 
 scorpions and whips of Elizabeth still left their welts. 
 He had lived through Wentworth's jolly assizes; had 
 watched the hand of confiscation creep over one prov- 
 ince, then another; had heard the rumors of Catholic 
 jacquerie, of Coote and Murrough the Burner; had 
 learned that Sir James Craig the undertaker was busy 
 
 156
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 defending his rights. He had sat inside the circle of 
 Cromwell's scourge, and harbored the breathless and 
 the hunted. They had been warm and kind people, 
 these optimistic Irish. The Normans had mingled 
 with them, come to understand and unite with them. 
 But now this debased man with a few debased coins 
 had to go among the jackals of the law in London. 
 People would shirk him, and his melancholy history. 
 He would not know the right lawyer, or the right minis- 
 ter, or the right minister's mistress. His Gaelic would 
 amuse Mr. Smithkins. He would stoop to bribe the 
 wrong people. He would, like Pitt, get drunk. And 
 he would brag and boast, and perhaps brawl, like Cap- 
 tain Costigan. A dingy history, a damp ruin of a 
 history, ending with a person called Petty who now 
 owns the very beautiful land of Kenmare. 
 
 13 
 
 Well, there is one more shake of the dice, even after 
 Oliver Plunkett has been tried, tortured, and executed 
 for a non-existent Popish Plot, in 1681. 
 
 That shake of the dice is on an exposed card, which 
 is James II, against a concealed card, William. James 
 is a Catholic king at last. He makes Tyrconnel head 
 of his Irish Government, who favors the Catholics. 
 
 157
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 James is safe enough on the throne of England till he 
 breeds an heir. Then the English, not relishing a 
 renewal of political seasickness, send for the solid 
 Dutchman, William III. 
 
 A parliament is held in Dublin in 1689. It affirms 
 tolerance to the Protestants but takes back the land. 
 This is inflammatory. But the Catholic Irish are now 
 pawns in a great European game. The French fleet 
 under Tourville brilliantly defeats the combined Dutch 
 and English at Beachy Head. James comes to Ireland. 
 With a French army and Ormonde's Irish and the most 
 militaristic of French advisers (who want to massacre 
 all the Protestants, to start with), he meets William 
 and his Dutch and his Danish and his Scottish at the 
 battle of the Boyne. 
 
 On July 1, 1691, "the battle of the Boyne was won, 
 not in the legendary manner, by William, with his 
 sword in his left hand, or Schomberg, plunging into the 
 river to meet a soldier's death, but by the younger 
 Schomberg, who crossed higher and outflanked the 
 French. Tourville's victory, after that, was entirely 
 useless. William offered an amnesty, which was frus- 
 trated by the English hunger for Irish estates." So, 
 Lord Acton. 
 
 In the previous fighting at Londonderry, against the 
 158
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 Jacobite army, the 'prentice boys and Protestant set- 
 tlers had stood siege magnificently. Now Limerick was 
 to repulse William, with Patrick Sarsfield as the bril- 
 
 iLlMMi^ 
 
 
 .bi 
 
 9UIB 
 
 
 
 .b 
 
 Patrick Sarsfield 
 
 si j arfi 
 
 mniora 
 
 
 liant Irish figure. Sarsfield's courage and daring en- 
 liven the somber picture. But the battle of Aughrim, 
 where the French general St. Ruth was killed at a 
 crucial moment, turned the tide against absolutism, 
 James, Louis XIV and the Irish. 
 
 159
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 14 
 
 This ended the Stuarts. Beneath the drums that 
 tieat Sarsfield's honorable exit from Limerick one 
 listened in vain for the breathing of the Irish nation. 
 Englishmen had not only conquered Ireland but had 
 removed from it everything that seemed worth having. 
 Was anything left? A flicker of culture, and the 
 Catholic religion these were allowed to remain, by 
 the treaty of Limerick. 
 
 So the history of the seventeenth century limps to 
 a close. It began in a lurid, bloody dawn. A gray 
 morning followed, which was almost steady. But 
 clouds gathered storm for the fierce noonday outbursts 
 of 1641. For eleven years thereafter the skies were 
 torn, the earth deluged, the country convulsed and 
 desolated. After Cromwell, whose bloodshot eye saw 
 the Irish as papist monsters, the afternoon was livid. 
 With the restoration of the Stuarts, there came a 
 quiver of watery sunlight, a thin flush of rose for a 
 few years of attempted and apprehensive reconstruc- 
 tion. Then James II brought Ireland his lost cause, 
 and drew on her the ugly, brutal wrenching tornado 
 of the Williamite wars. Night at last descends. It is 
 
 160
 
 The Confiscations 
 
 a night of such blackness, cold, and horror that it re- 
 minds one only of a no-man's-land in which two bands 
 of crouching men are at work in the blackness ; one to 
 kill the wounded, the other to rob the dead. 
 
 - 
 
 .lyqaq 
 >li{ orii lonofl oi h-'ti.l , 
 
 161
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ABYSS 
 1 
 
 THE native Irish were now broken, disorganized, 
 and underfoot. When Sarsfield had capitulated 
 at Limerick a treaty had been formally signed by 
 which the Catholics should be safe from further perse- 
 cution; and the Catholics meant five-sevenths of the 
 people. "Both sides," says the English historian Green, 
 "were, of course, well aware that such a treaty was 
 merely waste paper, for Ginkel had no power to con- 
 clude it, nor had the Irish lords justice.'* The treaty 
 was waste paper, to the English. William, a disbeliever 
 in persecution, tried to honor the pledges that had 
 been made to the Irish. But he was king on suffer- 
 ance: the parliaments of England and Anglo-Ireland 
 were too strong for him. Public opinion was the new 
 ruler in England, and at the moment public opinion 
 was cowardly, vindictive, and resentful. 
 
 Out of these moods came the penal laws. These 
 162
 
 The Abyss 
 
 were laws intended to finish the work which England 
 had begun in the reign of Henry VIII. From 1550 to 
 1700, as the English viewed it, the Irish had shown a 
 diabolic spirit. First, they were foreign: they spoke 
 Gaelic, had a strange land system, wore queer clothes, 
 resisted when attacked, were rustic and yet not con- 
 vinced of their inferiority. 
 
 Henry VIII had tried to solve their "problem" 
 (the problem, that is, of conquering them) by making 
 their chiefs into earls and giving them a parchment 
 title to the land which their kinsmen had always held. 
 This ignored the claims of the sub-chiefs and their ad- 
 herents. The work of forcing all these hot-headed 
 people to take the "solution" made in London for Eng- 
 lish convenience was too much for English temper. 
 When England added a state church to the rest of its 
 superiorities, it developed a cold anger toward Ireland 
 and did not take long to discover a moral basis for 
 that anger. 
 
 From the age of Elizabeth we derive the authorized 
 English version of Irish character. By the time the 
 war was over it was already clear to the English that 
 the Irish were (1) barbarous, (2) lawless, (3) treach- 
 erous, (4) malicious. In other words, the enemy. At 
 this very time, unluckily, the English had learnt how 
 
 163
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 to deal with the enemy in savage lands. They saw in 
 Ireland another America, peopled by equally wicked 
 aborigines, and they thought it perfectly proper to 
 
 FROM A STAtUE BY HEINRlCH BAUCKE, PRESENTED 6V 
 KAI4BR WILHeLM TO CN&CANO IN (O7. 
 
 seize their possessions. The insurrection of 1641 was, 
 in their view, the attempt of red Indians to massacre 
 white people. Hence the popish, Gaelic-speaking, 
 blanket-wearing Irishman became an object of moral 
 
 164
 
 The Abyss 
 
 reprehension. A good Irishman was a dead Irishman. 
 A natural desire for easy profit and "honest graft" 
 heightened this feeling. Cromwell saw the Irish as 
 hardly human : he massacred them with a complete con- 
 viction of outraged Puritan ideals, half hoping that 
 his use of force might drive out the devil. But the 
 devil in the Irish combined with the devil in the Stuarts 
 and Jacobites. When James II was in power he had 
 the reckless audacity to appoint Tyrconnel as viceroy, 
 whose friendliness to Catholics revived every fear of 
 the English settlers. The wickedness of this proced- 
 ure was evident. Whatever terms were agreed upon 
 at Limerick, English-in-Ireland, hereafter to be called 
 the Ascendancy, had no use for them. Nothing ap- 
 peared more natural, in the flush of victory, than to 
 devise a succession of laws which would humiliate, in- 
 jure, and forever weaken the remnants of the Irish 
 nation. 
 
 What resulted, according to Green, was a hundred 
 years of "the most terrible legal tyranny under which 
 a nation has ever groaned." 
 
 The penal laws were based on the fixed Catholicism 
 of the common Irish. Accepting Catholicism as a 
 
 165
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 superstitious and idolatrous practice to which the Irish 
 were too ignorant not to cling, the men who had bene- 
 fited by confiscation now proceeded to put the finishing 
 touches to the conquest. They first limited the number 
 of priests to eleven hundred, and banished the bishops 
 who might ordain successors. They illegalized mass, 
 except in the case of registered priests. Having thus 
 endeared the church to the common Irish, they turned 
 their attention to the laymen. 
 
 The Irish Catholic was excluded from the vote, from 
 municipal and parliamentary offices, from even sitting 
 in the gallery of the parliament. He was not allowed 
 to become a barrister or solicitor, a sheriff or a con- 
 stable. He was prohibited from residing in either 
 Limerick or Galway. He was compelled to pay special 
 and extra taxes. He was not allowed to carry arms, 
 make arms, sell them, or join the army. He was for- 
 bidden to print books or newspapers, to take more than 
 two apprentices in any trade except linen manufacture, 
 or to become an apprentice in any trade to any 
 Protestant. 
 
 He was forbidden to teach school. He was forbid- 
 den to attend Catholic school or college. He was for- 
 bidden to send his children abroad to school or college. 
 
 He was not allowed to lease land for more than 
 166
 
 The Abyss 
 
 thirty-one years, or to make more than a certain profit 
 on leased land, or to lend money on land. He was for- 
 bidden, under automatic penalties as regarded prop- 
 erty, to marry a Protestant. He was forbidden to 
 leave his land to his eldest son. His eldest son could 
 inherit all the land by turning Protestant: otherwise 
 the land was to be split up among all the sons. 
 
 Any child who turned Protestant could escape his 
 parents' custody and obtain an allowance. Any eldest 
 son who turned Protestant could immediately become 
 the proprietor of the family estate, making his father 
 a life-tenant. A wife who turned Protestant could re- 
 ceive an allowance and a legal separation. Children 
 left without parents were given to a Protestant guard- 
 ian to be brought up as Protestants. 
 
 No Catholic could own a horse worth more than 5, 
 or keep a horse for which a Protestant tendered him 5. 
 
 These laws were not for the exclusive benefit of the 
 Catholics. The nonconformists were included in some 
 of them. The ground was now laid for the republican- 
 ism of Northeast Ulster, and for the fellow-feeling, 
 sympathy, and magnanimity which the Quakers have 
 so steadily manifested toward Ireland. 
 
 These penal laws, it is important to note, were 
 religious but also deftly economic. They were well- 
 
 167
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 planned. Their object was to deprive the native Irish 
 of capital, to drive them into the position of agricul- 
 tural serfs and there give them the alternative of being 
 endlessly sweated or of adopting the lowest possible 
 standard of life. The Irish, need it be said, tried it 
 both ways. When they worked themselves to the bone 
 for their English masters, they were regarded as harm- 
 less poor slaves occupying the station to which it had 
 pleased a Protestant God to call them. When they 
 declined to slave, they were called lazy, idle, shiftless, 
 dirty, and drunken. English agriculturists like Arthur 
 Young pointed out with much sagacity that it was 
 slovenly of them to raise no crops except potatoes, 
 foolish of them to drink cheap whisky, stupid of them 
 to raise a houseful of children. All of these observa- 
 tions were important and edifying, and have been 
 quoted ever since by innumerable writers who never 
 tried the experiment of raising a family on sixpence 
 
 a day. 
 
 3 
 
 British justice, at any rate, was in the saddle. The 
 hunt was on, and the hounds hot after the Irish for 
 three generations. The black art of persecution can 
 only be applied, however, at the price of public in- 
 famy; and we witness the enslavement of the common 
 
 168
 
 The Abyss 
 
 Irish going hand in hand with the corroding of the 
 Anglo-Irish character. No one can dispute the break- 
 down of the Gaelic population. Equally no one can 
 dispute the rottenness of the Protestant Ascendancy. 
 What is commonly called Irish patriotism in this period 
 is mainly the effort of this Protestant Ascendancy to 
 purge itself. The names of Molyneux, Swift, Berkeley, 
 Lucas, Flood, Charlemont, Grattan are associated with 
 the Irish nation in the eighteenth century. But these 
 men belong to Ireland scarcely more than Congreve, 
 Goldsmith, Burke, Sterne or Sheridan. One of them, 
 Grattan, put political resurrection in a single line: 
 "The Irish Protestant could never be free till the Irish 
 Catholic had ceased to be a slave." But when the 
 Irish Catholic gave signs of ceasing to be a slave, Pitt 
 and British policy tore the flimsy independence of the 
 Anglo-Irish to shreds, and rammed both slaves and 
 slaveholders into the political internment-camp called 
 the Union. 
 
 Jonathan Swift, a disillusioned man with no senti- 
 mentality and a tortured heart, was compelled to spend 
 his days in penal Ireland. He has left his picture of 
 the common people after one generation of penal laws. 
 
 "It is a melancholy object to those who walk through 
 this great town or travel in the country," he wrote 
 
 169
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 from Dublin in 1729, "when they see the streets, the 
 roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the 
 female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all 
 in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. 
 These mothers, instead of being able to work for their 
 honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time 
 in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants, 
 who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of 
 work, or leave their dear native country to fight for 
 the pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the 
 Barbadoes." 
 
 Why not, says Swift in savage irony, stew, roast, 
 bake, or boil these superfluous babies? They would 
 make succulent food. 
 
 The old, he declares, are taken care of. "It is very 
 well known that they are every day dying and rotting 
 by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, as fast as 
 can be reasonably expected. And as to the young 
 laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they 
 cannot get work, and consequently pine away from 
 want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time 
 they are accidentally hired to common labor, they 
 have not strength to perform it ; and thus the country 
 and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to 
 come." Destroy the babies, then, and the Irish prob- 
 
 170
 
 The Abyss 
 
 lem is solved. "For first, as I have already observed, 
 it would greatly lessen the number of papists, with 
 whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal 
 breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous 
 enemies; and who stay at home on purpose to deliver 
 the kingdom to the pretender, hoping to take their 
 advantage by the absence [absenteeism] of so many 
 good Protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their 
 country than stay at home and pay tithes against 
 their conscience to an episcopal curate." 
 
 Swift's irony is sound history. It enables us, even 
 without the aid of innumerable documents that sup- 
 port it, to see the abominable servitude to which the 
 Irish are reduced. 
 
 Some hundreds of thousands of Irishmen are pouring 
 to the Continent, to fight as willing mercenaries in the 
 ranks of France, Austria, and Spain. From these 
 refugees came the famous Irish Brigade. Count 
 Thomas Arthur Lally, Major O'Mahony, the Due 
 de Feltre, General O'Meara, Prime Minister Wall 
 in Spain, General Peter Lacy in Russia, Field-Marshal 
 Lacy in Austria, John Barry of the American navy, 
 
 171
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 O'Higgins of Chile these were some of the Irish flung 
 far from Ireland. 
 
 Those who remain at home have sunk in the social 
 scale. Most Irishmen now have the rank of day- 
 laborers. They live in mud huts on potatoes, skim 
 milk, or water. They are liable to typhus and famine. 
 A great famine kills 150,000 in 1740-41. Yet they 
 breed fast, and as the young grow up they become 
 cottiers ; men who pay a high rent for a tiny holding, 
 on which they hope to keep a cow or two, a pig, a few 
 ridges of potatoes. They work for their landlord as 
 well as pay rent, and if they displease him, he (or more 
 likely his agent) evicts them at will. The land, for 
 which they are not educated, is the main Irish occupa- 
 tion. A pipeful of tobacco is the one luxury they per- 
 mit themselves. They live in rags, afraid of the land- 
 agent's estimating eye, the tithe-collector who is en- 
 titled to their Catholic pennies for the established 
 church, the gombeen-man who lends them money for 
 the frequent funeral, the hearth-money man who collects 
 their taxes though they have no hearth. Their furni- 
 ture is a black pot, a basin, a wooden stool, one cup 
 or perhaps two, a heap of straw for a bedstead. The 
 manure-pile in front of their door is filthy. To keep 
 clean, or to keep the children clean, is literally impos- 
 
 172
 
 The Abyss 
 
 sible, and yet kind ladies already exist who want them 
 to be clean and energetic and self-respecting and 
 Protestant. But most of the gentry are content to 
 ride galloping by, to live a life which centers around 
 the claret-bottle and the punch-bowl, dueling and gam- 
 ing, to sit as the stern magistrate on the bench and 
 order men and women flogged for trivialities, to avoid 
 fair dealing as weakness, and to regard mercy as 
 treason. 
 
 We may leave the native Irish out of history for 
 three generations. Many of them have traditions to 
 which they adhere, despite the fate of serfs. They 
 have enough spirit left to compose religious songs and 
 love-songs in Gaelic. The blackbird does not know of 
 the penal laws, and an Irish heart lifts to the voice of 
 the blackbird. The sun is not Protestant or Catholic, 
 and it shines for youth in spite of everything. Ire- 
 land, the Dark Rosaleen, Roseen Dhu, is the object of 
 intense yearning and pity and love. Men still dream 
 of freeing Ireland. The hedge schoolmaster shambles 
 into being. Children in bare feet kneel in the protected 
 corner of thick hedgerows, and pluck a daisy or a 
 dandelion with straying hand while their eyes follow 
 the earnest man who teaches them their Latin. And, 
 finally, there is the priest or the hunted bishop. There 
 
 173
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 are humble homes, hovels even, in which the secret net- 
 work of religious life is woven. The priest is becom- 
 ing the leader, the counselor, the consoler. He is 
 threatened by law with the branding-iron. He risks 
 everything to shepherd his people. And upon him 
 the people concentrate the loyalty in which England 
 alone finds them deficient, the loyalty which is of all 
 loyalties the strongest the loyalty of the oppressed. 
 
 There was a certain joy in whipping the Irish be- 
 cause the Protestants had been ill-treated in France; 
 it was easier than whipping the French themselves. A 
 number of valuable by-products, in addition, seemed to 
 be promised by persecution. There was a career for 
 spies, for informers, for Charter School teachers, for 
 priest-hunters. There was a great deal of rack-rent, 
 to be spent at Bath and in London ; and a good living 
 to be made by rent-rackers and men who "farm" the 
 tithes. The wounds of Ireland attracted many flies. 
 
 But these were small advantages, and the Anglo- 
 Irish governing class of the eighteenth century had by 
 no means an easy time. They represented not only 
 the landed interest and church interest of Ireland but 
 the mercantile interest; and this was the era of that 
 
 174
 
 The Abyss 
 
 famous English mercantile theory by which an excess 
 of manufactured imports was regarded as the road to 
 ruin. It was England, the English parliament, which 
 took the mercantile theory so seriously, which looked 
 on Anglo-Irish manufactures with jealous apprehen- 
 sion, which looked on the colonies as the God-given 
 dumping-ground of its own products, and, in general, 
 spread both elbows on the table and circled with eager 
 arm the heaping platter of industrialism. 
 
 Nothing could have been worse for Anglo-Ireland. 
 For early in the eighteenth century the English parlia- 
 ment, having completely eliminated the native Irish as 
 citizens, took a severe tone toward the Anglo-Irish 
 parliament in Dublin. By Poynings* Law (1495) the 
 Norman-Irish had themselves agreed that the assent 
 of the English privy council must be procured before 
 any bill could be introduced into the Irish parliament. 
 They had also agreed that laws made by the English 
 parliament could be applied to Ireland. But it sur- 
 prised and pained the inheritors of this colonial states- 
 manship to find that, in the day of their triumph over 
 the native Irish, they were themselves to be curtailed. 
 The English parliament had on previous occasions 
 brutally prohibited the export of Irish cattle and Irish 
 provisions. Now they set out to destroy Ireland's 
 
 175
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 chief textile industry. They forbade the export of 
 woolens. 
 
 This was an act of tyranny for which the Anglo- 
 Irish were neither socially nor constitutionally pre- 
 pared. What, after all, was their status? "Though 
 English to the Irish," said a Norman, "we are as Irish 
 to the English." This was still their status in the 
 days of George I. When Ormonde had gone about im- 
 proving Irish business in 1665 importing Huguenots 
 and other Continentals to make lace, linen, gloves, and 
 glass he had done so with a shrewd idea of the proper 
 Anglo-Irish attitude. "If it prove or be thought that 
 Ireland's being above water hurts England, some in- 
 vention must be found to sink it." But this trade 
 policy did not suit the Protestant bourgeoisie. The 
 iron-works were continued until all the Irish forests 
 were cut down for fire-wood ; that was all right, because 
 the Anglo-Irish feared the "wood kerns" or wandering 
 soldiers who prowled in the shade. But what about 
 prohibitions that were an obsequious answer to the pro- 
 tests of English merchants ? And Scottish merchants ? 
 What about the Navigation Acts, which crippled the 
 Irish carrying-trade? What about a law that did not 
 allow the Irish to export glass, or to import glass 
 except from England? What about a law that pre- 
 176
 
 The Abyss 
 
 vented Ireland trading with the colonies, that put a 
 duty on salt needed for the fisheries, and on coal, 
 needed for everything? 
 
 The struggle of Irish trade to establish itself in the 
 eighteenth century against the commercial restrictions 
 of England is best to be understood by remembering 
 the Boston Tea-Party. Ireland, or rather Anglo-Ire- 
 land, could have had a similar tea-party once a week. 
 
 But the Anglo-Irish parliament had not only no 
 standing in the eyes of constitutional lawyers; it was 
 hopelessly corrupt within. Of its 300 members, 172 
 were nominated. Of these 172, half were owned by 
 the Government, half as private property with a cash 
 price on them. The others were elected by something 
 not remotely resembling a modern popular election. 
 
 Till the middle of the century this corrupt little 
 body was run in the "English interest." "Burgundy, 
 closeting, and palaver" were later employed, but the 
 greatest victory scored was simply the transfer of the 
 most powerful boss from England to a small inside 
 group of Anglo-Irishmen. 
 
 The tail-light of history has not yet illuminated 
 every crevice of these packed, non-representative as- 
 
 177
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 semblies; but we know enough to say: foul. And yet 
 Swift's voice was raised as early as 1720 to urge the 
 Anglo-Irish to behave as freemen. He coined a fa- 
 mous phrase: "In reason all government without the 
 consent of the governed is the very definition of slav- 
 ery. . . . The remedy is wholly in your own hands, and 
 therefore I have digressed a little in order to refresh 
 and continue the spirit so reasonably raised among 
 you, and to let you see that by the laws of God, of 
 nature, of nations, and of your country, you are, and 
 you ought to be, as free a people as your brethren in 
 England." 
 
 Carpet-baggers, however, are not "of nature" free. 
 The best men in Anglo-Ireland did not go so far as to 
 call their associates carpet-baggers. They were, how- 
 ever, sincere in their desire for reform; they wanted a 
 definite term put to the life of a parliament, control of 
 the money-bills, an abolition of sinecures, a rescinding 
 of Poynings* Law, control of the militia, a tax on 
 absentees. It revolted them to be treated as inferiors, 
 to be run from England, by England, for England, at 
 the cost of so much per vote. They never learned to 
 like the manner in which their Majesties unloaded on 
 Ireland the more subtle and intimate obligations which 
 the English parliament brutally cold-shouldered. 
 
 178
 
 The Abyss 
 
 Lecky enumerates these items for which Ireland had 
 to pay: "The Duke of St. Albans, the bastard son of 
 Charles II, enjoyed an Irish pension of 800 a year; 
 Catherine Sedley, the mistress of James II, had another 
 of 5000 a year. William III bestowed confiscated 
 lands, exceeding an English county in extent, on his 
 Dutch favorites, Portland and Albemarle, and a con- 
 siderable estate on his former mistress, Elizabeth Vil- 
 liers. The Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of 
 Darlington, the two mistresses of George I, had pen- 
 sions of the united annual value of 5000. Lady 
 Walsingham, the daughter of the Duchess of Kendal, 
 had an Irish pension of 1500. Lady Howe, the 
 daughter of Lady Darlington, had a pension of 500. 
 Madame de Walmoden, one of the mistresses of George 
 II, had an Irish pension of 3000. The queen dowager 
 of Prussia, sister of George II, Count Bernsdorff, who 
 was a prominent German politician under George I, 
 and a number of less-noted German names may be 
 found on the Irish pension list." 
 
 The Anglo-Irish parliament is an instructive spec- 
 tacle. If topics arose to excite public opinion the 
 debasement of the currency if not the debasement of 
 the Catholics, the suppression of the woolen industry 
 if not the suppression of dissenters there immediately 
 
 179
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 was revealed the morbid political condition of the 
 country. On what moral principle could the Anglo- 
 Irish rally their opposition to the English conqueror? 
 Swift said, "the consent of the governed." But Swift 
 was too keen a mind to attempt to limit this principle 
 to the Ascendancy. In resenting the fact that Eng- 
 land could prohibit Irish goods while Ireland was not 
 free to retaliate, Swift and the honest men who rea- 
 soned with him were in the way of ceasing to be hy- 
 phenated and definitely becoming nationalist Irishmen. 
 It was thus, in fact, that Protestant nationalism 
 started, as a natural outcome of humane conviction 
 and philanthropy. But in the sturdy refusal of such 
 men to call themselves Englishmen so long as they 
 were treated as colonials, there was as yet only a nega- 
 tive nationalism. The Anglo-Irish had a long way to 
 go before they became really Irish. 
 
 The history of the eighteenth century is, in great 
 measure, the failure of this Anglo-Irish parliament to 
 become national. Out of their local ascendancy the 
 meaner of the Anglo-Irish were content with the plums 
 of bribery. The nobler of the Anglo-Irish hated brib- 
 ery and the bribed. They saw that Ireland must have 
 
 180
 
 The Abyss 
 
 autonomy, and they risked a great deal to secure it. 
 But it was only the few who perceived that no parlia- 
 ment could be free unless it were representative, and 
 
 
 Henry G rattan 
 
 no parliament could be representative unless it were 
 popular it was only these few who undertook the real 
 task that confronted an Irish parliament. That task, 
 of course, was to resurrect the Irish nation. It meant 
 renouncing ascendancy and reversing the penal code. 
 
 181
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 It meant breaking with England on its policy of im- 
 perialism. This was more than the Anglo-Irish de- 
 sired. They wanted to be democratic ; they also wanted 
 to be on top. They wanted to be liberal; they also 
 wanted to be safe. Grattan came nearer than any one 
 else to seeing the need for a united Ireland, but Grat- 
 tan's toleration of the Catholics was based on the 
 hypothesis that the Catholics would always be as loyal 
 as himself. 
 
 The Ascendancy had a plainer, rougher instinct for 
 the facts. They knew that the Catholics could not be 
 "conciliated." The native Irish wanted Ireland: to 
 share Ireland on an equality with the Irish was more 
 than these Anglo-Irish squireens could stand. If the 
 placemen were displaced, the corruptionists expelled, 
 the rotten boroughs fumigated, the result must neces- 
 sarily be to admit the democratic principle and flood 
 the parliament with Catholic Irish. This could not 
 be. And because it was socially impossible Pitt found 
 inside Grattan's parliament the seeds of corruption 
 which he was to ripen with such art and care. The 
 Act of Union was, of course, infamously manipulated. 
 Honest policies do not require such manipulation. But 
 it was the racial bigotry of the Anglo-Irish parliament 
 which made it in the end so easy to destroy. 
 
 182
 
 
 The Abyss 
 
 It had, however, British grandiloquence. Before it 
 was destroyed a great many grand gestures were to be 
 made in College Green and much rhetoric was to be 
 expended. The bull-baiting and cock-fighting of the 
 squireens were nothing to the denunciation of tyrants 
 and oppressors which was to entertain the parliament. 
 And because the Catholic native was already meek and 
 debilitated, the penal laws were nobly relaxed. A 
 Catholic was allowed to rent a bog for sixty-one years 
 provided it was a mile from a town, more than four 
 feet deep, etc. An innocuous Catholic Committee was 
 tolerated about the middle of the century. 
 
 8 
 
 Very different were the Whiteboys, who sprang into 
 existence in the South. The commons which had pre- 
 viously been used by the poor people for grazing had 
 been forcibly enclosed, and as a result small bands of 
 men who wore their shirts outside their coats (hence 
 Whiteboys) roamed through the country threatening 
 the obnoxious landowners, sometimes beating and 
 cruelly injuring them. This was the beginning of the 
 peasant revolts. In the North a serious agrarian war 
 was also being waged. Lord Donegal, the descendant 
 of that Chichester who by fraud had secured his big 
 
 183
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 estates, was declining to renew leases except at a heavy 
 premium. Other landlords were driving their tenants 
 to work on the roads. The Oakboys (1761-62) and 
 Hearts-of-Steel Boys (1771) were Presbyterians who 
 would not stand forced labor, or eviction as the result 
 of resisting fines. In the end the Ulster Land War 
 was won by the tenants, after much violence, cattle- 
 maiming, tithe-refusing, and general insubordination. 
 But during this period, North and South, a steady 
 emigration took place to the American colonies. The 
 Southern emigration was the greater of the two. More 
 than one-third of Washington's army was composed 
 of Irishmen. The records exhibit thousands of Ulster 
 Presbyterian names and thousands of Catholic Irish- 
 men. Both classes had left Ireland for about the same 
 reason, and for this good reason enlisted in force to 
 fight against the English in the War of Independence. 
 
 The War of Independence made a profound impres- 
 sion in Ireland. A genial corruptionist named Lord 
 Harcourt had managed, after a long campaign, to get 
 the "patriot" Henry Flood to take a job at 3500 a 
 year; and Flood's secession made it possible for the 
 Government to win a favorable, anti-American vote in 
 
 184
 
 The Abyss 
 
 the Anglo-Irish parliament. But Chatham's phrase 
 expressed the Irish feeling: "Ireland is with America to 
 a man." "All Ireland is America-mad,'* said Horace 
 Walpole. The main political advantage to Anglo- 
 Ireland, however, came from the fact that America, 
 in order to beat England, had appealed successfully to 
 England's most dangerous enemy, France. 
 
 By years of insistence on the popery of France, 
 England had made of France the greatest bogy and 
 bugbear in the world. Louis XIV, in addition, had 
 shown the evil possibilities of French militarism. The 
 Anglo-Irish, genuinely alarmed at the fact that there 
 were no soldiers in Ireland, were glad to seize the oppor- 
 tunity to arm in self-defense. It was impossible to 
 get recruits in Ireland to fight the American colonies, 
 but the Irish quickly raised 40,000 volunteers to defend 
 their coasts from the invader. Having done so, they 
 were in a somewhat better position to reason with the 
 "mother-country." 
 
 The temper of Anglo-Ireland had not been improved 
 by embargoes on export, to suit certain enterprising 
 English hucksters; the victory of the Americans at 
 Saratoga had additional stimulating value. And, with 
 volunteers in arms, Grattan did all in his power to unite 
 the Anglo-Irish and the native Irish. 
 
 185
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 The feebleness of the British parliament in meeting 
 this situation was combined with an executive's pri- 
 vately bewailing the lack of a secret-service fund. 
 Concessions were rushed to Anglo-Ireland and to native 
 Ireland, in the hope of averting a declaration of inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 Carlisle, the lord lieutenant, informally told the 
 English Government that the Irish could no longer 
 be bamboozled. "It is beyond a doubt," he said, "that 
 the practicability of governing Ireland by English laws 
 is become utterly visionary. It is with me equally be- 
 yond a doubt that Ireland may be well and happily 
 governed by her own laws. It is, however, by no means 
 so clear that if the present moment is neglected this 
 country will not be driven into a state of confusion, 
 the end of which no man can foresee or limit." 
 
 The Volunteers did not stand inactive. In 1779 
 they had demanded free trade. At the foot of King 
 William's statue in Dublin, opposite the houses of 
 parliament, they had placarded two cannon, "Free 
 Trade or This." In 1781, with free trade conceded, 
 they assembled in Ulster. They now numbered 80,000 
 men in arms. Early in 1782 they held a convention 
 at Dungannon under Lord Charlemont to formulate a 
 political program. They insisted on the independence 
 
 186
 
 The Abyss 
 
 of the king, lords, and commons of Ireland. They 
 passed two resolutions drafted by Grattan which re- 
 vealed the great distance they had traveled toward 
 nationalism. "We hold the right of private judgment 
 in matters of religion to be equally sacred in others as 
 in ourselves ; that as men, as Irishmen, as Christians, 
 and as Protestants, we rejoice in the relaxation of the 
 penal laws against our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, 
 and that we conceive the measure to be fraught with 
 the happiest consequences to the union and prosperity 
 of the inhabitants of Ireland." 
 
 Here was an expression of public opinion which even 
 a privately-owned parliament could not ignore. "We 
 know our duty to our sovereign, and are loyal; we 
 know our duty to ourselves, and are resolved to be 
 free." This moderation of the Volunteers, plus the pro- 
 posed repeal of most of the penal laws, created an 
 irresistible mood in Ireland. Lord Portland, the new 
 viceroy, declared that it was no longer a question of 
 the aroused parliament of Ireland. It was "the whole 
 of this country." Fox insisted that there was only 
 one thing to do : "to meet Ireland on her own terms and 
 give her everything she wanted in the way in which she 
 seemed to wish for it." On January 22, 1783, Ireland 
 that is, colonial Ireland enacted its perfect auton- 
 
 187
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 omy, "hereby declared to be established and ascertained 
 forever, and shall at no time hereafter be questioned 
 or Questionable." After this achievement, but before 
 the parliament was reformed, the Volunteers ceased to 
 have influence. 
 
 "Ireland is a nation," exulted Grattan in full emo- 
 tion. "In that character I hail her, and bowing in 
 her august presence, I say, "Esto perpetual" 
 
 The "perpetua" parliament lasted about seventeen 
 years. 
 
 188
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ANGLO-IRISH PARLIAMENT 
 1 
 
 WE now enter on a drama with four main con- 
 flicting personages : the "English interest," the 
 Anglo-Irish interest, the submerged native Irish, and 
 the suppressed dissenters in Northeast Ulster. 
 
 The drama falls into three acts. From 1782 to 
 the French Revolution there was no serious social con- 
 flict inside Ireland. The native Irish made no stir, 
 neither did the dissenters. The chief struggle was 
 that of the Anglo-Irish parliament to overcome Eng- 
 lish jealousy and achieve commercial emancipation. 
 But a great change in the mind and soul of Ireland 
 took place with the French Revolution. From 1791 
 to 1798 the drama became political, with the native 
 Irish returning to the stage under the leadership of 
 Protestant radicals and Presbyterian republicans. 
 Against these radicals and republicans, with the Catho- 
 lic masses in the rear, stood the "independent" parlia- 
 
 189
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 ment and the English government. At first the Gov- 
 ernment inclined to temporize. It planned to emanci- 
 pate the Catholics. But with the aggressiveness of the 
 radicals and republicans it soon changed its tactics. 
 The radicals were disloyal. They desired French in- 
 tervention. And gradually their society, the United 
 Irishmen, became a revolutionary body, with the plan 
 of establishing an Irish republic. It was this program, 
 and the danger that it threatened to British imperial- 
 ism so long as the native Irish had to be submerged, 
 that decided Pitt to bring about the union of the Brit- 
 ish and Anglo-Irish parliaments. 
 
 The second act was mainly occupied with leading up 
 to this union, in spite of the wishes of the Anglo-Irish. 
 A great help in this direction was the revival of social 
 and religious antagonism in Northeast Ulster. The 
 educated Presbyterian was, as a rule, a republican, and 
 desirous of a united Ireland. But in the rural districts 
 there was latent rivalry and hostility among Catholics 
 and Presbyterians, and out of this came the Defenders 
 and the Orangemen. The Orangemen gave efficient aid 
 to British imperial policy. When the United Irishmen 
 had extended their organization, the Government pro- 
 voked a leaderless rebellion, and then turned the Orange 
 militia loose on the Southern peasantry. The fright- 
 
 190
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 fulness was so great that the viceroy and the military 
 commanders sickened at it, but it paved the way for 
 the short third act in this chapter of history: the "in- 
 dependent" parliament was destroyed. 
 
 The "independent" parliament began, however, with- 
 out any apprehension of English treachery. A feeling 
 of intense gratitude to England pervaded it. One of 
 its first acts was to vote 100,000 to the navy, and a 
 contribution of 20,000 men. The fact that these naval 
 recruits were sometimes countrymen knocked down and 
 lashed and dragged on board the ships of his Majesty's 
 fleet did not lessen the surging loyalty which filled the 
 breasts of Grattan and his friends. These statesmen 
 gloried, to tell the truth, in the strange sensation of 
 legislative freedom. And because they felt free they 
 felt generous, especially to the country which had 
 freed them. 
 
 One of the first results of this emotion was a body 
 of the most amiable and enlightened municipal legisla- 
 tion. To make Dublin into a handsome capital, the 
 second city of the empire, was the ambition of the 
 young parliament, and such public buildings as the 
 custom-house and the viceregal lodge (of which the 
 
 191
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 White House is a copy) were promptly undertaken. 
 Public baths were opened, and charming town-houses 
 were planned by the lords and the commons. The 
 aristocratic Dublin of this period was lifted into being 
 on a rising tide of hope and prosperity, and the reced- 
 ing waves have left to Dublin a remarkable number of 
 fine Georgian establishments. 
 
 In this expansiveness a few important facts were 
 allowed to lurk in the shade. The first of these was 
 the exact nature of Ireland's "independence." All 
 that the Anglo-Irish parliament had gained, in fact, 
 was the right to frame its own bills. In England's 
 hands it had left the whole executive apparatus. Thus 
 the viceroy and the chief secretary were responsible 
 not to Dublin but to London. The appointees of the 
 Government all through the country were English ap- 
 pointees. The office-holders looked to England; so did 
 the office-seekers. The bishoprics and good livings 
 went by the favor of England. The house of lords 
 was, in essence, England's creature. The English war 
 office controlled the Irish army. Dublin Castle, in 
 short, had not been transferred to the Anglo-Irish 
 Ascendancy but remained the stronghold of English 
 authority in Ireland. 
 
 This was one structural oddity of Ireland's "inde- 
 192
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 pendence." Another, of course, was the fact that the 
 "nation" had, by the ingenuity of English rhetoric, 
 come to consist of the Anglo-Irish minority, possibly a 
 fifth of the people. One-tenth of the people, the Ulster 
 Presbyterians, were still unpopular outsiders, while 
 seven-tenths of the people, the native Irish, did not 
 politically exist. 
 
 The supreme one-fifth, however, could now dispense 
 with the odium of brute force. England-in-Ireland be- 
 came the Nation. The great achievement of rule by 
 public opinion, as the English conceived it, did not con- 
 sist in installing the Anglo-Irish in Ireland by con- 
 quest, confiscation, and legal tyranny. It consisted 
 rather in the quiet art by which this Anglo-Irish party 
 of force and theft and fraud and deceit was, without 
 giving restitution, turned around into the dignified 
 and of course "salutary" custodian of law and order. 
 Within 150 years the native Irish had been reduced 
 from their dominance in property and position to a 
 state of servitude. In this servitude they sometimes 
 showed a restless, reprehensible spirit. The wicked 
 Irish, as solemn legalists and solemn historians saw 
 them, had not that respect for the Law which one must 
 have before one can be "entrusted" with self-govern- 
 ment. If four-fifths of the people came in conflict with 
 
 193
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 this one-fifth, their real offense was not their objection 
 to the privileges of the fifth. Heaven forbid. It was 
 their offense against the great body of noble principle 
 on which this fifth was solidly squatting. The Anglo- 
 Irish had pulled securely under them, and now warmly 
 held, all the staple goods that were in sight. Here 
 they were perched on these goods like the chancellor 
 on his woolsack in the house of lords : the vulgar, 
 greasy, useful commodity of earthly possessions became 
 the base from which the ethics of law and order were 
 laid down. And in due time the world could be trusted 
 not to see the bag of wool on which these ethics were 
 bolstered, but only to hear the deep inspiring organ- 
 tones of Public Opinion, the Reign of Law, the political 
 genius of England, Representative Government. 
 
 That this division of power was reasonable, in the 
 Ireland of 1782, was held to be proved by the low 
 condition of the native Irish. Owing to the bodily and 
 economic damage and consequent social damage which 
 had been inflicted on the native Irish by the penal laws, 
 and their fixed place in the community as serfs, it 
 seemed impossible in the current aristocratic view even 
 to hold with them politically. They were politically 
 
 194
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 beneath contempt. It was not until the French Revo- 
 lution had gathered all the fumes and furies of the op- 
 pressed into one terrific explosion, blowing a hole 
 through the thickest of complacencies and showering 
 molten rocks among the Higher Orders, that the minds 
 of the higher orders were awakened in alarm. 
 
 The degree to which the native Irish were actually 
 impaired and degraded by the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries is important to estimate. One 
 interesting witness in America in 1782, is de Crevecoeur, 
 who wrote "Letters from an American Farmer": 
 
 "Out of twelve families of emigrants of each country, 
 generally seven Scotch will succeed, nine German, and 
 four Irish. The Scotch are frugal and laborious, but 
 their wives cannot work so hard as German women, 
 who on the contrary vie with their husbands, and often 
 share with them the severe toils of the field, which they 
 understand better. They have therefore nothing to 
 struggle against, but the common casualties of nature. 
 The Irish do not prosper so well; they love to drink 
 and to quarrel ; they are litigious, and soon take to the 
 gun, which is the ruin of everything; they seem beside 
 to labor under a greater degree of ignorance in hus- 
 bandry than the others ; perhaps it is that their indus- 
 try had less scope, and was less exercised at home. I 
 
 195
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 have heard many relate how the land was parceled out 
 in that kingdom; their ancient conquest has been a 
 great detriment to them, by oversetting their landed 
 property. The lands possessed by a few are leased 
 down ad infinitum, and the occupiers often pay five 
 guineas an acre. The poor are worse lodged there 
 than anywhere else in Europe ; their potatoes, which 
 are easily raised, are perhaps an inducement to lazi- 
 ness : their wages are too low, and their whisky too 
 cheap." 
 
 Was de Crevecoeur biased? One finds an even more 
 painful and absolutely unguarded witness to the "detri- 
 ment of conquest" in Wolfe Tone, the famous Irishman, 
 who came to America in 1795. Tone was not en- 
 chanted by the people of Philadelphia. "They are the 
 most disgusting race," he observes in a private letter, 
 "eaten up with all the vice of commerce and that vilest 
 of all pride, the pride of the purse. In the country 
 parts of Pennsylvania the farmers are extremely ignor- 
 ant and boorish, particularly the Germans and their 
 descendants, who abound. There is something, too, in 
 the Quaker manners extremely unfavorable to any- 
 thing like polished society, but of all the people I have 
 met here the Irish are incontestably the most offensive. 
 If you meet a confirmed blackguard you may be sure 
 
 196
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 he is Irish. You will, of course, observe I speak of 
 the lower orders. They are as boorish and ignorant 
 as the Germans, as uncivil and uncouth as the Quakers, 
 and as they have ten times more animal spirits than 
 both they are much more actively troublesome. After 
 all, I do not wonder at, nor am I angry with them. 
 They are corrupted by their own execrable government 
 at home and when they land here and find themselves 
 treated like human creatures, fed and clothed, and 
 paid for their labor, no longer flying from the sight of 
 any fellow who is able to purchase a velvet collar to 
 his coat, I do not wonder if the heads of the unfortu- 
 nate devils are turned with such an unexpected change 
 in their fortunes, and if their new-gotten liberty breaks 
 out, as it too often does, into pettiness and insolence. 
 For all this it is, perhaps scarcely fair to blame them 
 the fact is certain. 
 
 "In Jersey, the manners of the people are extremely 
 different; they seem lively and disengaged in compari- 
 son, and that, among others, was one reason which 
 determined me to settle in this State. 
 
 "But if the manners of the Pennsylvanians be un- 
 pleasant, their government is the best under heaven, 
 and their country thrives accordingly." 
 
 Three years later Wolfe Tone was to die for these 
 197
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Irish people about whose manners he was so frank. 
 That he saw them as he did, indicates the human 
 groundwork of class distinction in this epoch. And 
 what Tone could see in terms of cause and effect the 
 Ascendancy saw simply as an unchangeable condition 
 which called for and justified the policy of ascendancy. 
 
 4 
 
 Hence the "independent" parliament began without 
 the least intention of enfranchising the Irish slaves. 
 
 "The distrust of Roman Catholicism," says James 
 Ford Rhodes in his history of the United States, "is a 
 string that can be artfully played upon in an Anglo- 
 Saxon community." It was the main string of Grat- 
 tan's parliament. The Know-Nothing movement or 
 the later Ku-Klux Klan movement of the United States 
 expressed an acute but futile desire to make govern- 
 ment a Protestant Anglo-Saxon monopoly. Govern- 
 ment in Grattan's Ireland was in fact such a monopoly. 
 "A Protestant king of Ireland; a Protestant parlia- 
 ment ; a Protestant hierarchy ; Protestant electors and 
 Government ; the benches of justice, the army and the 
 revenue, through all their branches and details Protes- 
 tant ; and this system supported by a connection with 
 the Protestant realm of England.'* This was the plat- 
 
 198
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 form of the corporation of Dublin, which by law was 
 exclusively Protestant. And the "liberal" attitude, as 
 revealed by Henry Grattan, was this: "I love the 
 Roman Catholic ; I am a friend to his liberty, but it is 
 only inasmuch as his liberty is entirely consistent with 
 your ascendancy, and an addition to the strength and 
 freedom of the Protestant community." 
 
 So the Protestant monopoly had to be iron-clad. "I 
 love the colored folk," but "only inasmuch as entirely 
 consistent with white ascendancy." What the law 
 called the "common Popish enemy" did not appear to 
 have a look-in. 
 
 The Catholic gentry did not arouse any fears in the 
 monopolists. By this time they were indescribably 
 meek. They took a mouse-like interest in Irish arche- 
 ology. They hastened to assert their extreme respect- 
 ability and unswerving loyalty whenever they could. 
 By the connivance of a smooth grafter named Hely 
 Hutchinson they were permitted to creep through 
 Trinity College, Dublin, and even to receive degrees. 
 Their Protestant friends were willing to hold property 
 for them in many cases, and thus to show that monop- 
 oly is not always monstrous. But the Catholics of 
 "respectability and position" had no leadership in 
 them. Lord Kenmare was afraid of his shadow. So 
 
 199
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 was Lord Fingall. Lord Dunsany turned Protestant 
 though anxious to help his brethren. The eminent 
 Father O'Leary was a secret pensioner of the crown. 
 
 The lower classes of the populace, as Lecky describes 
 them, were less spirited than the emigrants to America ; 
 merely ignorant, turbulent, impoverished. "The Cath- 
 olic gentry were as sensible as the Protestants of the 
 utility of a law which kept arms out of the hands of 
 the poorest, the most ignorant, the most lawless and 
 riotous portion of the population." 
 
 But the Protestant Ascendancy reckoned without the 
 one uncontrollable factor in social affairs the world 
 circumstance of French Revolution. 
 
 5 
 
 From 1782 to the French Revolution, as has been 
 said, there was no serious social conflict inside Ireland. 
 In the breasts of radicals like Wolfe Tone the con- 
 viction was forming that the "Revolution of 1782" 
 was worthless. It simply "enabled Irishmen to sell, 
 at a much higher price, their honor, their integrity, 
 and the interests of their country ; it was a revolution 
 which, while at one stroke it doubled the value of every 
 borough-monger in the kingdom, left three-fourths of 
 our countrymen slaves as it found them, and the gov- 
 
 200
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 ernment of Ireland in the base and wicked and con- 
 temptible hands who had spent their lives in degrad- 
 ing and plundering her. Who of the veteran .enemies 
 of the country lost his place or his pension? Who 
 was called forth to station or office from the ranks of 
 the opposition? Not one." 
 
 This was the latent feeling out of which the United 
 Irishmen were to arise. But in immediate view there 
 was Pitt's England with its restraints on Irish trade. 
 The statesmen of the Anglo-Irish parliament were con- 
 centrated on nothing so much as Ireland's economic 
 development, and they fought with truly British spirit 
 for a share in the trade of the world. At this distance 
 it may seem like a pigmy striving ag'ainst a giant, but 
 that was not the idea current among British traders. 
 High, even prohibitive, duties were imposed on Irish 
 manufactures intended for England, while Ireland was 
 compelled to receive English manufactures at a low 
 tariff. To remove these restraints and discriminations 
 by arranging a treaty was the aim of the Anglo-Irish 
 parliament. Pitt was not unwilling to make such a 
 treaty, provided he could couple with it the promise 
 of an Irish contribution to the empire. He did not 
 deny that in the past English policy "had been that of 
 excluding Ireland from the enjoyment and use of her 
 
 201
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 own resources; to make that kingdom completely sub- 
 servient to the opulence and interests of this country, 
 without suffering them to share in the bounties of 
 nature, in the industry of her citizens, or making them 
 contribute to the general interests or strength of the 
 empire." 
 
 The proposed treaty, however, excited the most 
 lively opposition in the new England of the industrial 
 revolution. Ireland was believed to be a place of in- 
 credibly low wages, incredibly cheap productiveness, 
 incredibly dangerous rivalry. Pitt yielded to the pro- 
 tests of the manufacturers and the attacks of the 
 Whigs. He changed his whole policy. He sought to 
 compel Ireland to play the ape to the British parlia- 
 ment in return for some minor advantages. This new 
 attempt at subordination the Anglo-Irish parliament 
 shelved. It turned instead to home legislation. This, 
 and the feeling of national confidence, helped Ireland 
 toward an industrial revival. "The woolen manufac- 
 ture showed some signs of reattaining its old pros- 
 perity; the cotton manufacture grew at a very rapid 
 pace, and in a few years attained considerable dimen- 
 sions ; the progress of the linen manufacture was unin- 
 terrupted; the brewing industry was reestablished in 
 Ireland, without, however, in any way injuring its 
 
 202
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 flourishing- rivals, the distilleries; the glass manufac- 
 ture became a serious rival to that of England; and, 
 in spite of the greatly increased export of corn, the 
 provision trade did not suffer, but, on the contrary, 
 continued to expand." In his excellent "Economic 
 History" Mr. O'Brien further shows that rents went 
 up, wages increased, and the population rose from 
 about 3,000,000 in 1782 to almost 5,000,000 in 1800. 
 
 But this manifestation of Irish strength, with the 
 French menace, was the very thing to alarm Britain. 
 It was decided by Pitt as early as 1792 that the sim- 
 plest solution for Britain would be to take away the 
 Anglo-Irish parliament. He could do this all the bet- 
 ter because he believed that the Union would safeguard 
 "the British interest." 
 
 Some concession to the Catholic majority, Pitt be- 
 lieved, was absolutely necessary. In 1791 the plebeian 
 elements had come to dominate the Catholic Committee. 
 Under the secretaryship of Wolfe Tone, the democratic 
 program of the French Revolution seemed to these 
 native Irish the most inspiring doctrine in the world, 
 and among the dissenters of Belfast the Catholics found 
 their warmest supporters. 
 
 The Anglo-Irish parliament, needless to say, was 
 not Jacobin. It was thoroughly frightened by the 
 
 203
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 prospect of any "democratic" advance in Ireland. In 
 1792 Pitt was of the same mind. But believing he 
 could achieve the Union he felt that the admission of 
 
 Theobald Wolfe Tone 
 
 the Catholics to a share of suffrage could not then 
 be dangerous. "The Protestant interest, in point of 
 power, property, and church establishment," he said 
 in 1792 in a private letter, "would be secure, because 
 the decided majority of the Supreme Legislature would 
 
 204
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 necessarily be Protestant; and the great ground of 
 argument on the part of the Catholics would be done 
 away; as compared with the rest of the empire, they 
 would be a minority." 
 
 There was, besides, the conservative formula for 
 Catholics. As against the Jacobins he thought that 
 the ignorant, downtrodden Irish peasant would be a 
 social bulwark. George III smiled on a delegation of 
 loyal Catholics. "In the great struggle that had 
 broken out Catholicism appeared the most powerful 
 moral influence opposed to the Revolution." 
 
 It was this sort of reasoning which led Pitt's hench- 
 men to enfranchise the Catholic peasant in 1793. So 
 long as the peasant voted as his landlord dictated 
 (which he did), this enfranchisement really meant noth- 
 ing. The gesture had only one disadvantage: Pitt 
 could not explain to the Anglo-Irish parliament how 
 little this liberalism meant without divulging his plan 
 as to the Union. 
 
 Not possessing the indispensable clue to Pitt's be- 
 havior, the Anglo-Irish resented enormously his con- 
 cession to the Catholics. Their own policy was dif- 
 ferent. They aimed to resist the democratic influence 
 of the French Revolution, to drive a wedge in between 
 the lower order of Catholics and the Presbyterians of 
 
 205
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Belfast, and to keep property on top by giving a place 
 in parliament to the conservative, propertied Catholics. 
 The United Irishmen, founded in Belfast in 1791, 
 were not placated by Pitt's concession to the Catholic 
 voter. They had a national as well as a democratic 
 program, and they began an agitation for the uniting 
 of the dissenters and the Catholics. Theirs was, at 
 its start, a natural secession of the younger radicals 
 lawyers and writers from the non-popular Anglo- 
 Irish parliament, and at first their program was a 
 broad civil and religious liberty. But with the Franco- 
 English war of 1793 the leaders Lord Edward Fitz- 
 gerald, Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmet, Oliver 
 Bond, W. J. McNevin, and above all Wolfe Tone 
 made up their minds to follow America's example, in- 
 voke French aid, declare war, and go republican. 
 
 6 
 
 This development of policy was gradual. Before it 
 was mature Pitt agreed that the appearance of virtue 
 was desirable. He sent an honest liberal to Ireland 
 as viceroy, Lord Fitzwilliam. 
 
 To Grattan, who now realized that the Catholics 
 must be placated and "emancipated," Fitzwilliam's was 
 a splendid appointment. All the decent forces in 
 
 206
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 Anglo-Irish politics rallied to him. And above every- 
 thing the reformers impressed on Fitzwilliam the hope- 
 less corruption of the parliament under Fitzgibbon, a 
 cynical bully who was Pitt's lord chancellor, and under 
 Fitzgibbon's brother-in-law, John Beresford, who was 
 the head of the Tory machine. 
 
 Poor Fitzwilliam, being honest, made up his mind 
 that he could get nowhere unless he reformed parlia- 
 ment. He had pledged himself not to touch the tru- 
 culent Fitzgibbon, but he promptly removed John 
 Beresford and two of Beresford's chief henchmen and 
 spies. 
 
 This created a remarkable situation. So long as 
 the parliament was thoroughly corrupt, the inclusion 
 of a few Lord Kenmares and Fingalls made no real 
 difference. But if Catholic emancipation and parlia- 
 mentary reform both occurred, Pitt's check-and-bal- 
 ance policy was sure to miscarry. The recall of Fitz- 
 william was the only move left open to Pitt. 
 
 Fitzwilliam's disastrous indiscretion is still the theme 
 of British politicians. Lord Rosebery records that 
 Fitzwilliam dismissed Beresford, "one of Pitt's con- 
 fidential agents." "He made the unfortunate asser- 
 tion that Beresford had been guilty of malversation" 
 in other words, was a crook. Lord Rosebery tells us 
 
 207
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 that Fitzwilliam "seems to have been a man of generous 
 sympathies and honest enthusiasm ; but not less wrong- 
 headed than headstrong; absolutely devoid of judg- 
 ment, reticence, and tact." 
 
 In other words, he shared Edmund Burke's "living 
 loathing of the Irish system of corruption." He was 
 one British viceroy who took his honor seriously. He 
 ventured to interfere with the perfect machinery which 
 existed to cancel reform. 
 
 Fitzwilliam's recall ended a complicated intrigue. It 
 was the occasion of great popular lament in Ireland. 
 It decided Pitt to abandon his connivance at Catholic 
 emancipation. In 1791 it had been clear to the United 
 Irishmen that "the chief support of the borough in- 
 fluence in Ireland was the weight of English influence." 
 This was now proved by the Anglo-Irish rejection of 
 Catholic emancipation by 155 to 84. Pitt's spokes- 
 men reversed their stand. They were now vigorously 
 anti-Catholic. The bigotry of George III was sud- 
 denly remembered. "The exclusion of Catholics from 
 Parliament and the State," declared the chief secre- 
 tary, "is necessary for the Crown and the Connection." 
 
 "About 1795," Lecky mildly notes, "the persistent 
 and successful opposition of the Government to reform 
 
 208
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 made the United Irishmen for the first time disloyal." 
 The republicanism of Belfast was now a pronounced 
 factor in Irish politics. The Government threw a sop 
 to the Catholic Church by endowing Maynooth, the 
 seminary for priests. But the English Government 
 did not disguise from itself the large task it had in 
 hand. That task was to strengthen the Government 
 machine inside parliament, to deprive Grattan's pious 
 liberalism of all effectiveness, to multiply spies, detec- 
 tives, and agents provocateurs, to build up a big army 
 and a big militia, to inflame religious prejudice where- 
 ever possible, and to provoke and quell a rebellion. 
 After the rebellion, which was in everybody's mind, it 
 (rould be unnecessary to force the Anglo-Irish parlia- 
 ment into a union at the point of the sword. It would 
 be sufficient to spend several million pounds and lavish 
 a few dozen peerages. 
 
 7 
 
 Against this policy there was only the agility and 
 daring of the United Irishmen. When Wolfe Tone 
 was allowed to leave the country in 1795, he found 
 Belfast full of the most warm-hearted and patriotic 
 Irishmen. Before he sailed from Belfast he and Neil- 
 
 209
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 son and Russell and McCracken and Simms met on a 
 hill in the neighborhood and "took a solemn obligation 
 never to desist in our efforts until we have subverted 
 the authority of England over our country and as- 
 serted our independence." 
 
 Tone had traveled the full distance along the road 
 on which Swift and his fellows had only set their foot. 
 He was, without an illusion, the advocate of the native 
 Irish. Born in Dublin the same year as Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald, 1763, he was the son of a farmer-coach- 
 maker of English stock who lived in Kildare. His 
 mother's name was Lamport. Wolfe Tone, Theobald 
 Wolfe Tone in full, was a man of the most blithe and 
 spirited temperament, of deep political sense, resource, 
 and courage. He was the most notable Irishman of 
 his time. His autobiography is one of the most fas- 
 cinating autobiographies in the English language, dis- 
 tinguished as much by its color and gaiety as by its 
 thrilling theme. From his first negotiations with citi- 
 zen Adet, the French minister in Philadelphia, to his 
 negotiations with the French Government in 1796, he 
 had nothing to rely on except his own initiative, con- 
 fidence, and address. Monroe, then American minister 
 to France, received him warmly. He advised him not 
 to bother with "subalterns." He sent him straight to 
 
 210
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 Carnot, and Tone undertook the audacious task of 
 procuring an army to free Ireland. 
 
 After immense effort an expedition under Lazare 
 Hoche sailed from Brest December 15, 1796, Tone ac- 
 companying it as a French adjutant-general. 
 
 The expedition was under the orders of Admiral 
 Bouvet while at sea. It had taken Hoche several 
 months to get the forty-three ships he needed for 
 15,000 men, artillery, and munitions for thousands of 
 Irishmen. In the fogs that enveloped the sea after 
 leaving Brest the force split into three divisions. 
 Hoche's ship never reached Bantry, but thirty-five 
 ships of the expedition came within sight of Bantry 
 Bay. A tremendous wind, blowing unceasingly from 
 December 20 to 27, made it difficult for them to land, 
 though a more daring commander than Grouchy could 
 not have been found. Of the forty-three ships thirty- 
 five returned safely, five were wrecked, and six were 
 captured by the English. The English fleet never 
 came out to engage this expedition, but Bouvet was 
 dismissed by the French for sailing home too soon. 
 Grouchy, who took the command in the absence of 
 Hoche, was investigated for not making a landing, but 
 the investigation cleared him. Wolfe Tone himself 
 said "the winds ruined us." 
 
 211
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 8 
 
 While Tone remained in France to renew his efforts, 
 the situation in Ireland became more strained. For 
 some time in Armagh and elsewhere in the North there 
 had been friction between the Presbyterian and Catho- 
 lic rural workers. In Armagh, where the Catholics 
 were in the minority, they called themselves Defenders 
 and the aggressors called themselves Peep-o'-day Boys. 
 A clash between these two bodies in September, 1795, 
 occurred at a place called the Diamond. Though said 
 to be the aggressors, the Catholics had more than 
 twenty of their number killed. After their victory 
 that evening the non-Catholics formed themselves into 
 a new body called Orangemen, after William of Orange, 
 "the conqueror of the Catholics." 
 
 These Orangemen went on the war-path. "A ter- 
 rible persecution of Catholics," Lecky declares, "im- 
 mediately followed. The animosities between the lower 
 orders of the two religions, which had long been little 
 bridled, burst out afresh, and after the battle of the 
 Diamond the Protestant rabble of the county of 
 Armagh, and of part of the adjoining counties, deter- 
 mined by continuous outrages to drive the Catholics 
 from the country. Their cabins were placarded, or, 
 
 212
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 as it was termed, 'papered,* with the words 'To hell or 
 Connacht,' and if the occupiers did not at once aban- 
 don them, they were attacked at night by an armed 
 mob." 
 
 The Government was soon being assured that the 
 Orangemen were full of the "strongest spirit of loy- 
 alty." This spirit of loyalty was shared by many 
 local magistrates, who gave the Orangemen a free 
 hand. And Dublin Castle did nothing to keep the out- 
 rages from flourishing. A revival of bigotry and 
 hatred was just the feeling to counteract that rap- 
 prochement between Catholics, Protestants, and Pres- 
 byterians for which the United Irishmen were striving. 
 "Loyalists" of the Orange type did not wait long to 
 make this plain, and there were plenty of Government 
 officials to listen to them. The Government, Grattan 
 declared repeatedly in parliament, had one law for 
 the Defenders, another for the Orangemen. He asked 
 pointedly how it happened that with 40,000 soldiers 
 and summary laws, they could not reduce Armagh to 
 order. "I cannot but think," he stated flatly, "the 
 audacity of the mob arose from a confidence in the 
 connivance of Government. Under an administration 
 sent here to defeat a Catholic Bill, a Protestant mob 
 very naturally conceives itself a part of the state." 
 
 213
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 In one sense this extended and extreme persecution of 
 the Catholics helped the United Irishmen. It turned 
 thousands of "Defenders," North and South, into their 
 order. The Catholic militia, according to the Gov- 
 ernment, could no longer be depended on. But the 
 very essence of the United Irishman policy was the 
 transcending of religious division. "To subvert the 
 tyranny of our execrable Government," said Tone, "to 
 break the connection with England, the never-failing 
 source of our political evils, and to assert the inde- 
 pendence of my country these were my objects. To 
 unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the mem- 
 ory of our past dissensions, and to substitute the com- 
 mon name of Irishmen in place of the denomination of 
 Protestant, Catholic, and dissenter these were my 
 means." The enormous enrolment of Catholics, pre- 
 viously apathetic, was loudly welcomed; but even 
 though the Defenders were excommunicated by their 
 church, their keenest emotion was not that disciplined 
 policy which inspired the United men. 
 
 From their spies in the ranks of the United Irish- 
 men Leonard McNally in particular and from the 
 proprietor of the "Freeman's Journal," Francis Hig- 
 gins, the Government judged the time had come to 
 enroll a loyal yeomanry. This yeomanry was, in effect, 
 
 214
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 the deliberate enrolment of Orangemen against Catho- 
 lic. And this enlistment of Orange enthusiasts proved 
 to be exceedingly efficacious, once the policy of disarm- 
 ing and coercing the country was accepted. 
 
 So began the campaign which preceded and pro- 
 duced the actual rising of 1798. 
 
 Georg Brandes, the Danish man of letters, accu- 
 rately sums up the action of the yeomanry in his 
 essay on Robert Emmet. "The Government formed a 
 force of Protestant constabulary, 37,000 strong. 
 These troops were permitted, under the pretense of 
 searching for concealed weapons, to capture, torture, 
 and put to death any unfortunate person whom an 
 enemy, or any ruffian whatever, chose to accuse of 
 suspicious behavior. Hundreds of unoffending people, 
 who were guilty of no other offense than professing 
 the creed of their fathers, were flogged until they were 
 insensible, or made to stand upon one foot on a pointed 
 stake, or were half hanged, or had the scalp torn from 
 their heads by a pitched cap. Militia and yeomanry, 
 as well as the regular troops, were billeted in private 
 houses ; and this billet appears to have been construed 
 
 215
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 as an unlimited license for robbery, devastation, rav- 
 ishment, and in case of resistance, murder. It was 
 boasted by officers of rank that within certain large 
 districts no home had been left undefiled ; and upon its 
 being remarked that the sex must have been very com- 
 plying, the reply was that 'the bayonet removed all 
 squeamishness.' ' 
 
 Grattan had foreseen the violence of the Govern- 
 ment. He made one final attack in parliament, pointed 
 out that more than 200 of the 300 members were in 
 bond, reminded the Government that its own rottenness 
 had fomented the United Irishmen, and refreshed its 
 memory concerning the American war. "Suppose you 
 succeed, what is your success? A military government ! 
 A perfect despotism ! . . . a Union ! But what may be 
 the ultimate consequence of such a victory? A separa- 
 tion !" He made his last appeal, won 30 votes out of 
 147, and walked out of the parliament with his fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 The Government expected a French invasion as well 
 as a rising. Hence the Government policy of terror- 
 ism. Tone had been negotiating with the Dutch before 
 their defeat at the Battle of Camperdown. Now, since 
 Hoche had died of consumption, he was dealing with 
 the lukewarm Bonaparte. Through McNally and other 
 
 216
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 agents Dublin Castle was aware that Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor were simply biding 
 their time. In this period of apprehension and alarm a 
 new commander-in-chief came to Ireland, Sir Ralph 
 Abercromby, a Scot of high reputation. He found the 
 loyalists semi-hysterical and the military demoralized. 
 He determined, in Lecky's words, "to put a stop to 
 the scandalous outrages which were constantly occur- 
 ring, if not under the direct prompting, at least with 
 the tacit connivance of Government officials." The 
 burning of houses in reprisal was one of the practices 
 which Abercromby had to condemn. In February, 
 1798, he announced without disguise that the army 
 was "in a state of licentiousness which must render it 
 formidable to every one but the enemy." This open 
 statement created an uproar, and in private he told his 
 own relations that "within these twelve months every 
 crime, every cruelty that could be committed by Cos- 
 sacks or Calmucks has been transacted here. . . . 
 Houses have been burned, men murdered, others half 
 hanged." Abercromby resigned, and "took away the 
 last faint chance of averting a rebellion." A general 
 named Lake, with an exceedingly bad record, was given 
 Abercromby's place and within a month had driven 
 the people to revolt. 
 
 217
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 10 
 
 The United Irishmen planned and desired an insur- 
 rection, to be launched May 23. They claimed to have 
 279,896 men enlisted and armed, and Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald was to act as commander-in-chief. The 
 actual plans were not in the Government's hands, how- 
 ever, until Thomas Reynolds, one of the inner circle, 
 turned informer and enablefl the Government to arrest 
 fifteen of the leaders in March. Thomas Addis Emmet, 
 Sweetman, Jackson, and W. J. McNevin, were arrested 
 at the same time. It was following these arrests that 
 "martial law and free quarters" were proclaimed, lead- 
 ing to the incidents narrated by Brandes and pro- 
 voking the country to a leaderless rising. 
 
 The Tyrone Militia, the North Cork Militia, the 
 Welsh and two Hessian regiments showed what Orange- 
 men and aliens could do among the popish enemy. 
 "More than one victim died under the lash," records 
 Lecky, "and the terror it produced was to many even 
 worse than the punishment. Gordon mentions a case 
 which came under his own notice, of a laboring man who 
 dropped dead through simple fear. Another case is re- 
 lated of a man in Dublin, who, maddened by the pain 
 
 218
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 of the pitched cap, sprang into the Liffey and ended at 
 once his sufferings and his life. In a third case, which 
 occurred at Drogheda, a man who had undergone 500 
 lashes in order to compel him to reveal some concealed 
 arms, fearing that his fortitude would be overcome, 
 pretended that arms were concealed in a particular 
 garden, and availed himself of the few moments of free- 
 dom which he thus obtained, to cut his throat. Flogging 
 to extort confessions appears to have been nowhere 
 more extensively or more successfully practised than in 
 Dublin itself, under the very eyes of the Government, 
 and under the direction of men who were closely con- 
 nected with it." 
 
 During these happenings the United Irishmen had 
 suffered further betrayals. Higgins of the "Freeman's 
 Journal" secured a 1000 bribe for one Magan, who 
 secured Lord Edward's arrest in Thomas Street on 
 May 17. He had been "on the run" for two months. 
 He was lying on his bed when Major Swan and Captain 
 Ryan came to arrest him. With a dagger he fought 
 against these two men, mortally wounded Ryan, and 
 himself received a pistol-wound of which he died three 
 weeks later. Lord Edward was described by a French 
 agent who negotiated with him as a man incapable of 
 
 219
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 falsehood or perfidy, frank, energetic, and likely to 
 be a useful and devoted instrument, but "with no ex- 
 perience or extraordinary talent." He was thirty-five 
 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald 
 
 years old at the time of his death, the last of the 
 Geraldines to risk his whole being and fortune in 
 despair of the methods of the English in Ireland. 
 
 An army officer Armstrong, urged by Lord Castle- 
 reagh not to indulge "in delicate scruples," dined in- 
 
 220
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 timately with the family of two men named Sheares, 
 sons of a Cork banker. Armstrong obtained the ma- 
 terial for a state trial. John Sheares and his brother 
 Henry were defended by John Philpot Curran. They 
 were found guilty in seventeen minutes. Lecky asserts 
 that John Sheares was "a man of ability and great 
 energy, a reckless and dangerous fanatic." On July 
 4, 1798, the day he was condemned, he denied with 
 dignity and simplicity the main accusation which 
 Lecky's history complacently repeats. He was accused 
 of urging that no quarter be given to the enemy. "If 
 any acquaintance of mine can believe that I could 
 utter a recommendation of giving no quarter to a 
 yielding and unoffending foe, it is not the death I am 
 about to suffer I deserve: no punishment could be 
 adequate to such a crime." He turned from this to 
 urge the court to give his brother time to arrange his 
 affairs. "In short, my lords, to spare your feelings 
 and my own, I do not pray that I should not die," but 
 that the brother be granted a short respite. The 
 respite was not granted until next day, when the man 
 who brought it arrived too late. James Sheares had 
 already been hanged before the mob in Green Street, 
 and his head cut off, and held up to the mob by the 
 hangman, crying, "Behold the head of a traitor." 
 
 221
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 11 
 
 The concerted rising was destroyed by the arrests 
 at the center, but it broke out in Ulster and Leinster 
 in spite of everything. Henry Joy McCracken, a 
 spirited friend of Wolfe Tone's, led the attack on 
 Antrim. His force of 4000 was repulsed, he was 
 captured, tried, and hanged in Belfast. His sister 
 walked with him to the place of execution. Forty years 
 later she said of her beloved brother that she would 
 not have had him do otherwise. Henry Munroe in 
 Down was defeated at Ballynahinch, and executed in 
 Lisburn. In these Ulster battles the insurgents were 
 mainly Presbyterian, led by men of substance who had 
 long been connected with the United Irishmen. In 
 Leinster there were scattered engagements in Kildare, 
 Carlow, and Meath, and a massacre on the Curragh of 
 insurgents about to surrender. 
 
 The war in Wexford was not premeditated. Lord 
 Mountnorris had been busy securing oaths and protes- 
 tations of allegiance before the arrival of the North 
 Cork Militia. It was their activities, especially the 
 burning of the Catholic chapel at Boulavogue, and 
 Father John Murphy's house and twenty farm-houses 
 near-by, which started the rising in Wexford. 
 
 222
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 At Oulart Hill and Vinegar Hill the country people 
 collected in huge numbers, aroused to extraordinary 
 
 An Irish Insurgent 
 of 1798 
 
 passion and activity by the recent work of the yeo- 
 manry. Father John Murphy, Father Michael Mur- 
 phy, Father Philip Roche, and Father Kearns led in 
 
 223
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 a number of engagements which included the capture 
 of Enniscorthy, Wexford, Gorey. At Vinegar Hill 
 General Lake with 15,000 troops finally overcame the 
 magnificently courageous but unorganized bodies of 
 leaderless and badly armed insurgents. 
 
 "Under no military control, undisciplined, and 
 practically unled; goaded to revolt by intolerable bar- 
 barity, they flew to arms, without preparation, as a 
 desperate resource." So Dr. Sigerson has summed up 
 1798 in Wexford. It is admitted in General Lake's 
 biography that it was, unhappily, the misconduct of 
 the militia and yeomanry which led to the insurrection. 
 
 Cornwallis, the viceroy, was "frightened and 
 ashamed" at "the numberless murders that are hourly 
 committed by our people without any process or ex- 
 amination whatever. The yeomanry are in the style 
 of the Loyalists in America, only much more numerous 
 and powerful, and a thousand times more ferocious. 
 These men have saved the country, but they now take 
 the lead in rapine and murder. The Irish militia, 
 with few officers, and those chiefly of the worst kind, 
 follow closely on the heels of the yeomanry in murder 
 and every kind of atrocity, and the Fencibles take a 
 share, although much behindhand with the others. The 
 
 224
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 feeble outrages, burnings, and murders which are still 
 committed by the Rebels, serve to keep up the sangui- 
 nary disposition on our side; and as long as they fur- 
 nish a pretext for our parties going in quest of them, 
 I see no prospect of amendment. 
 
 "The conversation of the principal persons of the 
 country all tend to encourage this system of blood, 
 and the conversation even at my table, where you will 
 suppose I do all I can to prevent it, always turns on 
 hanging, shooting, burning, etc., etc., and if a priest 
 has been put to death the greatest joy is expressed by 
 the whole company. So much for Ireland and my 
 wretched situation." 
 
 12 
 
 In August, 1798, after the execution of Bond, Byrne, 
 Neilson, and others, and the imprisonment of Thomas 
 Addis Emmet and McNevin, a small French expedition 
 landed at Killala in Mayo, under General Humbert. At 
 Castlebar the crown troops that were so ruthless in 
 Wexford celebrated their valor by running away from 
 Humbert in a battle known as the "Races of Castlebar." 
 Lord Cornwallis with 15,000 men finally took Humbert's 
 surrender at Longford. Matthew Tone and Bartholo- 
 
 225
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 mew Teeling, who had come with him, were executed, as 
 well as five hundred captured Irishmen. The French 
 soldiers were treated as prisoners of war. 
 
 In September another futile expedition came from 
 France. It comprised 3000 men, with Wolfe Tone on 
 board the Hoclie. At the entrance to Lough Swilly, 
 October 10, he was urged by his French associates to 
 leave in their sloop. He absolutely refused. "Shall I 
 leave the French to fight the battles of my country?" 
 he asked. A bitter naval battle took place between 
 the battleship Hoclie and four British vessels. For 
 six hours the Hoche fought, with Wolfe Tone com- 
 manding a battery and taking his part "like a lion." 
 
 The Hoche was eventually beaten and Tone was 
 one of the prisoners of war. He was invited with the 
 other French officers to breakfast with the Earl of 
 Cavan. At table he was recognized by an old Trinity 
 College mate, Sir George Hill, and by that gentleman 
 he was handed over to the authorities. On November 
 10, he was put on trial before a court-martial. 
 
 He admitted his hostility. "From my earliest 
 youth," he said to his judges, "I have regarded the 
 connection between Ireland and Great Britain as the 
 curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced that while 
 it lasted this country could never be free or happy. 
 
 226
 
 The Anglo-Irish Parliament 
 
 My mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the 
 experience of every succeeding year, and the conclu- 
 sions which I have drawn from every fact before my 
 eyes." 
 
 He asked to be shot. He was refused. He was 
 ordered to be hanged on November 12. On November 
 11 he cut his throat, it is said, with a pen-knife. He 
 lived till November 19. 
 
 Of few Irish leaders is there such a full personal 
 memorial as Wolfe Tone has left in his autobiography. 
 From this book, and from the history of his time, we 
 can judge his character and his disposition, his philos- 
 ophy and his practice, his hopes and dreams. In its 
 personal vividness it is an alluring story. His love- 
 story is one of the most charming ever recorded. His 
 picture of Paris in 1796 has drawn warm admiration 
 from so severe a critic as Lecky. But it is for the 
 qualities of mind that Wolfe Tone brought to Irish 
 strategy that he is most to be remembered. Wolfe 
 Tone was not a sentimentalist or a theorist, neither 
 was he a callous realist. He was a candid, critical, 
 imaginative, and resolute man who set himself about 
 the complicated and heroic task of freeing Ireland. He 
 came nearer complete success than any other man in 
 modern times. 
 
 227
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Barry O'Brien quotes one interesting witness. 
 "Wolfe Tone," said the Duke of Wellington, "was a 
 most extraordinary man, and his history is the most 
 curious history of those times. With a hundred guineas 
 in his pocket, unknown and unrecommended, he went to 
 Paris in order to overturn the British government in 
 Ireland. He asked for a large force, Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald for a small force. They listened to Tone." 
 
 With the death of Tone the insurrection of 1798 
 expired. "In a cause like this," he had said, "success 
 is everything. Washington succeeded, and Kosciusko 
 failed." But his tenacity, his clarity, his ardor, his 
 courage, remained to inspire his countrymen. And 
 it could never be forgotten that he had unselfishly and 
 unreservedly espoused the cause of the people. With 
 all his deep and fine seriousness he had, moreover, a 
 touching simplicity. At thirty-three he wrote, "I will 
 endeavor to keep myself as pure as I can, as to the 
 means. As to the end, it is sacred the liberty and 
 independence of my country first, the establishment of 
 my wife and our darling babies next, and last, I hope, 
 a well-earned reputation." 
 
 He was thirty-five years old when he died. 
 228
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE UNION AND THE REPEAL MOVEMENT 
 
 THE rebellion of '98 was at last suppressed," 
 observes Lecky, "and the ministers determined 
 to avail themselves of the opportunity to annihilate the 
 Irish parliament.'* 
 
 One main reason for this annihilation, curiously 
 enough, was the pressure of the non-represented Catho- 
 lics. It was no longer pretended by English statesmen 
 that the native Irish could be kept out of parliament 
 forever. A century of servitude had been forced on 
 them, but the French Revolution had stirred their numb 
 political instincts, and the day of crass penal laws 
 was at an end. To admit them fully, however, was to 
 make parliament popular and national. The British 
 or English governing class could not tolerate the idea 
 of a national Ireland. Seriously lacking in foresight 
 and obsessed with No Popery, the cabinet could imagine 
 no better way to dispose of Ireland than to smother it 
 in a union.
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Wolfe Tone had long seen these underlying realities. 
 He knew, and the United Irishmen knew, that England 
 had no policy except to submerge, if necessary destroy, 
 the Irish nation. Hence he and his companions had 
 worked hard to organize the Catholic Irish. Through 
 Edmund Burke's son Richard (a "puppy"), John 
 Keogh, the leading man of the Catholic commercial 
 classes, and others, every effort had been made to stir 
 the will of the masses. The Government, on its side, 
 had played two clever counter-games. One was to 
 keep the ascendancy of the Protestants an irritated 
 issue, both for the Anglo-Irish and the Orangemen. 
 The other was to buy off the more genteel and respect- 
 able Catholics. Among those "Shoneen" Catholics, 
 Wolfe Tone had moved as a national diplomat, and 
 with great success ; but the failure of the insurrection 
 of 1798 gave the Government the trump it was look- 
 ing for. 
 
 That insurrection was a Government asset. It be- 
 came an asset the moment it was given the aspect of 
 mob violence. By removing the leaders at the last 
 minute, having previously quartered the soldiers on 
 the people to search for arms, torture, flog, rape, and 
 burn houses and chapels, the right mood of insane 
 desperation had .not been so hard to produce in 
 
 230
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 Leinster. Honest Abercromby was a hindrance, but 
 Abercromby was deleted. "The fact is incontro- 
 vertible," Lord Holland said, "the people of Ireland 
 were driven into resistance, which possibly they medi- 
 tated before, by the free quarters and the excesses of 
 the soldiers, which were such as are not permitted 
 in civilized warfare, even in an enemy's country." 
 
 Nothing played better into the hands of the English 
 than the fact that priests led the people in Wexford. 
 Another valuable item was a sequence of atrocities in 
 Wexford, on both sides, by which it appeared that a 
 wicked Native Mutiny was threatening the Protestant 
 ascendancy. In the medley of passions passions of 
 pride and property which this phantasm excited, the 
 Government triumphed heavily. The United Irishmen's 
 controlled revolution had been turned into a brawl 
 and a shambles. It had made Ireland a slaughter- 
 house. Fifty thousand, gentle and simple, had been 
 killed. The Government, which had created a White 
 Terror, retained the prestige of dominance. 
 
 But the struggle had forced England to shed one 
 moral garment after another. It was now stripped to 
 the sheer buff of brutality. The English executive in 
 Dublin Castle had used the Anglo-Irish parliament 
 as its bailiff. It had inflamed the feeling of ascendancy 
 
 231
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 to a pitch that made Catholic emancipation unthink- 
 able. The Irish "nation" as conceived by Grattan 
 and as lovingly described by Judge Morris "a free 
 parliament, and a powerful landed gentry, the respected 
 superiors of a contented peasantry" was not likely 
 to sprout out of the graves of Father John and Father 
 Michael Murphy. The insurrection being well lost by 
 the native Irish, it was necessary to twist this victory 
 against the "independent" parliament. 
 
 So far the Ascendancy had traveled with the English. 
 They looked on the "rebellion" as a piece of peasant 
 devilishness. But this did not mean that they wanted 
 parliamentary union with Britain. In Ireland there 
 was no public opinion in favor of the Union. 
 
 The Presbyterians of Ulster had lost much of their 
 fervor as United Irishmen, owing to the bitterness of 
 the Orangemen, the enlisting of yeomanry, the "reli- 
 gious" atrocities in Wexford. But what was the use 
 of ascendancy unless one had an Ascendancy parlia- 
 ment? "On this great question there was a perfect 
 agreement between the more liberal Protestants who 
 followed the banner of Grattan and Ponsonby, and the 
 
 232
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 Orangemen who represented the fiercest and most in- 
 tolerant form of Protestant ascendancy." The Catho- 
 lics, likewise, were unfavorable. Outside the bishops, 
 the rising traders, and the gentry, the masses were 
 once more huddled into political limbo, but their feeling 
 was fixedly opposed. The legal profession, still mainly 
 Protestant, was scathingly against the Union. Those 
 who alone were ready to end Grattan's parliament were 
 the absentees, the English officials, and their political 
 henchmen. 
 
 On their side, however, were all the resources of the 
 state. The carrying of the Union was a question of 
 marshaling resources. The soldiers employed by the 
 Government during the insurrection now broke up 
 meetings. The presenting of petitions was at first 
 illegal. Castlereagh took with pleasure to the business 
 of manufacturing loyal petitions, discharging men like 
 Sir John Parnell who refused to pledge themselves for 
 the Union. He saw the Presbyterians and held out a 
 Government donation to them. At Maynooth in 1799 
 the four archbishops and six bishops "agreed," as 
 Lecky puts it, "to accept with gratitude the payment 
 of the priests, and at the same time to grant the Gov- 
 ernment a right of veto over all future episcopal ap- 
 pointments as a guarantee of their loyalty." Castle- 
 
 233
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 reagh shrank from no promise or no connivance. With 
 Cornwallis, the viceroy, to help him, "the whole patron- 
 age of the Government was steadily, profusely, and 
 exclusively employed in its favor." 
 
 Cornwallis did not relish the job. As viceroy he was 
 compelled to traffic with unwashed and shameless graft- 
 ers, and he showed his "sterling splendor of character" 
 by holding his nose with one hand as he bribed with 
 the other. "The political jobbing of this country 
 gets the better of me," he said. "It has ever been the 
 wish of my life to avoid this dirty business, and I am 
 now involved in it beyond all bearing." "I despise 
 and hate myself every hour, for engaging in such dirty 
 work, and am supported only by the reflection, that 
 without an Union the British empire must be dissolved." 
 
 The bluff, hearty, honest Englishman is liable to 
 such moods. Like the Second Murderer in "Richard 
 III," Cornwallis was frequently attacked by the "holy 
 humor." As the honest murderer lamented, "some 
 certain dregs of conscience are yet within me ... It 
 makes a man a coward; a man cannot steal, but it ac- 
 cuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him! a 
 man cannot lie with his neighbor's wife, but it detects 
 him: 'tis a blushing shamefast spirit, that mutinies in 
 a man's bosom ; it fills one full of obstacles ..."
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 These obstacles, so commendable in a "frank, honor- 
 able, soldier-like" Second Murderer of Cornwallis's 
 type, did not affect Castlereagh. Castlereagh had no 
 humors. He was Robert Stewart by name, afterward 
 Lord Londonderry. He slew the parliament, as Lecky 
 says, "with a quiet, businesslike composure ; nor is there 
 the slightest indication that it caused him a momentary 
 uneasiness." He was perfectly ready to use the coarse 
 word "corruption." He sent to Pitt for raw cash 
 with which to bribe the Press. McKenna, the Catholic 
 scribe, was a useful tool. Like a strong-framed fellow 
 "that respects his reputation," Castlereagh planned 
 to drown the Anglo-Irish parliament in a malmsey- 
 butt of bribery. A cool First Murderer, he had his 
 high moral reason for the murder. It was left to 
 Cornwallis to moan: 
 
 A bloody deed, and desperately despatch'd ! 
 How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands 
 Of this most grievous murder. 
 
 It was indeed a bloody deed, but the filth of it was 
 outspokenly excused on the grounds of imperialism. 
 
 As the measure advanced in the Anglo-Irish parlia- 
 ment, the Protestant "patriots" flung themselves in 
 front of it like fanatics before Juggernaut. At first the 
 wheels of the machine were clogged with these ardent 
 
 235
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 lovers of legislative freedom. But more grease was 
 applied. Twenty-eight fresh Irish peerages were be- 
 stowed on the kind of people who believed and stated 
 that "on the Continent Rank is inestimable, and even 
 at home it is no small addition." For 1,260,000, 
 eighty rotten boroughs were bought out, and charged to 
 the Irish national debt. More than sixty favorable 
 votes were registered by new office-holders. Liberal 
 annuities, to be charged against Ireland, were prom- 
 ised right and left. Grattan, dragged from his sick- 
 bed, spoke for two hours against the slaying of his 
 own creation. "The thing he proposes to buy is what 
 cannot be sold liberty." Petitions, especially from 
 the North, at last were issued ; twenty-seven counties 
 and 107,000 signatures against, and 3000 signatures 
 not against. But Dublin Castle, plus its favors, ob- 
 tained 158 votes to 113 and overpowered Anglo-Ire- 
 land. 
 
 3 
 
 No whitewash has ever covered up the means by 
 which the Union was carried. "The corruption," Lord 
 Rosebery admits, "was black, hideous, horrible; re- 
 volting at any time, atrocious when it is remembered 
 that it was a nation's birthright that was being sold" 
 and bought. As a former British premier, however, 
 
 236
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 he defends it. He points out that "the purchase of 
 that parliament was habitual and invariable." Was 
 it not better, he asks with Castlereagh, once and for all 
 to end it, than "to go on in the vile old way, hiring, 
 haggling, jobbing, from one dirty day to another, from 
 one miserable year to another?'* 
 
 To transplant the legislature to England, rather 
 than to transplant the executive to Ireland, was the 
 masterly statesmanship of the Union. Rosebery ex- 
 plains it and excused it as a war measure. Napoleon 
 threatened England. How was England to know that 
 Ireland was "loyal?" No matter how loyal Anglo-Ire- 
 land might seem, the ghost of the conquered nation 
 could at any moment arise. To England's statesmen 
 "struggling in a great war, unity and simplicity of 
 government were everything." Thus Pitt enforced on 
 England and on a preoccupied British legislature the 
 task of handling Ireland not as a partner-nation, but 
 as a subject-nation. Pitt consecrated this imperial 
 idea of Ireland a subject-nation, to be ruled in what- 
 ever way suited the game of British politics, working 
 especially on the class and religious dissensions in Ire- 
 land. 
 
 This masterpiece of political genius was concocted 
 under the influence of profound English snobbishness. 
 
 237
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 It not only ignored the commercial interests of Anglo- 
 Ireland, which had thrived under the parliament. It 
 also patronized the Anglo-Irish and despised the na- 
 tive Irish. This condescension was, however, soon to be 
 converted into bitter race animosity, under the provo- 
 cative personality of Daniel O'Connell. 
 
 The act itself went into effect January 1, 1801. It 
 united Great Britain and Ireland "for ever" as the 
 United Kingdom ; gave Ireland thirty-two peers in 
 the house of lords, four of them churchmen and 
 twenty-eight of them elected for life by all the Irish 
 peers; fixed one hundred members as Ireland's perma- 
 nent representation in the house of commons ; solemnly 
 and fundamentally joined the Irish Protestant Church 
 with the English as "the Established Church of Eng- 
 land and Ireland**; arranged a customs union; decided 
 that Ireland contribute two-seventeenths of the com- 
 mon expenditure; that any excess of revenue should be 
 applied on Ireland's national debt; that if Ireland's 
 debt became as great as two-seventeenths of the Eng- 
 lish, the exchequers could be amalgamated and taxation 
 
 238
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 made equal, subject to whatever remission Ireland's 
 case required. 
 
 The Irish viceroy remained, with the separate ex- 
 chequer, separate judiciary, and separate administra- 
 tion. 
 
 The administration continued to be definitely alien- 
 ated from the native Irish all through the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 In 1802 Lord Redesdale, chancellor at 10,000 a 
 year, declared that Ireland must be kept as a "gar- 
 risoned country." The administration became the 
 "garrison." Of the viceroys, chief secretaries, and 
 under-secretaries up to 1906, five out of 157 were 
 Catholic and "about sixteen only in touch with Irish 
 public opinion." So said Barry O'Brien in his detailed 
 book on Dublin Castle. When he wrote in 1909, three 
 of the seventeen high court judges, eight of the twenty- 
 one county court judges, five of the thirty-seven county 
 inspectors of the police, sixty-two of the 202 district 
 inspectors, 1805 of the 5518 ordinary justices of the 
 peace, and eight of the sixty-eight privy councilors 
 were Catholic Irish. The rest were "garrison." How- 
 ever "well-meaning" the British Government became, 
 it never became so well-meaning as to allow the native 
 
 239
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 and nationalist Irish to have an influential share in 
 their own Government. 
 
 In the first somber years of the Union there came 
 a flaming epilogue to 1798. Among the many Dublin 
 professional men Whitley Stokes, McNevin, Dowdall 
 who were devoted to Ireland, no family was so spirited 
 as Dr. Emmet's. He was state physician to the vice- 
 regal court, of English and Cromwellian stock, a man 
 of swinging, original mind, who kept his household in 
 Stephen's Green in a ferment of unconventional discus- 
 sion. His able son Thomas Addis Emmet had been 
 imprisoned in Scotland since 1798, but had been al- 
 lowed to go to the Continent after peace was declared 
 in 1801. Robert Emmet, born in 1778, entered Trinity 
 College early. He was a warm friend of Thomas 
 Moore, to whose cherubic appearance his own lean, 
 dry, wiry person, with his pock-marked face, was in 
 great contrast. It was typical of Trinity that in 
 1798 the Earl of Clare should have held an inquisition 
 to rout out the United Irishmen and typical of Rob- 
 ert Emmet that his protest brought his dismissal. 
 
 It was in this period that Moore wrote "Let Erin 
 Remember the Days of Old," sung to an old Irish air 
 
 240
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 which made young Emmet cry : "Oh that I were at the 
 head of twenty thousand men marching to that air !" 
 In 1801 he went to Paris, meeting his brother later 
 
 Robert Emmet 
 
 in Brussels. There was talk of help in August, 1803. 
 For three months, at the head of a small but absolutely 
 reliable organization, he worked to collect men and 
 munitions for a sudden movement to seize Dublin Castle, 
 thus to paralyze the Government and to await a general 
 
 241
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 rising. On July 16 in Patrick Street, Dublin, a gun- 
 powder explosion, killing one man, was traced to a 
 store full of pikes, blunderbusses, powder. This re- 
 vealed fresh insurgent activity. The Castle had an 
 Ulster spy named Turner at work, and Leonard Mc- 
 Nally, "the incorruptible," but neither had been trusted 
 by Emmet. The ill luck of the explosion, however, 
 forced the insurgents to strike out of hand, July 23. 
 In his green general's uniform, Robert Emmet and his 
 handful of men sallied from Marshalsea Lane in golden 
 evening light, to overpower the Castle. A rabble col- 
 lected from the quays and slums, fast on the heels of 
 Emmet's uniformed men ; old Judge Kilwarden and his 
 nephew were dragged from a carriage and murdered; 
 the assault became a meaningless scuffle in narrow 
 streets ; and Emmet's dream of a brilliant coup was 
 quenched in innocent blood. 
 
 He retreated from the brawl to his cottage at Rath- 
 farnam. He could have escaped. His housekeeper, 
 Anne Devlin, was tortured by the soldiers but refused 
 to betray him, and he remained hidden. But his love 
 for Sarah Curran gave a clue : he was arrested in Sep- 
 tember. He offered to plead guilty to keep from im- 
 plicating the daughter of the great lawyer, was instead 
 trapped by a letter he had sent to her, and had the 
 
 242
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 anguish of seeing their love revealed. John Philpot 
 Curran angrily threw up his brief, and Dublin Castle 
 rejoiced to have their spy McNally become his attor- 
 ney. All through the trial the highest English officials 
 studied Emmet's secrets as Emmet entrusted them to 
 his counsel. But this charming example of state chiv- 
 alry (disclosed in detail in "The Viceroy's Post-Bag" 
 by Michael MacDonagh) was of no personal conse- 
 quence. Robert Emmet was guilty. The jury found 
 him guilty without retiring. For twelve hours on his 
 feet, he then delivered that immortal speech, one hour 
 long, which ended, "When my country takes her place 
 among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, 
 let my epitaph be written." 
 
 The effect of Emmet's oration, delivered in round, 
 clear, cadent tones, was so sincere and moving that 
 even Norbury, the "hanging judge," is reported to 
 have wept. His counsel, McNally, kissed him as he was 
 taken away. He was hanged the next afternoon. 
 
 "My friends," he said from the gallows in Thomas 
 Street, "I die in peace, with sentiments of universal 
 love and kindness toward all men." 
 
 Emmet was twenty-five years old. His execution 
 took place September 20, 1803. His comportment 
 from the beginning was that of a rapt and disinterested 
 
 243
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 spirit, whose love of Ireland burned like a flame. But 
 his light did not pierce the grayness after the Union. 
 The provost of Trinity was more in the spirit of the 
 times when, writing to the viceroy the morning after 
 Kilwarden's nephew was murdered, he intimated faith- 
 fully, humbly, and obediently that he had two sons in 
 orders who'd like to be kept in mind, since "the horrid 
 murders of last night have left a living vacant." Dogs 
 did not lap blood in the gutters more quickly than did 
 these gentlemen lick up patronage. 
 
 6 
 
 At this time Daniel O'Connell was twenty-eight years 
 of age. His was an extremely different spirit from 
 that of Robert Emmet, and though he detested the 
 Union, and had said so as a young barrister in his 
 first public meeting, his whole temperament and train- 
 ing were opposed to violence. From St. Omer, where 
 he was a schoolboy in France, he learned to hate the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 He was reared in the bland airs of Kerry, in the 
 midst of the O'Connell clan. His father and mother 
 cared enough about devolving property legally to be 
 married in a Protestant church as well as in a Catholic 
 chapel, but a strong tribal tradition showed itself in
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 his being placed with foster-parents in a cottage till he 
 was four. He talked Gaelic from infancy. He was 
 brought up close to the people, close to their folk- 
 ways and legends and passions, and close to their life 
 of the soil. His education in France gave him social 
 unction the unction of an abbe and as he matured 
 he became very much the chieftain; lavish, hospitable, 
 generous, paternalistic. But what made him most 
 different from the "intellectuals" of the United Irish- 
 men was his genial knowledge of country-people, his 
 flashing human intuition, his ability to read them, to 
 lead them to lead them astray. He was the supreme 
 example of the jury-trial lawyer. He was agile in 
 mind, even more agile in emotion, enormous in vitality, 
 in vivacity, and in perseverance. A big man in height 
 and frame, he had a ruddy face which grew heavy in 
 age, a small snub nose, singularly lovely blue eyes. 
 His voice was golden, of great range, sweetness, and 
 carrying power, with deep notes and that ability to 
 sustain a flight without apparent effort, as of a mighty 
 eagle soaring on level wing. In the incredible repeal 
 meetings of 1843, which were attended by crowds as 
 great as 250,000 people, O'Connell's voice could 
 naturally not be heard to their reverential limits, but 
 few human beings have ever exercised such power of 
 
 45
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 oratory. He conjured with the people of three prov- 
 inces. He swayed multitudes with the caress of a 
 syllable. 
 
 This extraordinary emotional power was soon em- 
 ployed by O'Connell in a cause he sincerely loved. It 
 was the kind of cause that suited his nature a con- 
 crete, simple, obvious reform within strict legal and 
 constitutional limits to which he could devote his stren- 
 uous, combative disposition without enduring for a 
 moment the acute loneliness of a departure from the 
 mob. This was the cause of Catholic emancipation, or 
 seats in parliament for Catholics. 
 
 7 
 
 The exclusion of Catholics from the British house of 
 commons was the result of double-dealing. When Pitt 
 and Castlereagh were touting the Union, they con- 
 veyed to the Catholic archbishops a definite under- 
 standing that the Union would mean Catholic eman- 
 cipation, the commutation of the tithes, and state pay- 
 ment of priests. "When the devil was well, the devil a 
 saint was he." With the Union safely delivered, "Pitt 
 was under the strongest moral obligation to do the 
 utmost in his power to carry the measure," says Lecky. 
 "It is, however, quite plain that Pitt, having obtained 
 
 246
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 the service he required from the Catholics, had very 
 little wish to incur for their sakes- any serious difficulty 
 he could possibly avoid.'* 
 
 This "definite betrayal of the Catholic cause" was 
 aided by George Ill's insanity. George went off his 
 head when Pitt broached the subject, and Pitt, after 
 a noble resignation, came back to office on the old terms. 
 He took King George's attitude as final, and pledged 
 himself to silence. This pledge was congenial, and he 
 kept it, but it drove the Catholic hierarchy from nib- 
 bling at loyalty to a position in which, under O'Con- 
 nell's leadership, they defied even the Vatican on the 
 subject of the veto, and rejected forever any idea of 
 being paid by the state. 
 
 O'Connell was thirty-six when he ame to the front 
 with the Catholic Committee in 1810. The extreme 
 subdivision of the land, owing to the demand for corn 
 as well as meat during the Napoleonic War, created an 
 abnormal condition of high rents, high prices, and 
 swollen prosperity. It was not till the collapse of 
 rents and wages and the beginning of evictions, after 
 1815 and peace, that the Catholic agitation became 
 keen. Up to 1820, the year he died, Grattan had 
 striven for Catholic emancipation (with the veto) in 
 the house of commons. His death cleared the way for 
 
 24,7
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 O'Connell. In 1823, working through the Maynooth- 
 educated, national-minded priests, lie organized the 
 Catholic Association, began collecting the peasants' 
 pennies as Catholic Rent, and linked with the measure 
 
 Daniel O'Connell 
 
 of emancipation a promise of justice, legal aid, and 
 advocacy to the exploited tenant class. As the fore- 
 most Catholic barrister, earning 9000 a year, O'Con- 
 nell had colossal legal prestige. He spent himself 
 lavishly on his combined work as Liberator and Tri- 
 
 248
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 bune. The Government, through the dry and anti- 
 pathetic Peel, had now determined to hold Ireland by 
 the quiet means of an imperial constabulary and paid 
 magistrates. Its land policy was landlord-made. It 
 facilitated cheap ejectments, in case of non-payment 
 of rack-rent. The Government had also quietly stimu- 
 lated Orangeism and converted the Presbyterian 
 Church to great loyalty by giving it an annual grant. 
 In 1826 an election in Waterford saw the tenants break 
 away from the landlords. In 1828, a parliamentary 
 vacancy occurring in Clare, O'Connell decided to bring 
 his agitation to a head by the bold method of seeking 
 election to a parliament in which it was not legal for 
 a Catholic to sit. His opponent, Vesey Fitzgerald, 
 was a respected liberal, who had the support of the 
 gentry to a man. But O'ConnelPs speeches and pam- 
 phlets, the new Catholic press and the aroused priests 
 had at last turned abject submissiveness of the feudal 
 peasant voter. The tenants defied their landlords and 
 elected O'Connell. This more than anything else se- 
 cured emancipation in 1829. 
 
 With this movement for emancipation, O'Connell had 
 begun the first popular constitutional agitation in Ire- 
 land. It was, of course, an easy issue on which to ap- 
 peal to Irish pride. It concerned the Catholic gentry, 
 
 249
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 the peasant voters, the priests themselves. Because 
 it concerned the priests, O'Connell was able to seize 
 the one existing nation-wide, popular machinery for 
 creating and binding national opinion, combining it 
 with his aid to oppressed tenants, parish by parish. 
 And because of O'Connell's personality, his ready wit, 
 his brusque and scathing humor, his broad brush- 
 strokes and primary colors, he gave Ireland what it had 
 not possessed for two hundred years a national chief- 
 tain. His was chieftaincy in a cause that at first was 
 utterly simple, racial, and religious. It enabled O'Con- 
 nell to forget he had ever joined the free-masons or ad- 
 mired Godwin or agreed with Mary Wollstonecraft. 
 He drank deep of enthusiasm, applause, unanimity. 
 Like many big men with little noses, he was something 
 of a physiological conservative, and he became con- 
 firmed very early in his great career in his need for a 
 tremendous volume of popular support. He was like a 
 vast balloon, that sagged and flapped ingloriously until 
 pumped from outside. But on some elemental issues 
 he was self-supporting. He hated negro slavery, and 
 sent back to the Southern States some large sub- 
 scriptions from slaveholders. He had stubborn con- 
 servative opinions on the subject of trade-unions, and 
 a decided belief in the sacred rights of property. These 
 
 250
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 he declared even when inexpedient. And he had a 
 rough, satiric genius, which he employed from the start 
 to affront and outrage the Ascendancy. 
 
 He and his handful of supporters were eventually 
 seated in the house of commons. 
 
 8 
 
 The British house of commons was no place for an 
 Irish agitator. It had already developed "that tone 
 of gentlemanly moderation, that well-bred pungent 
 raillery which is so characteristic of the English par- 
 liament, and of successful British ministers." It did 
 not suit O'ConnelPs temper or mission to meet the mood 
 of this house. He could not flute politely about ques- 
 tions of national subordination, enslavement, or star- 
 vation. "The best club in the world" did not squirm at 
 dishonesty : they squirmed at the mention of it. O'Con- 
 nell called Lord Alvanley "a bloated buffoon" and Peel 
 "Orange Peel," and said of one statesman that he was 
 "a lineal descendant of the impenitent thief" and of 
 another that he was "a fellow whose visage would 
 frighten a horse from his oats." The house left its 
 answer to hired bullies. The well-bred raillery of the 
 "London Times" was to retort that O'Connell was a 
 rancorous, foul-mouthed ruffian. England named him 
 
 251
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 the Big Beggarman. And, on achieving Catholic eman- 
 cipation, he was blackballed by a ladylike English 
 Catholic Club. It was, of course, the natural fate of 
 an agitator. A wise statesman did not exactly wag 
 his tail when he saw O'Connell approaching with a 
 string and a can. 
 
 O'Connell's immoderation and exuberance were trifles. 
 His serious faults were deeper than those of taste. He 
 was a national leader but not a national architect. 
 On some questions like the poor law system he thought 
 widely. He grasped the horror of Irish famine in ample 
 time to give England a policy and a lead. But among 
 the trees of politics he did not see the national wood. 
 He had no education policy except to reject the queen's 
 colleges as "godless" colleges. He was quite ready to 
 give up his native tongue on utilitarian grounds. He 
 advocated state-aided emigration. He doted on Vic- 
 toria as "our darling queen." He required and yet 
 denounced the use of force. He actually contemplated 
 the Irish as West Britons, provided they gained cer- 
 tain reforms. As between Grattan's parliament and 
 federal home rule he had no spiritual compass. He was, 
 in these matters, an opportunist. With all sail set and 
 a high heart, he caught the breeze of Catholic emanci- 
 pation and carried the freight to port. Where he was 
 
 252
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 lost was in the campaign that followed, running before 
 the infinitely stronger wind of repeal. In advocating the 
 repeal of the Union O'Connell collected those streams 
 of feeling with which conquest and confiscation still 
 flooded the Irish air. But he had disowned the use of 
 force. He was permanently "constitutional." All 
 England needed to do to defeat him was to become 
 illegal and unconstitutional herself, which she did. 
 
 Before O'Connell entered on the agitation for the 
 repeal of the Union, he gave the British parliament a 
 fair trial. One hand had taken away the vote from the 
 poorest class of Irishmen at the time that the other 
 extended Catholic emancipation, but even if the Govern- 
 ment conspicuously declined to make O'Connell a K. C., 
 to which distinction he was entitled, he and his clan 
 soon made an alliance with the Whigs. O r tonnell asso- 
 ciated himself with the 1832 Reform Bill, and when Mel- 
 bourne returned to power in 1835 an Irish agitator 
 was for the first time consulted as to Irish appoint- 
 ments in Irish government. 
 
 It was, on the whole, a period of democratic ten- 
 dency, with the state ready to give Ireland those means 
 of popular uplift of which England thought it stood in 
 
 253
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 need. The ideas of the time were rational, and it seemed 
 sensible to bestow on the Irish a primary school system 
 on the English model, prohibiting Irish language, Irish 
 literature, Irish history, and ail mention of religion. 
 Following this scheme which aimed to make the Irish 
 rural population read, write, and cipher there was 
 devised a poor-law system and a dispensary-doctor sys- 
 tem. The main feature of the poor-law system was 
 to be the erection of one hundred vast barracks, each 
 capable of holding 1000 paupers, scattered through the 
 country. In these great storage-warehouses, called 
 "workhouses," the idle poor were to be lodged in per- 
 manent idleness, branded as paupers, and grouped in 
 pauper uniforms according to sex. Another reform, 
 much desired by the rising Catholic mercantile class, 
 was popular municipal government. Till 1840 no Irish 
 Catholic had ever been admitted to the Dublin Corpora- 
 tion. So important did the concession seem that 
 O'Connell himself became the first Catholic lord mayor, 
 in the interval before the repeal agitation. 
 
 But the poor law, the education scheme, municipal 
 reform, Catholic emancipation, did not go deep into 
 either of the real issues the festering issues created 
 by conquest and confiscation. To undo confiscation, 
 which had dispossessed the Irish clansmen, was the som- 
 
 254
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 her, sleepless desire of the starving masses of the Irish 
 people. This desire was put in words by James Fintan 
 Lalor some years later: "The cry of Irish nationality, 
 and the cry against the Union, are of little use; they 
 have no real hold on the minds of the people ; what the 
 peasantry want is the land for themselves ; this cry 
 must be combined with the others ; the British Govern- 
 ment can be only attacked successfully through an at- 
 tack on the Irish landed gentry." It was, however, not 
 as an attack on the gentry but as an attack on the 
 established church that the fight was first waged. 
 
 One of the quite barefaced acts of the Anglo-Irish 
 parliament had been to exempt pasture-lands from 
 tithes. This threw an extra burden on the Catholic 
 cottiers. The cost of maintaining the Protestant es- 
 tablished church was, in fact, saddled in the South 
 "exclusively on the poorest of the Catholic tenantry." 
 
 This was an exaction that aroused a peculiarly 
 fierce anger in the otherwise suppressed and impotent 
 Catholic peasant. He was the victim of a land system 
 which he could not throw off, dependent for his very 
 life on landlords often absentee who gave him no 
 vested interest, raised the rent because of improve- 
 ments, charged what rent they pleased, and evicted at 
 will. In this unsound and inhuman caste system the 
 
 255
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 tenant felt himself bewilderingly entangled, with the 
 law against him, the police against him, the military 
 against him, the agent against him every one except 
 the priest and the "counselor." But in the case of 
 tithes he did not feel so helpless or so bewildered. He 
 could grasp the dastardly injustice of his being com- 
 pelled to support the church of the Ascendancy, and on 
 this issue he was prepared to do battle. 
 
 Peel's Protestant constabulary did what they could 
 from 1831 on, to protect the tithe-collectors. In 1832 
 there was a massacre in Kilkenny, and 242 homicides 
 within the year. The next years saw hideous epi- 
 sodes. A Scottish under-secretary, Thomas Drum- 
 mond, then arrived on the scene. He was a sympathetic 
 liberal. He made up his mind that the Castle might at 
 last dispense with the amiable custom of raising the 
 British flag to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne. He 
 strove to give the Catholics a part in the administra- 
 tion, to admit them to the royal Irish constabulary, 
 to cut off the secret stimulus to Orangeism which had 
 been supplied by Government policy since the Union, 
 to admonish magistrates not to counsel massacre, and 
 to remind landlords that "property has its duties as 
 well as its rights." 
 
 By 1838 the British Government acted. It passed 
 256
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 a bill making the tithe part of the rent, and reducing 
 both the exasperation and the extortion. 
 
 10 
 
 But this left the land system where it was. In 1836 
 a royal commission revealed the utter rottenness of 
 a depressed, neglected, exploited, non-educated people. 
 Out of work and in distress, there were 585,000 men 
 with 1,800,000 dependents, making 2,385,000 in all. 
 The average weekly wage had sunk to about two shil- 
 lings six pence a week. Lord John Russell thought that 
 if these 2,385,000 gradually moved into workhouses 
 they could live in a "superior degree of comfort." But 
 the native Irish did not show any inclination to be 
 stored in workhouses, on two meals a day, with men 
 segregated in one yard, women in another, the children 
 in another. "Confinement of any kind is more irksome 
 to an Irishman than it is even to an Englishman," said 
 the commissioner, "and hence, although the Irishman 
 may be lodged, fed, and clothed in a workhouse better 
 than he could lodge, feed, and clothe himself by his own 
 exertions, he will yet never enter the workhouse unless 
 driven there by actual necessity." 
 
 The population in 1841 was 8,175,000, with fourteen 
 workhouses just completed. And the population con- 
 
 257
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 tinued to rise. In this period O'Connell began his 
 agitation for the repeal of the Union. While his 
 "monster meetings" were in progress, and Father 
 Mathew's great temperance campaign, the people 
 gathered steadily and mutely for an economic disaster 
 which English statesmanship looked upon as deplorably 
 "inevitable." For ten years before the great arti- 
 ficial famine the house of commons mooned about it. 
 They watched Ireland in fascinated apprehension, as 
 contractors might watch fresh arrivals climb to an 
 unsafe platform, already overloaded. But the O'Con- 
 nell formula was constitutionality. "No human revolu- 
 tion," he declared, "is worth the effusion of one single 
 drop of human blood." He went ahead organizing the 
 people for larger and larger assemblies and meetings, 
 until more than 500,000 were believed to be assembling 
 for a Sunday demonstration at Clontarf in October, 
 1843. On the Saturday before it Peel decided to 
 meet constitutional agitation and "moral force" with 
 unconstitutional prohibition and a few guns. He "pro- 
 claimed" the meeting. O'Connell had either to risk an 
 Amritsar or to admit that the Government could always 
 treat peaceful assembly as criminal. He yielded, and 
 his submission ended the constitutional movement for 
 repeal. 
 
 258
 
 The Union and the Repeal Movement 
 
 The economic crash came in 1846. Out of 8,500,000 
 nearly 6,000,000 were still living in the kind of hovels 
 that Petty had described in their "nasty brutishness" 
 in the seventeenth century. Their food was potatoes. 
 When the potato crop failed in 1845, and again in 
 1846, nothing but the landlords and the Government 
 and private charity stood between them and death from 
 hunger. The Government behaved with sodden lethargy 
 and stupidity. Daniel O'Connell, now over seventy, a 
 broken man, dragged himself in 1847 across to the 
 house of commons. In a voice so feeble as to be vir- 
 tually inaudible he said to them: "Ireland is in your 
 hands, in your power. If you do not save her she cannot 
 save herself. I solemnly call on you to recollect that 
 I predict with the sincerest conviction that a quarter 
 of her population will perish unless you come to her 
 relief." It was a plutocratic body but not without a 
 dramatic sense. O'Connell's voice came almost from 
 the grave. They were impressed, moved, reverential, 
 sorry for the poor old boy. But their god was 
 Property. The Irish, powerless to legislate, counseled 
 by the priests and by O'Connell to trust the Govern- 
 ment, allowed this food to leave Ireland. 
 
 The old leader was powerless. Already afflicted by 
 softening of the brain, he left Ireland in 1847 to travel 
 
 259
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 to Rome, where he was regarded as perhaps the greatest 
 living Catholic layman. He was so ill that he halted at 
 Genoa, and died there May, 1847, his mind almost com- 
 pletely crumbled. His last journey has the twilight 
 sadness of the Flight of the Earls. It was more sad, 
 because he had left the Irish nation forever. His 
 body was returned to be buried in Glasnevin: his heart 
 was sent to Rome. 
 
 260
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE LAND WAR. 
 
 THE O'Connell formula in this period, that "no 
 human revolution is worth the effusion of one 
 single drop of human blood," had never appealed to 
 Young Ireland, the successors to the men of 1798. In 
 1841 this ardent group, comprising Thomas Davis, 
 Charles Gavan Duffy, and John O'Hagan at first, had 
 begun a movement of which "The Nation" was their 
 organ. 
 
 They were not mob orators or revivalists. They were 
 not agitators. They were not social radicals. They 
 saw that Ireland was intellectually infantile, that the 
 job of public thinking for Ireland could never be done 
 by the stolid, selfish English parliament, and must 
 be done by Irishmen, in Ireland. These men loved 
 Ireland. The respected and understood the Gaelic 
 period, they saw that Ireland's present state was due 
 to the wreckage of savage conquest and greedy confis- 
 
 261
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 cation. Iliey knew that the removal of this wreckage 
 would only be accomplished by an Ireland with brain 
 and muscle, a cool, deliberate, and disciplined Ireland. 
 Dan O'Connell they rather despised. He was warm, 
 fluent, optimistic, grandiose, uncritical. They were 
 tired of him and his theatrical promises, his great 
 glistening green foliage and his barrenness of fruit. As 
 against O'Connell these men of Young Ireland attuned 
 themselves to the new world of republican Europe of 
 '48. They went to Lamartine. They knew German 
 history and sympathized with the German movement. 
 James Clarence Mangan, a poetic genius, influenced 
 by the current enthusiasm, translated from the Ger- 
 man. The iron will of this group was John Mitchel, son 
 of an Ulster Presbyterian clergyman, grandfather of 
 the late John Mitchel, Mayor of New York. He wrote 
 not with ink but with corrosive. He was mordant, 
 grim, eloquent, unbending. He saw the scabbard of 
 liberalism that concealed the blade of England's im- 
 perialism, and he had contempt for "old Dan." He 
 was, above everything, a nationalist. He wrote a 
 passionate "Life of Hugh O'Neill." He wrote a "His- 
 tory of Ireland." He did not want acts of parliament 
 on the terms of Irish subjection. He wanted, like 
 Wolfe Tone, to resurrect the Irish nation. 
 
 262
 
 The Land War 
 
 "The Nation" was the mouthpiece of this desire. In 
 a few years this brilliant sixpenny paper had achieved 
 a circulation of 10,000 a week. It disliked and 
 
 John Mitckel 
 
 criticized O'Connell's apparent belief that Ireland was 
 a mere annex to Irish Catholicism. It did not believe 
 in boycotting the queen's colleges. They were neces- 
 sary for higher education, a good in itself. It dis- 
 liked his pro-royalism and his slobbering loyalty. It 
 
 263
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 had no great sympathy with him when, in spite of his 
 loyalty, he was tried for conspiracy by a packed jury 
 after the break-up of the repeal meetings. 
 
 With John Mitchel in their counsels, and Thomas 
 Francis Meagher and Smith O'Brien, an open split 
 had come with O'Connell in 1846 on the theoretic ques- 
 tion of the use of "physical force." The death of 
 Thomas Davis from scarlet fever in 1845 had already 
 removed one of the most elevated and liberating in- 
 fluences that was ever exercised in radical Irish poli- 
 tics. But even this wise and tolerant nationalist O'Con- 
 nell had rebuffed. He sought, like the old paternalist 
 he was, to subordinate Young Ireland in the overbear- 
 ing, dogmatic manner which had grown on him for 
 years. 
 
 Those who seceded from O'Connell on the policy of 
 physical force were destined to divide a second time. 
 John Mitchel started "The United Irishman" as a 
 separatist, revolutionary journal, leaving "The Na- 
 tion" to those who thought the advocacy of force less 
 expedient. 
 
 Mitchel's outspoken enmity to England led to his 
 arrest in March, 1848. O'Brien and Meagher, taken 
 at the same time, were released after the jury disagreed. 
 Mitchel was convicted of treason-felony. He was sent 
 
 264
 
 The Land War 
 
 to Tasmania on that voyage of pained separation which 
 gave the world his "Jail Journal." The discharge of 
 O'Brien and Meagher restored the lesser men to their 
 plans for direct action. The famine, however, had been 
 another Cromwell, confiscating life rather than land. 
 There was no revolutionary pulse in a stricken Ireland. 
 In August a few hundred men followed Smith O'Brien 
 in an insignificant attack on a small body of police at 
 Ballingarry. 
 
 This display of physical force was so futile that 
 O'Brien and Meagher were not executed. Ireland was 
 helpless. The British Government rested on its laurels. 
 The Young Ireland movement went underground. 
 
 The famine, 1846-49, was not a mere accident. It 
 was the climax of political and economic degradation. 
 Up to that time the modern Irish had protested and 
 appealed against misgovernment, but they had not 
 really revolted. They had not killed their oppressors 
 and seized control of their destinies. Now their quies- 
 cence and docility escorted them to death. Daniel 
 O'Connell had told the native Irish that they were the 
 finest peasantry on earth. A Catholic bishop had 
 rolled his eyes to heaven because the good creatures 
 
 265
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 had "bravely paid their rent." John O'Connell, the 
 Protector's son, had said: "I thank God I live among 
 a people who would rather die of hunger than defraud 
 the landlords of their rent!'* (Why, asked Michael 
 Davitt, was he not kicked into "the sink of the Lif- 
 fey?") The Young Irelanders had toyed brightly 
 with the name of revolution, but there was no revolu- 
 tion in Ireland. It had the glazed eye of starvation, 
 the cough of death. 
 
 A cry was wrung from Lord John Russell : "We have 
 made Ireland I speak it deliberately we have made 
 it the most degraded and the most miserable country 
 in the world . . . All the world is crying shame upon 
 us ; but we are equally callous to our ignominy, and to 
 the results of our misgovernment." 
 
 This English politician out of office, and desiring 
 office, did not distract the Irish nation from its hideous 
 catastrophe. Ireland sat in the center of its 729,000 
 dead, musing on the counsel of landlords and statesmen 
 and bishops. A nation that had abounded in life lost 
 its buoyancy. A nation's laughter died within. 
 
 When the people knew in 1846 that the potato crop 
 was again a failure, they saw their doom. A kind of 
 stupor, A. M. Sullivan said, "fell upon the people, con- 
 
 266
 
 The Land War 
 
 trasting remarkably with the fierce energy put forth a 
 year before. It was no uncommon sight to see the 
 cottier and his little family seated on the garden fence 
 gazing all day long in moody silence at the blighted 
 plot that had been their last hope. Nothing could rouse 
 them. You spoke; they answered not. You tried to 
 cheer them; they shook their heads. I never saw so 
 sudden and so terrible a transformation." 
 
 The British parliament could not, and did not, feel 
 its responsibility. It was a parliament of landlords 
 and bankers, comfortable men. It said : This famine is 
 creating a multitude of beggars ; we must firmly dis- 
 courage beggars. It did everything it could to regulate 
 and discipline the people who came in suppliant thou- 
 sands for relief. The Government required that men in 
 the tremor of death should labor to build useless roads, 
 useless piers, useless mounds, because to give something 
 for nothing was to pauperize, and to build useful pub- 
 lic works might interfere with "competition." Govern- 
 ment did not supervise the "coffin ships" which bore 
 away the famine refugees because that, also, might in- 
 terfere with competition. One vessel taking 200 steer- 
 age passengers from Sligo to Liverpool packed its vic- 
 tims so close in the hold that seventy-two were trampled 
 
 267
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 or suffocated to death before the short voyage was 
 over. That was one incident of hundreds of incidents 
 in the episode of 1846-49. 
 
 The landed gentry in some cases slaved to help the 
 people. So did many volunteers. So did many chari- 
 table English persons. But in 1846 alone 50,000 fami- 
 lies quarter of a million people were evicted for not 
 paying their rents. Their huts were leveled to the earth 
 and they were left to die. During those hunger years 
 there was bountiful food in sight of the famine victims. 
 During 1846-49 the English imported from Ireland 
 572,485 head of cattle; 839,118 sheep; 699,021 pigs; 
 2,532,839 quarters of oats; 1,821,091 hundredweights 
 of oatmeal; 455,256 quarters of wheat; 1,494,852 
 hundredweights of wheatmeal. The Irish peasants ate 
 grass. They ate seaweed. They ate the rotting pota- 
 toes. In the midst of plenty, at the door of the wealth- 
 iest nation in the world, 729,033 victims died more 
 than the British Empire lost in the four years of the 
 World War. Each death was a preventable death. 
 Each death was due to causes over which mankind has 
 control. 
 
 3 
 
 The failure of England to prevent or avert the fam- 
 ine was the beginning of acute public thinking in 
 
 268
 
 The Land War 
 
 modern Ireland. Of the million Irish who were 
 wrenched from their country in that period a great 
 number were filled with hatred of the British Govern- 
 ment and the Anglo-Irish landlord; a perceptible num- 
 ber were also filled with contempt for Irishmen them- 
 selves. The craven spirit of the people, their ignorance, 
 their apathy, their despair, generated a fierce and per- 
 manent anger in the manlier Irishmen. Thousands 
 upon thousands had needlessly perished from starva- 
 tion in a period when nearly 50,000,000 worth of 
 available foodstuff had left the rich fields of Ireland. 
 This fact nerved intelligent men to the land war that 
 was to follow. 
 
 As to England, the famine seemed an act of God, 
 or else the purging of overburdened nature. Only at 
 nightmare moments, seldom permitted, did it appear 
 credible that England had originated, enforced, and 
 protected a fatal land system. The more insolent Eng- 
 lishman was ready, like the "London Times," to speak 
 of the tragedy in terms of racial hatred and contempt : 
 "The Celt goes to yield to the Saxon. This island of 
 one hundred and sixty harbors, with its fertile soil, 
 with noble rivers and beautiful lakes, with fertile mines 
 and riches of every kind, is being cleared quietly for 
 the interests and luxury of humanity." This vicious 
 
 269
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 tone was not, however, the tone of the more educated 
 Englishman. 
 
 He saw the famine, however, in terms of class. He 
 felt quite clear that Ireland, like England itself, was 
 mainly inhabited by "the lower orders of mankind." 
 He felt that the "democracy," as it was called, was the 
 tedious problem of the upper class, and that both 
 in England and in Ireland it was primarily important 
 that this dangerous democracy be kept in its place. 
 The extension of the suffrage, the development of edu- 
 cation, the multiplication of public utilities and serv- 
 ices these were, on the whole, very debatable and 
 risky reforms. What one desired, in England as well 
 as in Ireland, was the right moral outlook on the part 
 of the people. One sought a loyal and devoted yeo- 
 manry, a God-fearing and obedient and dutiful people, 
 a people that went in for no nonsense like trade-unions 
 or combination, that respected its superiors, reverenced 
 its church, loved its gracious sovereign, and knew its 
 place. In this mood the feudal upper class inspected 
 the lower class. The tragedy of Ireland was that the 
 Irish people failed to be (1) dutiful, and (2) a sturdy 
 English yeomanry. 
 
 But this aristocratic landlord attitude was not 
 universal. The governing class was almost strong 
 
 270
 
 The Land War 
 
 enough, a few years later, to swing England for the 
 Southern States in the American Civil War. The 
 aristocracy and its parasites, full of class prejudice, 
 frankly saw Lincoln as a baboon or gorilla. Even 
 Gladstone, on the eve of liberalism, favored the South. 
 But with the growing industrialism of England a new 
 public opinion had also begun to grow : the middle class 
 did not share essentially feudal sympathies. John 
 Bright was to stand like a rock for the North. And 
 the middle class joined him. It was prosperous, sober, 
 practical, peace-loving, tending toward the humane 
 and philanthropic, and attracting toward itself some of 
 the gentlemanly, chivalrous representatives of the older 
 order. 
 
 It was Protestant in its religion, and prone to 
 link the greatness of England with the greatness of 
 Protestantism. It was, in general, good-natured and 
 complacent. It regarded the Continent of Europe as 
 a queer and wicked place. It already said "Paris" 
 with a wink, and "Rome" with a shudder. The ap- 
 prehensions of the Middle Ages were, in a sense, being 
 recapitulated by the emerging Saxon. But in John 
 Stuart Mill and the lesser utilitarians there was a 
 resolute attempt to rise above prejudice, and to see 
 life in a clear, even if a chilly, light.
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 4 
 
 By this rising liberalism of England, Ireland scarcely 
 ever was considered in its national aspect. It was 
 now a fixed fact in the liberal English mind that Ireland 
 was physically and historically part of the United 
 Kingdom, indissolubly wedded. It was also a fixed 
 fact that the native Irish were distressful and trouble- 
 some. But, granting the difficulty of the Irish tempera- 
 ment, the English liberal felt that something ought to 
 be conceded to the Irish in time. How much? This 
 conundrum was strictly concerned with the "conces- 
 sion" of self-government. That Ireland should want 
 separation from England was already unthinkable. 
 Neither liberal nor conservative politician mentioned 
 separation except as a diabolical and half-savage idea, 
 generated only in the brains of treason-criminals. As 
 the empire grew wealthier and acquired more territory, 
 this notion of the wickedness of separatism steadily in- 
 tensified. 
 
 Separatism, indeed, was in no man's mind im- 
 mediately after the famine. The prudent Irish pro- 
 gram, as represented by Cardinal Cullen, was to at- 
 tempt, without O'Connell's personality, to continue the 
 O'Connell compromise in the house of commons. In 
 
 272
 
 The Land War 
 
 complete disagreement with this program were Gavan 
 Duffy, the Young Irelander; George Henry Moore, a 
 landlord whose son became famous as George Moore the 
 novelist ; and Sharman Crawford and Frederic Lucas. 
 These men knew that Ireland could gain nothing by 
 sending to London a handful of Whig parliamen- 
 tarians. Such loose representatives could too easily be 
 bought off with a judgeship or a job at the Castle. 
 The radicals realized that in this emergency Ireland 
 needed a parliamentary party consciously independent 
 of all opposition, and behind it a tenants' organization 
 in Ireland. 
 
 The tenants' organization was especially needed be- 
 cause, after the famine, an Encumbered Estates Act 
 had been passed to enable landlords to sell out. By this 
 process, it was hoped, a number of unencumbered Scot- 
 tish and English proprietors could start anew. They 
 did start anew with three years of "clearance." Nearly 
 200,000 families were uprooted, compelled to go to the 
 workhouse or to leave Ireland. These inhuman clear- 
 ances, even more than the artificial famine, filled the 
 Irish peasants with indignation. But their secret so- 
 ciety of Ribbonmen was banned by the church, and 
 within a few years Duffy's league was captured by the 
 conservatives, who became known in parliament as the 
 
 273
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Pope's Brass Band. "Three-fourths of the representa- 
 tives elected by the people,'* said Duffy, "assented in 
 silence [to this extermination policy] and three-fourths 
 of the bishops, born and bred among them, sanctioned 
 the perfidy." 
 
 Cardinal Cullen was not fortunate in his parlia- 
 mentary party. Sadleir and Keogh, the leaders of it, 
 could not stand temptation. Of their group, "one was 
 a forger, and committed suicide; the other was a forger, 
 and was expelled from parliament; the third was a 
 swindler, and fled; and the fourth was made a judge." 
 
 Gavan Duffy sailed for Australia in 1855. "There 
 is no more hope for Ireland," he said of his period, 
 "than for a corpse on the dissecting-table." 
 
 Ireland, in reality, was not like a corpse. It was 
 like the dumb victim of a shattering accident. But 
 after that accident its weakness was not so great as it 
 seemed. Though the total number of living Irish had 
 been reduced to possibly eight million, the Irish were 
 now implanted in Canada, Australia, England, and 
 above all the United States. They did not lose their 
 desire to help Ireland. The agony of emigration was 
 in many cases only sentimental. It transferred to the 
 
 274
 
 The Land War 
 
 broad shoulders of the United States the burden of 
 illiteracy and technical backwardness which had been 
 created by bad English government. By the shifting 
 of this burden the Irish were the gainers. In a few 
 years the children of 1848 were grown, and they were 
 men with more material resources, a better smattering 
 of education, and a livelier will than any group of 
 native Irishmen had possessed for many years. Their 
 will, indeed, often outran their sagacity, yet it was only 
 by the combination of Irish and American Irish that the 
 liberation of the Irish tenant was at last to be secured. 
 The Irish and Anglo-Irish landlords resisted land agi- 
 tation even more than the British Government. The 
 whetstone of the land movement was supplied by the 
 Fenians. This society sprang from, a small group 
 called together in New York as the Emmet Monument 
 Association, in 1854. The men most prominent in this 
 group were '48 insurgents John O'Mahony, Michael 
 Doheny, and others. And they joined, through James 
 Stephens, with the I. R. B., or Irish Republican 
 Brotherhood, which was founded in Dublin in 1858. 
 
 James Stephens, born in Kilkenny in 1828, had es- 
 caped to France after the fiasco of '48. There he at 
 first supported himself by the grim labor of translating 
 Dickens into French. The great lesson which the 
 
 275
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 failure of Young Ireland had impressed on this ener- 
 getic, handsome, arrogant man was the weakness of in- 
 tellectual middle-class propaganda. He made up his 
 mind, according to Michael Davitt, that he would rely 
 solely on the "common people" in building up the 
 I. R. B. He spent 1858 and 1859 scouring Ireland to 
 recruit the young men for this secret society, to which 
 America was to supply arms. The work attracted the 
 more adventurous and the wilder temperaments. 
 O'Donovan Rossa of Skibbereen was one of his aides. 
 John O'Leary and Thomas Clarke Luby were two of 
 his intellectuals. A sensational impetus, fostered by 
 Stephens, was given in the funeral of a '48 man, Ter- 
 ence Bellew McManus, conducted from San Francisco 
 to Dublin as a national memorial. In the United 
 States, Stephens placed the Fenian Brotherhood "in 
 proper auxiliary relation with the home organization." 
 During the early stages of the Civil War he was busy 
 among the Irish-American regiments working at the 
 front and having "free access both to the Federal and 
 Confederate forces." He returned to Ireland, and, as 
 Michael Davitt caustically remarks, "founded a news- 
 paper to be a mouthpiece for a secret organization." 
 
 It was Stephens's belief that he could promise a ris- 
 ing. He had his connections all over the United States, 
 
 276
 
 The Land War 
 
 in South America, in Paris, London, Glasgow, Liver- 
 pool, Manchester. He had a great number of Fenians 
 in the British army. "The Irish People,'* run by 
 O'Leary and Luby, was filled with "wicked diatribes" 
 such as: "I am free to admit that Thuggism has never 
 produced the death by starvation of two millions of 
 people, and is therefore, compared to Irish aristocracy, 
 a harmless institution." But "The Irish People" gave 
 Dublin Castle the excuse it needed. By swooping down 
 on it in good time the Government upset the Fenian 
 game. It filled Ireland with troops. It arrested 
 Stephens. Through Fenian aid Stephens made a dra- 
 matic escape and promised a rising in 1866, but the 
 English, unusually alert, squelched every move or even 
 sign of insurgent activity. So far as Ireland was con- 
 cerned, the Government was crowned with success. And 
 yet Fenianism made a startling impression elsewhere. 
 
 6 
 
 This was in England. In September, 1867, a prison- 
 van containing two leading Fenians was ambushed on 
 its way through Manchester, and the prisoners enabled 
 to escape. A police sergeant, refusing to give up the 
 keys, was killed by the single shot that was fired to 
 blow open the lock. Five youths in the party were 
 
 277
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 seized. Three of them Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien 
 were found guilty of murder. They met their sentence 
 with the cry, "God save Ireland!'* There was much 
 public protest before they were hanged. "The trial," 
 said T. P. O'Connor, "took place amid a hurricane of 
 public passion and panic." Its effect was greatly deep- 
 ened by an attempt in December to free Ricard O'Sul- 
 livan Burke from Clerkenwell Prison, in London. The 
 idea in this criminally reckless exploit was to blow a 
 hole in the prison-wall with a barrel of gunpowder. 
 The barrel was misplaced, however, and twelve poor 
 people were killed and more than one hundred injured. 
 The Irish famine made far less impression on the bulk 
 of middle-class England than the Clerkenwell explosions 
 and the executions of Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien. 
 These two affairs, both occurring in 1867, stirred a new 
 England. It was, in part, the England of no-popery, 
 race hatred, and race contempt. But it was also an 
 England politically virginaj; With its great industrial 
 connections in Scotland and Wales, it was, on the whole, 
 quite different from the old-fashioned country which 
 had always supported the lord, the bishop, and the 
 squire. Fed by the same newspapers and looking to 
 the same parliament, it still beheld in Fenianism a 
 problem which it could not quite understand. It felt 
 
 278
 
 The Land War 
 
 astonishment at the outrages, and indignation and fear. 
 It also felt curiosity. Politically-minded men woke 
 up to this change. They discovered that one barrel 
 of gunpowder exploded inside the city of London does 
 infallibly promote thinking. John Bright shook Eng- 
 land. He declared that he did not consider the execu- 
 tion of the "Manchester Martyrs" just. Not so long 
 afterward he said of Ireland in general: "Force is no 
 remedy." And Gladstone not so long afterward made 
 the tremendous admission that there was more in Feni- 
 anism than Irish wickedness. 
 
 This carefully guarded utterance came in ' 1869. 
 In 1868 Lord Stanley, standing closer to the Fenian 
 outbursts, had confessed "tfie painful, the dangerous, 
 the discreditable state of tnings that unhappily con- 
 tinues to exist in Ireland." English public opinion, 
 it is clear, was at last bestirring itself, after centuries 
 of that stone-age policy which is more politely termed 
 
 imperialism. 
 
 7 
 
 What did Gladstone see when he himself rubbed his 
 eyes and woke up, in 1868? 
 
 The policy of England-in-Ireland since 1801 had 
 been suppressive, except in Melbourne's time. Peel, a 
 capable, stiff administrator, had substituted paid 
 
 279
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 magistrates and an imperial constabulary for unre- 
 liable and irregular military forces. By this means 
 Dublin Castle had been given eyes and ears everywhere. 
 A complete espionage system enabled the Government 
 to control explosive nationalism: the insurrections of 
 1848 and 1867 had "been instantly curbed. But the 
 skill of the Government in paralyzing national feeling 
 could only be compared to the skill of a guard who 
 keeps a prisoner in manacles. The triumph of the 
 Government was simply to illustrate the unsuccessful 
 paroxysms of Ireland attempting to escape. And the 
 insurrections of 1803, 1848, 1867, had to be accom- 
 panied by stories of tithe war, Ribbonmen, Orange 
 disturbances, famines, and vast clearances. The legend 
 of the so-called union was one which mocked every pre- 
 tense of consent: 
 
 1800-01. Insurrection Act, Suspension of Habeas Corpus, Martial 
 Law. 
 
 1803. Insurrection Act. 
 
 1804. Habeas Corpus Suspended. 
 
 1807-10. Insurrection Act, Martial Law, and Habeas Corpus Sus- 
 pended. 
 
 1814. Habeas Corpus Suspended. 
 
 1814-18. Insurrection Act. 
 
 1822-24. Habeas Corpus Suspended, Insurrection Act. 
 
 1825-28. Act Suppressing Catholic Association. 
 
 1830. Arms Act. 
 
 1831-32. Stanley's Arms Act. 
 
 1832. Arms and Gunpowder Act. 
 
 1833. Suppression of Disturbance. 
 
 1834. Disturbance Amended. 
 1834. Arms and Gunpowder Act. 
 
 280
 
 The Land War 
 
 1835. Public Peace Act. 
 
 1836. Arms Act. 
 
 1838. Arms Act. 
 
 1839. Unlawful Oaths Act. 
 
 1840. Arms Act. 
 
 1841. Outrages Act. 
 1841. Arms Act. 
 1843. Arms Act. 
 
 1843. Act Consolidating Coercion Acts. 
 
 1844. Unlawful Oaths Act 
 
 1845. Constabulary Enlargement. 
 
 1845. Unlawful Oaths Act. 
 
 1846. Constabulary Enlargement. 
 
 1847. Crime and Outrage. 
 
 1848-49. Habeas Corpus Suspension, Crime and Outrage, Re- 
 moval of Arms, Treason amendment. 
 
 1850-55. Crime and Outrage. 
 
 1856-64. Peace Preservation Act. 
 
 1866-68. Habeas Corpus Suspension. 
 
 These triumphs of government under the Union, 
 listed by Michael Davitt and Barry O'Brien, show the 
 continuance of coercion. And the Coercion Acts were 
 by no means improperly named. "Many of them abol- 
 ished trial by jury, some of them established martial 
 law; transportation, flogging, death, were the ordinary 
 sentences." (T. P. O'Connor.) Daniel O'Connell 
 said: "I have known instances where men have been 
 nearly flogged to death." The whole ludicrous and 
 hideous panorama simply illustrated Dean Swift's text 
 of 1720: "In reason all government without the con- 
 sent of the governed is the very definition of slavery: 
 but in fact eleven men well armed will certainly subdue 
 one single man in his shirt." 
 
 281
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 The counterpart of this picture of suppression is 
 Davitt's list of remedial land legislation. Of the 
 twenty-three bills introduced from 1829 to 1858, none 
 
 was passed. 
 
 8 
 
 What did this mean? It meant, when Gladstone 
 looked at it with the reverberation of Clerkenwell in 
 his ears, that British government in Ireland had never 
 become civilized, that the Irish resented and hated it, 
 that the Union was a failure. It meant, moreover, 
 that John Bright's words in 1849 were true: "When 
 law refuses its duty; when government denies the right 
 of the people; when competition is so fierce for the 
 little land which the monopolists grant to cultivation 
 in Ireland; when, in fact, millions are scrambling for 
 the potato these people are driven back from law, and 
 from the usages of civilization, to that which is termed 
 the law of nature, and if not the strongest, the laws 
 of the vindictive ; and in this case the people of Ireland 
 believe, to my certain knowledge, that it is only by 
 these acts of vengeance, periodically committed, that 
 they can hold in suspense the arm of the proprietor, of 
 the landlord, and the agent, who, in too many cases, 
 would, if he dared, exterminate them. Don't let us 
 disguise it from ourselves ; there is a war between land-
 
 The Land War 
 
 lord and tenant a war as fierce and relentless as 
 though it were carried on by force of arms." 
 
 Were the native Irish perverse to make it war? 
 Never, until Gladstone came to power, was any toler- 
 
 WilHam E /Gladstone 
 
 able alternative offered to these Irish. They were in- 
 vited, indeed, to think of themselves as English. They 
 were given an English established church, English 
 school-books in the "national" schools, an English 
 queen and English loyalty. But the fact that they 
 
 283
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 were not West Britons resulted in an impasse between 
 the administration, the legislature, the landlord gar- 
 rison, and themselves. The native Irish had no option 
 except to resist or to fight, until W. E. Gladstone rose 
 up in the house of commons. 
 
 The fact that an English statesman of Gladstone's 
 caliber had at last, after centuries of evasion, spoken 
 about this shabby, unpopular cause, was a turning- 
 point in Irish history. 
 
 Gladstone was not pro-national. He had no idea of 
 giving Ireland national independence. He knew vir- 
 tually nothing of the Gaelic past. He never set his 
 foot in Ireland until he was sixty-eight years old, and 
 then his visit "lasted little more than three weeks, and 
 did not extend beyond a very decidedly English pale." 
 Though. forty years old at the time of the famine, that 
 event had made no real impression on him, and in 1853 
 he himself blithely began the overtaxation of Ireland. 
 This "fiscal iniquity," which was exposed by a Liberal 
 commission in 1896, was part of his "carnal satisfac- 
 tion at abundant revenue." But with these limitations 
 and qualifications, the great fact remains about Glad- 
 stone that he had turned on Ireland his capacious, 
 ominous, cavernous political gaze. 
 
 What he saw was not a sick nationality, for all his
 
 The Land War 
 
 Italian sympathies. What he chose to see, in the first 
 instance, was merely a large Catholic community with 
 a Protestant church established over it, a large Catho- 
 lic community without a university, and a large Catho- 
 lic community with a bad land system. What he un- 
 dertook to tackle first was the established church. It 
 fell at the first grapple. 
 
 9 
 
 The established church had easily survived the tithe 
 war, in which police, Lancers, Highlanders, and artil- 
 lery had on occasion been necessary to seize a single 
 cow that no one would afterward buy. But the estab- 
 lishment could not withstand any rational assault from 
 an English statesman with backing. In 1861 there 
 were 5,800,000 people in Ireland. Of these only 
 690,000 were Protestants. It was the Catholics, in 
 the main, who were forced to support the church. One 
 of the great, and of course conscientious, purposes of 
 the establishment had been to convert the papists. 
 To this their own pennies were applied. But even in 
 the famine time, when "bread and Protestantism were 
 offered to the starving in the same hand," as Locker- 
 Lampson puts it, the converts were not worth count- 
 ing, or having. The prosperity of the established 
 
 285
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 church had not, however, been seriously affected. For 
 1400 benefices it had, during the tithe war, an income 
 of 600,000 a year. For twenty-two overpaid bishops 
 its income amounted to the vast sum of 150,000 a 
 year. This abnormality could not survive serious 
 political inspection. The Orangemen, whose clergy- 
 men had received an annual grant, objected to dis- 
 
 
 
 establishment. The Rev. Mr. Flanagan declared, "If 
 they ever dare to lay unholy hands upon the church, 
 200,000 Orangemen will tell them it shall never be." 
 The disestablishment went through quite without trou- 
 ble. The property of the church, mainly confiscated 
 land, was worth fourteen million pounds. The vested 
 interests of the church were all respected, and capital 
 was left over for land-purchase, rent-arrears, and vari- 
 ous other humane provisions: 1,000,000 was eventu- 
 ally devoted to intermediate or secondary education. 
 
 10 
 
 Once Gladstone began to bring Ireland into liberal 
 focus he had his work cut out for him. He was told 
 that he was destroying the constitution. He reminded 
 his hearers that eight times within his own recollection 
 the constitution had been wholly ruined and destroyed. 
 He realized, in truth, that if the constitution was to be 
 
 286
 
 The Land War 
 
 saved, it could only be saved by tackling this question 
 of Ireland. Fifteen years before he even murmured 
 home rule Gladstone honestly faced the English aspect 
 of Ireland: "The state of Ireland after seven hundred 
 years of our tutelage is in my opinion so long as it 
 continues an intolerable disgrace, and a danger so abso- 
 lutely transcending all others, that I call it the only 
 real danger of the noble empire of the queen." So, in 
 1870, he told Lord Granville. 
 
 His conviction was, in great degree, the result of 
 Fenianism. But England itself had to have a much 
 larger dose of Fenianism before it would wake up. 
 Gladstone's first Land Bill was almost as hopeless a 
 straddle as his Irish University Bill. This, however, 
 was certain: He no longer disguised to himself the 
 cardinal fact that the state of Ireland was the "ulti- 
 mate result of our misgovernment." 
 
 The state of Ireland, in reality, was economically 
 and socially rotten. Those who saw land simply as 
 property and who looked on English government 
 mainly as a device to protect English property in Ire- 
 land could never understand the unhealthy condition 
 of Ireland. They asked: Why can't the Irish look on 
 land tenure as a simple case of contract, the tenant 
 taking his lease and the landlord taking his rent ? The 
 
 287
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 unreasonableness of the Irish appeared clear to thou- 
 sands of well-meaning Englishmen. Gladstone had to 
 take his pointer in hand. He had to explain to his 
 own cabinet, bit by bit, that Ireland had never come 
 to accept the landlord, especially the absentee land- 
 lord, as the owner of the land. It was the tenants, the 
 cultivators, who had themselves reclaimed the swamp, 
 dug the drain, hauled the manure, built the wall, raised 
 the house. The land to them was their sole means of 
 vital production, and they, the rude peasants, had 
 given the land its "working value." They looked on the 
 landlord in most cases as an alien usurper. In the best 
 case they saw in him only a part-proprietor, a man 
 entitled to receive rent but not entitled to anything 
 more. The transfer of the land from one tenant to 
 another was, in the cultivators' view, a transfer involv- 
 ing- the improvements. And the tenants set their 
 hearts on three things: fair rent, fixity of tenure, and 
 free sale. Only with these guarantees could they be 
 secure against eviction, famine, enslavement. And no 
 matter how many imperial laws and how many imperial 
 police and troops, how many Arms Acts and Coercion 
 Acts, were to girdle the landlord, the war for their 
 Magna Charta must go irresistibly on. In this war, 
 as the Irish peasants saw it, they fought with a worse 
 
 288
 
 The Land War 
 
 enemy in the rear than in front. If the alien parlia- 
 ment, the alien constabulary, the alien judge, threat- 
 ened the advance of the tenant, he knew that behind 
 him was the bottomless pit of famine. He was not, in 
 any case, becoming a millionaire out of his occupation. 
 It was all he could do to support himself on potatoes, 
 skim milk, perhaps American bacon and American 
 flour, in the simplest, the ugliest, the meanest, of 
 houses. The feudal aristocrats against whom he went 
 into combat, and the new mercantile proprietors, had a 
 somewhat higher standard of living. The dispropor- 
 tion of his sacrifices, against the lurid background of 
 his history, made the Irish tenant unconquerable once 
 he became organized. 
 
 11 
 
 While he was still fighting instinctively against the 
 machines of the law which the landlord set in motion, 
 a curious development was taking place in the political 
 field. Since the beginning of the "eighteenth century 
 the Protestant Anglo-Irishman had been slowly and 
 surely driven into protest against English misgovern- 
 ment. Swift, Grattan, and Flood were not Irishmen; 
 they were the sons of English clerks and officials in Ire- 
 land. But in precisely the same way that the colonists 
 
 289
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 in America had rebelled against arrogant privilege, 
 these Anglo-Irish rebelled against it in Ireland. The 
 spirit of 1782 was the spirit of Washington and Frank- 
 lin, except that the Anglo-Irish colonists held on to the 
 "connection" because of the inimical native Irish. 
 
 Ever since that revolt of the Anglo-Irish, two con- 
 trary processes had been working: (1) the process of 
 weaving the native Irish into the "connection" with 
 Britain; (2) the process of weaving the Anglo-Irish 
 into the policy of separation. The emphasis in the 
 first case was on the British constitution and the need 
 of a new constitution granting autonomy or self-gov- 
 ernment. In the second case the emphasis was on 
 Irish nationality. The behavior of England had never 
 driven Grattan completely into the Irish nationality. 
 Excellent administrators like Thomas Drummond un- 
 derstood nationality but advocated home rule, and 
 O'Connell himself had no real desire except for self- 
 government. 
 
 The Irish Catholics, it is true, had no monopoly of 
 national or separatist spirit. Before 1798 the Ulster 
 Presbyterians Henry Joy McCracken, Russell, Orr 
 were republicans first of all, but Wolfe Tone, Robert 
 Emmet, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, were Protestant 
 Irish nationalists. So, in 1848, the cause of nation- 
 
 290
 
 The Land War 
 
 ality was uncompromisingly urged by the son of an 
 Ulster Presbyterian clergyman, John Mitchel; by 
 the son of a Welsh Protestant, Thomas Davis; 
 by men of non-Gaelic name like Kickham and 
 Stephens. The fact remained, however, that the desire 
 for home rule flourished in many Anglo-Irishmen who 
 had no separatist feeling. And now, under the leader- 
 ship of an Ulster Protestant, the son of a clergyman, 
 another drive was to be made in the direction of self- 
 government. 
 
 This extremely amiable and gifted Ulsterman, Isaac 
 Butt, had once debated in favor of the Union against 
 O'Connell. But when Gladstone had disestablished the 
 church, in contempt of the Union, Butt and a group 
 of irate Protestant conservatives met in Dublin in 
 1870 and propounded the theory that "the true remedy 
 for the evils of Ireland is the establishment of an Irish 
 parliament with full control over our domestic affairs." 
 
 A Trinity College professor suggested the name 
 Home Rule for this venture, and so Home Rule was 
 launched. Its immediate popularity in Ireland meant 
 nothing, however, to liberal England. "Can any sen- 
 sible man, can any rational man," asked Gladstone in 
 withering tones next year, "suppose that at this time 
 of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to 
 
 291
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 disintegrate the great capital institutions of the coun- 
 try for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in 
 the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power we 
 possess for bestowing benefits, through legislation, on 
 the country to which we belong?" 
 
 The rottenness of electioneering in Ireland, under a 
 franchise which polled about 90,000 voters out of 
 5,500,000 people, made any attempt at a constitutional 
 movement absurd. But, in spite of an illiteracy in Ire- 
 land that in 1895 still affected 40,000 voters out of a 
 total of 220,000, the Ballot Act of 1870 enabled the 
 Irish tenant at last to vote "without the fear of evic- 
 tion, with the attendant risks of hunger, exile or 
 death." (T. P. O'Connor.) In thus vindicating his 
 belief in "public liberty," Gladstone paved the way 
 for the colossal popular agitation which engrossed the 
 rest of his life. 
 
 Isaac Butt did not arouse Ireland on Home Rule. 
 He was a man of penetrating mind and high integrity, 
 but he was one of those advocates of self-government 
 who never learn to govern the self. He was a large, 
 lax, simple man, extremely good-natured and easy- 
 going. He was everybody's friend, incapable of mak- 
 ing a budget either of his time or his money, and not 
 even able to keep two steps in front of the debtor's jail. 
 
 292
 
 The Land War 
 
 In the election of 1874 he enlisted A. M. Sullivan, 
 Joseph Biggar, Richard Power, and some other nation- 
 alists, but he also enlisted a number of genteel, con- 
 servative squires who went to the imperial parliament 
 mainly for its social distinction. 
 
 It was in this party, and under the lymphatic lead- 
 ership of Isaac Butt, that Parnell entered the house of 
 commons. 
 
 Like Robert Emmet, Charles Stewart Parnell was 
 the descendant of a Cromwellian. Parnell the poet and 
 the incorruptible Irish chancellor, Sir John Parnell, 
 were his two most distinguished antecedents. His 
 father, John Henry Parnell, was of the landed gentry 
 in Wicklow, a quiet and undistinguished man. Par- 
 nell's mother, however, was a decided and spirited per- 
 sonality, the daughter of Commodore Charles Stewart, 
 "Old Ironsides," of the American navy. Parnell's 
 father met her on a tour in America in 1834, and 
 brought her back to Ireland. She bore him eleven 
 children, her son Charles Stewart Parnell being born 
 in 1846. 
 
 When Parnell entered the house of commons he was 
 not yet thirty. He was in no sense a traditional Irish- 
 
 293
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 man. He was tall, of slim American build, unassuming 
 and reticent in manner, and stately in bearing. He 
 had gone to Cambridge University, and he had the 
 
 Charles Stewart Parnell 
 
 accent and the style of the Anglo-Irish gentleman. 
 No eye discerned in him a popular leader, or anything 
 but a young squire turned Home Ruler. 
 
 Parnell's public career was short. He died at forty- 
 five years of age, in 1891. But curtailed as it was, 
 
 294
 
 The Land War 
 
 and little effort as he made to court personal favor, 
 he did more to change the fortunes of the entire Irish 
 nation than any of its previous popular leaders. 
 
 He found the native Irish in the grip of the feudal 
 system. He knew that the brain which controlled the 
 feudal hand was in England, in the British cabinet. 
 By the policy which he developed, and the inflexible 
 will with which he applied his policy, Parnell operated 
 on British politics as no Irishman had operated before 
 him. He saw Britain and British methods with the 
 eye of a military engineer. As a cold realist he forged 
 the weapon he needed out of the Irish parliamentary 
 party. His use of that weapon was military. He 
 changed the house of commons from a pompous court- 
 room in which Ireland was periodically pronounced 
 guilty into a battle-field on which Ireland put Britain 
 on the defensive. By his program of attack he con- 
 vinced Englishmen, as nothing else had done since 
 Elizabeth, that Ireland was an "inveterate wound m 
 the flank" of their country. He made that wound bite 
 and rankle. He educated Britain in its pretension, its 
 sluggish complacency, its insolence, its condescension. 
 His attack was contemptuous and unfriendly. By re- 
 peated moral abrasion, he forced Tory and Liberal into 
 realizing the moral fraud of the British position in 
 
 295
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Ireland. Before he was thirty-five the heads of both 
 parties had to consider doing business with him. Both 
 Tories and Liberals sought an alliance. When, in the 
 end, Gladstone made Home Rule his own, Parnell mod- 
 erated his parliamentary tone. But out of his 
 strategy, before he died, the land war was brought to 
 a reasonable armistice and the Union was upset forever. 
 
 13 
 
 In politics, as in other forms of warfare, the general 
 alone cannot win. Parnell profited by the situation in 
 England, in America, in Ireland. Gladstone he called 
 the "grand old spider" and he knew how slippery and 
 sinuous, how plausible and casuistic, was that eminent 
 exponent of Liberalism. Yet, with the full knowledge 
 that Gladstone had a mind with as many entrances 
 and exits as a summer hotel, that he never uttered a 
 moral sentiment without taking up a political collec- 
 tion, the fact remained for Ireland that Gladstone had 
 moved from the Tory valuation of life to the half- 
 mystical, half-deceived, Liberal valuation, in which a 
 policy of "trust" enabled him to propose to English- 
 men a program of power. To keep such a program 
 before the British public, with its Tory German queen, 
 its bilious civil service, its choleric colonels, its slow 
 
 296
 
 The Land War 
 
 omnivorous banking class, its thumpingly dull squires, 
 its anemic clerks, its imperialistic Union Jackals, was 
 in itself a work of moral genius. And while Gladstone 
 had to be watched, because there was a lie in the com- 
 promise of Liberalism, the mere fact that he was an 
 Englishman inculcating morals in politics was an ad- 
 vantage to Parnell. 
 
 The advantage that America provided was quite dif- 
 ferent. The Irish in the United States did not want 
 to overwhelm the house of commons with argument. 
 Most of them wanted to blow it up with dynamite, 
 Irish members and all. They had themselves been 
 wronged and injured. They desired to injure, if not 
 to wrong, in return. A great many Englishmen were 
 slain by word of mouth in New York and Boston and 
 Chicago saloons in the decade which preceded ParnelPs 
 leadership. But young Irishmen like John Devoy were 
 contemptuous of this brainless talk of vengeance, this 
 "rat-hole conspiracy." Like the Americans who sought 
 to undermine the Austrian army during the World 
 War, John Devoy had done his work for Ireland among 
 the poverty-recruits of the British army, and he had 
 helped to make England uncertain whether Irishmen in 
 uniform would kill Irishmen not in uniform as promptly 
 as they should. The prospect that spread before Ire- 
 
 297
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 land in 1875 was not, however, one of armed resistance. 
 The fiasco of 1866-67 ended that hope. What John 
 Devoy believed, after Parnell had developed his policy, 
 was that he could lend Parnell just that kind of non- 
 
 Michael Davitt 
 
 contractual assistance which Parnell was later to lend 
 to Gladstone. It was the intelligent coordination of 
 constitutional and illegal agitation. But it needed no 
 treaty, no document, no conspiracy. All it needed 
 was confidence on the part of the supreme council for 
 
 298
 
 The Land War 
 
 Ireland in the genuine national tendency of Parnell's 
 parliamentary activity. (The Fenians called them- 
 selves the National party.) Once it was clear that 
 Parnell was at least dead in earnest about landlordism, 
 John Devoy was with him ; and while the supreme coun- 
 cil did not follow Devoy, the local Fenians did. 
 
 The man who made the bridge between Parnell and 
 the American Fenians was born, strangely enough, the 
 same year as Parnell himself, and, like Parnell, he was 
 to spend most of his youth in England. But while Par- 
 nell was reared in a country-house and lived in England 
 with tutors, Michael Davitt came into the world in a 
 hut in Mayo, and when eviction swept his father and 
 mother out of their holding they "had to beg through 
 the streets of England for bread." They settled, at 
 last, in Lancashire. Michael Davitt went to work as 
 a child in a cotton-mill. Before he was twelve his right 
 arm was mangled and had to be amputated. He be- 
 came a messenger in the local post-office. Later, he 
 found himself at home among fellow-immigrants, and, 
 while Parnell was still a student at Magdalene College, 
 he was carrying a rifle in the attack on Chester 
 Castle, 1867. 
 
 299
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 In 1870 he was tried for shipping arms to Ireland, 
 and sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude. After 
 serving seven years and seven months he was released 
 from Dartmoor. He was a pre-Celt of the Connacht 
 type tall, dark, swarthy, with a marked combination 
 of fire and gentleness. He and his fellow-Fenians 
 McCarthy, Bryan, and Chambers were received in 
 Ireland not as ticket-of-leave convicts but as political 
 prisoners. Parnell asked them to breakfast the morn- 
 ing after their arrival in Dublin. On that morning 
 one of them McCarthy had barely reached Par- 
 nell's room at Morrison's Hotel before he collapsed and 
 died. The fact that many churches refused his body 
 shows the strong clerical feeling against Fenianism 
 that still remained. 
 
 Davitt was much impressed by the young parlia- 
 mentary leader. Possibly, he says in "The Fall of 
 Feudalism in Ireland," one is very impressionable on 
 coming back to the world after years in prison. "It 
 is like coming into the sunshine and among the flowers 
 after a lifetime in the depths of a coal-pit. Making 
 due allowance for this exceptional state of mind, Mr. 
 Parnell appeared to me to be much superior to his 
 recommendations. He struck me at once with the 
 power and directness of his personality. There was 
 
 300
 
 The Land War 
 
 the proud, resolute bearing of a man of conscious 
 strength, with a mission, wearing no affectation, but 
 without a hint of Celtic character or a trait of its 
 racial enthusiasm. 'An Englishman of the strongest 
 type, moulded for an Irish purpose,' was my thought. 
 jl?;i.< He expressed, as I am sure he felt, a genuine 
 sympathy for those who had undergone the ordeal of 
 penal servitude, with its nameless indignities and priva- 
 tions. 'I would not face it,' I recollect him saying. 
 'It would drive me mad. Solitude and silence are too 
 horrible to think of. I would kill a warder and get 
 hanged 
 
 Still a Fenian, Davitt had reflected much in prison 
 on the defects of secret societies based on quantity 
 rather than quality. He had made up his mind that 
 Ireland needed, first of all, an organization of men of 
 separatist principles, whether moral-force men or not, 
 and then immediate issues kept alive before the people 
 "A war against landlordism for a root settlement of 
 the land question, the better housing of laborers, doing 
 away with the need for workhouses, and capturing the 
 municipalities for nationalism." 
 
 This policy he discussed with Parnell on a railroad 
 journey to Lancashire. To the public program Par- 
 nell assented. As to becoming a Fenian, he answered, 
 
 301
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 "slowly but clearly: 'No, I will never join any political 
 secret society, oathbound or otherwise. It would hin- 
 der and not assist me in my work in Ireland.* ' 
 
 Perhaps from this, perhaps from other things, 
 Davitt concluded that "Mr. Parnell never went in 
 thought or in act a revolutionary inch, as an Irish 
 nationalist, further than Henry Grattan." 
 
 15 
 
 It was in 1878 that Davitt reached America. He 
 found John Devoy entering "loyally into the most dif- 
 ficult task of inducing men who had hitherto opposed 
 all moral-force politics to give support to the new line 
 of action." Devoy "brought most of the leading mem- 
 bers of the Clan-na-Gael round to his views, and the 
 work done by him in this way, and in line with a corre- 
 sponding labor by Patrick Ford of the 'Irish World* 
 and John Boyle O'Reilly of the 'Boston Pilot' . . . 
 paved the way for the success of Mr. Parnell's and Mr. 
 Dillon's tour a year subsequently, and to the starting 
 of the auxiliary Land League of America in 1880." 
 
 It was on this visit that Davitt became a friend and 
 disciple of Henry George. Later he tried to launch 
 Ireland into the enterprise of land nationalization. It 
 was an idea for which neither British nor Irish parlia- 
 
 302
 
 The Land War 
 
 mentarians were prepared; and Davitt yielded to the 
 counter-policy of peasant-proprietorship. 
 
 By organizing America for Parnellism, Davitt gave 
 an immense resource in money and sympathy to the 
 land war. Now he returned to build up the support 
 of Ireland. 
 
 During the period that Davitt was in prison Par- 
 nell had looked over the house of commons with his 
 engineering eye. He had no romantic notions as to 
 this stuffy, muddle-headed assemblage of political 
 pawns. And he had no towering respect for English 
 public policy. He had learned from his fiery mother 
 the patriotic American version of the English. "We 
 have no objection to the English people; we object to 
 the English dominion. We would not have it in Amer- 
 ica. Why should they have it in Ireland? Why are 
 the English so jealous of any outside interference in 
 their affairs, and why are they always trying to dip 
 their fingers in everybody's pie? The English are hated 
 in America for their grasping policy ; they are hated 
 everywhere for their arrogance, greed, cant, and hypoc- 
 risy. No country must have national rights or na- 
 tional aspirations but England." So Parnell's mother, 
 who was Early American. 
 
 It was, perhaps, in the memory of such prejudices 
 303
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 that Parnell, with Joseph Biggar, the little Belfast 
 pork-butcher, began the famous game of obstruction 
 in the house of commons. This game was a retaliation 
 on the pooh-poohing of Irish questions. While Isaac 
 Butt squirmed and agonized, the strange team of Par- 
 nell and Biggar would take turns at wasting fiours of 
 parliamentary time. But their sabotage was not 
 merely mechanical. They probed the British soul. 
 They asked awkward questions about recent attempts 
 to destroy the independence of the Transvaal. They 
 forced the Government into an enraged defense of 
 flogging in the army. They irritated, goaded, and 
 outraged those comfortable gentlemen who for years 
 had yawned at Isaac Butt. 
 
 16 
 
 Meanwhile, among the small tenants especially in 
 the West of Ireland, the blind resentment of the land 
 system was becoming acute. The days of the sailing- 
 vessel were over. Steamships were already bringing 
 colonial and American produce into the British market. 
 This promoted the clearance policy, by which large 
 tracts of good land were turned into grazing ranches. 
 The occupiers of these tracts were being automatically 
 forced on poor land at rack-rents. 
 
 304
 
 The Land War 
 
 Davitt was much closer to economic realities than 
 Parnell. He saw that this misery could only be ended 
 if Irishmen grasped an economic policy and learned 
 to organize. He went back to the people in the West 
 of Ireland. He met farmers, talked with provision- 
 dealers, stood with the men at work in the bogs or 
 reclaiming the stony fields. He saw unmistakably that 
 a storm was gathering. There would be a famine 
 again in 1879 ; that was likely. Lord Leitrim and his 
 two body-guards had been killed in 1878. Leitrim hap- 
 pened to be a brutal man who took his tenants' daugh- 
 ters by force, but his assassination was a sign of rising 
 passion. The problem for Davitt was to control and 
 direct this passion for an economic and political end. 
 
 The neighborhood mind, as usual, was muddled or 
 incoherent. But in disturbed Mayo he found a case 
 made to his hand. A priest, executor for his brother, 
 had decided to evict the tenants whose rack-rents were 
 in arrears. The local press was silent: it would not 
 help the tenants against a priest. But the local 
 Fenians had no such scruples. They were Catholics, 
 but they did not regard Irish politics as a legitimate 
 piece of church property. They knew that the priest, 
 in affairs of this world, was often quite as ruthless and 
 dangerous as the British Empire itself, and that over 
 
 305
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 and over again he had lined up with the British Empire 
 to fight against Ireland. Many Irishmen did not for- 
 get the famous edict that "hell was not hot enough or 
 eternity long enough" for Fenians ; Father Burke's 
 landlordism was not an entirely unwelcome object-les- 
 son to the seven thousand Mayo men who attended the 
 
 meeting. 
 
 17 
 
 The success of this meeting was a people's success. 
 It immediately brought the Catholic church into action. 
 Dr. MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam, made a brave at- 
 tempt to compel orderly agitation, even though the 
 people might endure famine in 1879 as they had en- 
 dured it in 1846. He declared in an open letter that 
 "night patrolling, acts and words of menace, with arms 
 in hand, the profanation of what is most sacred in 
 religion all the result of lawless and occult associa- 
 tion," was impious and disorderly, and must be stopped. 
 He did not explain the degree of educated public opin- 
 ion and organized self-government which the oppressed 
 must control before they can dispense with terrorism. 
 He simply stated that "unhallowed combinations lead 
 invariably to disaster," and said nothing about the hal- 
 lowed servility which had equally led to disaster in 
 1846. He condemned a meeting at Westport which 
 
 306
 
 The Land War 
 
 Parnell had been asked to attend. But to Parnell, so 
 used to the British lion, the Lion of the Fold of Judah 
 was not so terrifying. "Will I attend? Certainly. 
 Why not? I have promised to be there, and you can 
 count upon my keeping that promise." For a Protes- 
 tant leader, Davitt felt, it was the most courageously 
 wise act of his political career. He came to Westport. 
 He told the tenants: "A fair rent is a rent the tenant 
 can reasonably pay according to the times, but in 
 bad times a tenant cannot be expected to pay as much 
 as he did in good times three or four years ago. If 
 such rents are insisted upon, a repetition of the scenes 
 of 1847 and 1848 will be witnessed. Now, what must 
 we do in order to induce the landlords to see the posi- 
 tion? You must show them that you intend to hold a 
 firm grip of your homesteads and lands. You must 
 not allow yourselves to be dispossessed as your fathers 
 were dispossessed in 1847." 
 
 Parnell understood the landlord's position. He was 
 a landlord. There was reasonableness in his speech, 
 and clear confidence, but that phrase, "hold a firm grip 
 of your homesteads," was meat and drink to the Irish 
 tenant. It was repeated a hundred times a day, like 
 St. Patrick's prayers in the sleet and the rain. It 
 became the core of the Land League. It stood between 
 
 307
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Ireland and famine. The opportunism of the church, 
 not unnatural considering the back door which was 
 always open to English diplomats at the Vatican, had 
 at last been met by a man of independent mind. Par- 
 nell was not like the O'Connell of 1847, an inaudible 
 old man tearfully pleading to rows of relaxed stomachs 
 in the house of commons. Parnell pointed at the 
 stomach of the house of commons a steel blade to whose 
 language that organ defers. Five thousand tenants 
 marched into Tuam to give the archbishop a sample of 
 their earnestness. And to the Gaels of Mayo came a 
 Norman-Irishman, John Dillon; a Dano-Irishman, A. 
 J. Kettle; a Cambro-Irishman, Matthew Harris, all 
 giving heart to the feudal slaves of Ireland. 
 
 There were many priests, sons of the soil, to see 
 at once that the abject submission of the great famine 
 could never be tolerated. Within a few years, indeed, 
 the church itself was using these whole-hearted men to 
 capture the land agitation. 
 
 18 
 
 The Land League, formed in 1879, had four extrem- 
 ists among its seven officers Davitt, Biggar, Brennan, 
 and Egan. It was obvious policy for Parnell to visit 
 America, which he reached early in 1880. He was well 
 
 308
 
 The Land War 
 
 received by the Irish, addressed Congress in a speech 
 that reposed sedately on the wisdom of John Stuart 
 Mill, found himself called a liar by the New York 
 "Nation," and was asked to withdraw his banking 
 account by the discreet Morgans. His attitude was 
 definite regarding landlordism. "The men who till the 
 soil," he said, "will also own it." But he linked self- 
 government with land reform. "When we have under- 
 mined English misgovernment we have paved the way 
 for Ireland to take her place among the nations of 
 the earth. And let us not forget that that is the ulti- 
 mate goal at which all we Irishmen aim. None of us, 
 whether we be in America or in Ireland, or wherever 
 we may be, will be satisfied until we have destroyed the 
 last link which keeps Ireland bound to England." 
 
 These words were spoken not only to the Clan-na- 
 Gael, but to America, to the self-governing colonies, to 
 Gladstone. No one knew their significance better than 
 the Liberal leader. More than seventy years of age, 
 nearly forty years older than Parnell, he saw beyond 
 obvious disturbances to the "New Departure" in the 
 Irish struggle. He realized that with the land war 
 there was now opening a war on the British Empire. 
 He realized that his prime antagonist was Parnell. So 
 far as the land went, Gladstone saw that the Irish ten- 
 
 309
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 ants must prove irresistible. He was prepared to sac- 
 rifice the landlords, as he had sacrificed the established 
 church. In 1881, after a year of assassination and 
 coercion, he carried fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free 
 sale. But he had vision. He perceived plainly that 
 the Land League was in the hands of men bent on 
 something besides economic revolution, and he made 
 up his mind that he could only destroy that revolution 
 by competing with Parnell for Ireland. On his side in 
 this tremendous duel was, above everything, his vast 
 moral prestige. He could, emancipated as he was from 
 Tory prejudices, convince the world that Parnell was 
 a lawless, a seditious agitator and he himself the broad, 
 sane, large-minded friend of Ireland. To convey this 
 idea to sentimental middle-class Britain would be sim- 
 ple. He had racial suspicion on tap when the Irish 
 were too active, and moral fervor on tap when Britain 
 was too slow. But the real fight, as he saw in 1881, 
 was to cut off Parnell from his base of supplies, to 
 sever him from the parliamentary party and to sever 
 him from the Irish people. By "severe and strong 
 denunciation" of Parnellism he hoped to arouse the 
 Catholic Church and the timid Irish. By coming for- 
 ward with local government he hoped to draw off the 
 Home Rulers. "All we can do," he said in 1881, re- 
 
 310
 
 The Land War 
 
 garding the Parnellites, "is to turn more and more the 
 masses of their followers, to fine them down by good 
 laws and good government," and sweeten them by 
 "judicious releases from prison." 
 
 To kill Irish separatism by alternate coercion and 
 conciliation was the Liberal policy of Gladstone. As 
 a foil to Gladstone's sweetness and light Parnell could 
 count on the invaluable stupidity of the landlords. 
 Gladstone did not fear an armed insurrection. "The 
 strength of this country is tenfold what is required 
 for such a purpose." But, as he confessed, "a social 
 revolution is a very different matter." And with in- 
 flamed class feeling to help him, Parnell could always 
 meet coercion with the cry of atrocity and conciliation 
 with the cry of constancy rewarded. A chief secretary 
 like Forster talked loudly of Ireland being in the hands 
 of "village ruffians'* (a "murder gang"). Forster sim- 
 ply played into the hands of the Irish with his frenzied 
 pouncing and prodding after "a certain limited number 
 of unreasonable and mischievous men." So England 
 made agitation easy. The land war, the devotion of 
 the Irish people, the glamor of strength and silence, 
 his restraint and stately dignity these weapons of 
 Parnell's, Gladstone could not parry. He could only 
 gather, from using Mrs. O'Shea as a messenger be- 
 
 311
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 tween himself and Parnell, that the Irish hero was, after 
 all, an Achilles. Parnell's difficulty would be Eng- 
 land's opportunity. He could only watch and wait. 
 
 19 
 
 Parnell never underestimated this master with whom 
 he had to deal. A Tory democrat himself, he could 
 easily measure and appreciate Lord Randolph 
 Churchill. A skeptic himself, he could do business with 
 the callous Joseph Chamberlain. But in Gladstone he 
 touched a creator as well as a manipulator, a man with 
 a suffusing religion. In the duel between the British 
 Empire and the Irish nation it was no simple task to 
 meet the political and parliamentary resourcefulness of 
 Gladstone. Moreover there was the awkward moral 
 fact that Gladstone was increasingly willing to en- 
 counter and did encounter "a giant mass of secular 
 English prejudice against Ireland." The queen, as 
 Gladstone admitted, had an attitude of "armed neu- 
 trality" toward a Liberal minister. In the country 
 itself an "inveterate sentiment of hostility, flavored 
 with contempt," had "from time immemorial formed 
 the basis of English tradition" about Ireland. These 
 were Gladstone's words. Such hostility and contempt, 
 to which he himself was superior, was political senti-
 
 The Land War 
 
 merit of real importance. It penetrated every class. 
 It represented a strong conviction that the Irish were 
 inferior and alien if not different in color, certainly 
 different in culture, in character, in faith, in ethics, 
 and neither to be trusted nor respected. It amounted 
 to, virulent race prejudice. In rising above this sacred 
 egoism (which was never fully shared by Wales or 
 Scotland), Gladstone was a pioneer of the finest public 
 spirit. Parnell had to admit it, though he knew only 
 too well how public spirit itself could be used to under- 
 mine the national position. 
 
 The fiercest years of the land war were 1879, 1880, 
 and 1881. In those years, under Parnell and Davitt, 
 the people of Ireland became thoroughly aroused. By 
 arresting Parnell, Davitt, Dillon, Biggar, Egan, Bren- 
 nan, and the rest of the Land League for "seditious 
 conspiracy,'* the Government simply intensified the bit- 
 terness of the struggle. Outrages increased, shootings 
 and burnings and murders. With each act of coercion 
 the cabinet yielded on the Land Bill it was drafting. 
 Finally, after twenty-two spasms of concession it pro- 
 duced the act which gave to the Irish clansmen the 
 modus vivendi which Henry VIII had failed to give to 
 them. It was the execrated Parnell-Davitt organiza- 
 tion that won this victory: "Without the Land 
 
 313
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 League," Gladstone said in 1893, "the Act of 1881 
 would not now be on the statute-book." 
 
 By establishing a land commission to fix rents, the 
 English handed the agitators a new weapon. To "cow 
 the tyrants" became an Irish formula, and the land 
 commission found itself powerless to please any one. 
 The English were furious. Gladstone determined to 
 have Parnell arrested, asserting grandly that "the re- 
 sources of civilization are not yet exhausted." He 
 did have Parnell imprisoned, locking him up in Kil- 
 mainham, but by doing so, by vindicating law, order, 
 the rights of property, and the freedom of the land, 
 Gladstone once more inflamed the Irish, leaving them 
 without their coolest head. A no-rent manifesto was 
 sent from Kilmainham by Parnell and his associates. 
 "Captain Moonlight," as the bands who attacked land- 
 lords and land-grabbers named themselves, stepped into 
 Parnell's place. Twenty murders occurred in ten 
 months : a landlord's life was not a happy one. But 
 the no-rent manifesto, inspired by the left wing, was 
 condemned by the priests and bishops, and a wedge 
 was inserted for negotiations which ended next year in 
 the Kilmainham treaty between Parnell and the Gov- 
 ernment. The Land Leaguers were released: an 
 Arrears Bill was guaranteed to take care of the handi- 
 
 314
 
 The Land War 
 
 capped tenants, and Parnell guaranteed to slow down 
 agitation. 
 
 By this treaty Gladstone estranged himself from his 
 viceroy Cowper and his chief secretary "Buckshot" 
 Forster who had labored to apply coercion: they re- 
 signed. At the same time he formed a vague, promis- 
 ing alliance with the dreaded Parnell, and Parnell in 
 turn had reason to think that through Gladstone and 
 Chamberlain he could work for a genuine national set- 
 tlement. 
 
 20 
 
 These plans soon received a shock. The new chief 
 secretary, young Lord Frederick Cavendish, was Mrs. 
 Gladstone's nephew. He and Mr. Burke, the under- 
 secretary, were waylaid in Phrenix Park, Dublin, on the 
 evening of May 6, 1882, and stabbed to death. It was 
 the first time that any prominent official had been 
 killed. The murder of Cavendish, who tried to beat 
 off the assailants with an umbrella, gave a sensation 
 of horror and pity to the world. Who were the mur- 
 derers? Parnell, Dillon, and Davitt at once issued a 
 statement to the Irish people saying that the cowardly 
 and unprovoked assassination of a "friendly stranger*' 
 "stained the hospitable name of Ireland." Behind the 
 scenes the unimpassioned Parnell went to pieces. He 
 
 315
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 wrote to Gladstone, saying that if Gladstone thought 
 that his leadership prejudiced the Irish cause, he would 
 resign. Gladstone thought his conduct "very praise- 
 worthy" and counseled him to remain. But the con- 
 ciliation policy was impossible with England frantic; 
 coercion, and outrage, were renewed. 
 
 It was not till next year that a Dublin alderman of 
 the most respectable and even sanctimonious character, 
 Carey, by name, turned informer on the small unknown 
 group which had arranged the assassination of Burke. 
 This group called itself the Invincibles. It believed 
 the time had come for a policy of terror, and had pre- 
 pared most carefully its plot against Burke. Through 
 Carey's information five of the Invincibles were con- 
 victed and executed, and nine others imprisoned. Carey 
 was later smuggled on board a steamer for Australia, 
 but a man named O'Donnell booked on the same steamer 
 and shot Carey off Cape Colony. O'Donnell was 
 
 hanged. 
 
 21 
 
 The Phoenix Park murders, the Maamtrasna agra- 
 rian murders, and several attempted political assassina- 
 tions judges and policemen gave England a moral 
 leg-up which was badly needed. Parnell looked with 
 disfavor on this development. He valued, as Mr. Ford 
 
 316
 
 The Land War 
 
 of New York did not value, the chance to extract a 
 measure of self-government out of the house of com- 
 mons ; and he had no desire to hand his opponents un- 
 limited ammunition. The Clan-na-Gael, however, sus- 
 pected Parnell of moderation and was decidedly restive. 
 Davitt was impatient to bring forward land national- 
 ization, and Dillon wished to keep up the fight against 
 landlords. Parnell was under this severe political 
 strain. The strain was increased by his personal rela- 
 tions. In 1881 he had met, and fallen in love with, an 
 Englishwoman. She was the daughter of Sir John Page 
 Wood, a clergyman, and the wife of Captain O'Shea. 
 O'Shea was a dashing young soldier in a crack regi- 
 ment when he had married twenty-year-old Katherine 
 Wood. By the time she was thirty-four (when she 
 met Parnell) they were living in friction and partial 
 separation, O'Shea being more interested in his racing 
 stable and his mining adventures in Spain than in any- 
 thing else. At first, he had quarreled with his wife 
 about Parnell, and actually challenged Parnell to a 
 duel. Then he backed down. "From the date of this 
 bitter quarrel," Katherine O'Shea recorded in 1914, 
 "Parnell and I were one, without further scruple, with- 
 out fear, and without remorse." O'Shea and Mrs. 
 O'Shea remained on friendly terms till 1886, and Par 
 
 317
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 nell actually forced O'Shea on the Irish party in that 
 year. Mrs. O'Shea's biography of Parnell, published 
 in 1914, revealed the tortuous deception, the intense 
 and devoted passion, the hateful tragedy, of this rela- 
 tionship. She and Parnell were not married till 1891, 
 four months before Parnell died. Their intimacy was 
 generally known, however, for years before the O'Shea 
 divorce suit. Mrs. O'Shea constantly acted as the 
 intermediary between Gladstone and Parnell. When- 
 ever Gladstone needed Parnell in an emergency he sent 
 for him to Mrs. O'Shea's house. 
 
 22 
 
 The stresses of Parnell's life and of his party were 
 relieved in 1883 from an unexpected quarter. With 
 the connivance of the English Government and at the 
 instance of a person called Errington the pope took it 
 on himself to condemn a "tribute" which was being 
 collected for Parnell. The tribute had languished at 
 7,700 until the pope denounced it. It thereupon rose 
 steadily to 37,000. The Parnellite stock was high. 
 
 It was so high that both parties in England quickly 
 conceived of a home rule program. On every side, in 
 every well-organized party, there is a wide assortment 
 of ideals. Lord Carnarvon, who had made a reputa- 
 
 318
 
 The Land War 
 
 tion in Canada, came forward as the Tory Irish viceroy 
 with an address on colonial self-government. In a few 
 months Irish crime was no longer the topic, but Irish 
 needs, Irish rights. In an empty London drawing- 
 room, vacant for the summer, Lord Salisbury's Irish 
 viceroy had a secret interview with Parnell. Even 
 Lord Salisbury, feudal to the limit, talked of revising 
 the constitution. 
 
 The election came in 1885. The franchise had been 
 enlarged in Ireland by 400,000 votes. It was guessed 
 that this new army of country voters might reveal a 
 "deep conservatism." Instead they obliterated Tory 
 candidates forever. Parnell was now ready to do 
 business with the Tories. 
 
 The Tory vote, however, was too low to be secure. 
 Even with the help of the Irish, it could barely pull 
 through. And the alliance of the Irish was too dear 
 at the price. 
 
 In this predicament of the Tories Gladstone made an 
 interesting political move. He knew that, imperially 
 considered, an Irish solution was most desirable: a 
 moderate, safe, non-nationalistic solution. He knew 
 that with a house of lords anti-Irish to a man this 
 solution could only be carried with and by the Tories. 
 He guessed that under these circumstances Parnell 
 
 319
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 would take virtually anything he was given. So he 
 invited Arthur Balfour to tell his uncle, Salisbury, that 
 the Liberals would support the Tories if they'd legis- 
 late. But the party game is the party game. Salis- 
 bury saw nothing for the Tories, as. such, in this joint- 
 stock limited liability venture. He rejected it, turned 
 from conciliation to coercion, and soon was dislodged 
 by the Irish vote. Then Gladstone took the Govern- 
 ment with the Irish on his side. His Home Rule Bill 
 was defeated, however, and within a year Salisbury, 
 back in office, was announcing that the native Irish, 
 like the Hottentots, were incapable of self-government. 
 They were only fit to use knives and slugs, he said. 
 He recommended twenty years of "resolute" govern- 
 ment. And he suggested, instead of sinking money in 
 a state purchase of land, the deportation of a million 
 Irishmen. 
 
 Gladstone's defeated home rule measure cost him the 
 support of Chamberlain, John Bright, Hartington, and 
 many others. John Bright's defection was the most 
 serious. It exhibited at one and the same time an 
 impatience with Gladstone's craftiness and an impa- 
 tience with Gladstone's tolerance of "rebels." 
 
 The rejection of this bill, and of a Land Bill to meet 
 the slump in agricultural prices, had an apparent effect 
 
 320
 
 The Land War 
 
 in relaxing Parnell's will. He was "sick unto death" 
 after the nervous drain of ten years' warfare. When 
 the landlords became aggressive, under Lord Salisbury 
 and Arthur Balfour, he was not anxious to renew the 
 fight. A perpetual Coercion Bill was part of the 
 "resolute" program. This did not arouse him. Bal- 
 four's prompt assertion that "the police were in no way 
 to blame" when they wantonly killed three onlookers at 
 the Mitchelstown meeting drew from Gladstone, not 
 from Parnell, the agitator's cry : "Remember Mitchels- 
 town !" The Plan of Campaign, devised by Dillon and 
 O'Brien to countenance the tenants in reducing their 
 own rents and paying these reduced rents into a politi- 
 cal fund, only aroused him to the point of condemning 
 it. And, in accepting 10,000 from Cecil Rhodes, he 
 spoke of the Home Rule Bill as "a final and satisfactory 
 settlement of the long-standing dispute between Great 
 Britain and Ireland." 
 
 23 
 
 So constitutional did Parnell seem that even the 
 Irish Unionists might have cultivated him. Instead, 
 the "London Times," the journalistic holy of holies, 
 enlivened the victorious Conservatives of England in 
 1887 by a series of articles called "Parnellism and 
 
 321
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Crime." One feature of this series was a facsimile let- 
 ter of Parnell's, apparently indicating that Parnell 
 had been hypocritical in condemning the Phoenix Park 
 murderers. Parnell laconically informed the house 
 that this letter was a forgery. The attorney-general, 
 retained by the "Times," went out of his way in a 
 lawsuit to revive suspicion. Parnell asked the Tory 
 house of commons to appoint a committee to investi- 
 gate. They refused. Instead, they appointed a judi- 
 cial commission to sift Parnellism and "crime" without 
 any inquiry into agrarian law, economic facts, or the 
 social circumstances attending the land war in Lord 
 Morley's words, "one of the ugliest things done in the 
 name and under the forms of law in this island during 
 the century." 
 
 The "Times" had spent 30,000 in procuring 
 through the secretary of the Irish landlord alliance the 
 material with which to destroy Parnell. It actually 
 had paid 2530 for eleven precious letters. It had 
 made no investigation or test of the authenticity of 
 the famous facsimile letter. On the word of Houston 
 of the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union it gave its 
 readers the corrobo ration of their favorite prejudices 
 in the looking-glass of facsimile. 
 
 But what the "London Times" had mirrored in its 
 322
 
 The Land War 
 
 campaign of malice and hatred was simply the poor 
 invention of a broken, quailing grafter called Pigott. 
 On the witness-stand Pigott's forgery was pitilessly ex- 
 posed, mainly by his misspelling, "hesitency." His 
 guilt was complete: it led back from this expensive 
 screed to years of "investigation" in which he had lived 
 well after many lean years ; required only to produce 
 political skeletons and unwholesome garbage of every 
 description. He had a good run for the "Times" 
 money, but so agonizing was the undressing of this life 
 of shame, and so awful the figure beneath, that Pigott 
 fled to Madrid before his testimony was finished and, 
 traced by a detective, killed himself rather than return. 
 
 The boomerang that the "Times" had hurled at Par- 
 nell recoiled on itself. Its circulation collapsed. The 
 Tory plot to annihilate him failed. But his triumph 
 was not to last long. For an inducement placed at 
 20,000, believed to have been supplied by a practical 
 politician of the new school, Captain O'Shea named 
 Parnell in a divorce suit in 1889. The suit was pend- 
 ing for nearly a year. A defense was expected but it 
 was not defended, and on November 17, 1890, the 
 decree was granted to Captain O'Shea. 
 
 323
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 This verdict was calmly received by the Irish party, 
 by the National League, by the Nationalist sympa- 
 thizers, and by the church. From the envoys visiting 
 America Dillon, O'Brien, T. P. O'Connor came en- 
 thusiastic support for Parnell. But these prompt en- 
 dorsements and assertions of loyalty were not unani- 
 mous. England of the upper class was not shocked to 
 hear that Parnell's long devotion to Mrs. O'Shea was 
 at last disclosed. Intelligent people did not confuse 
 this sincere devotion with the lechery, the drunkenness, 
 the homosexuality, the multiplied scandal and shame, 
 which were not unknown in England. Nelson's name, 
 moreover, had been mentioned in England. There was 
 a statue in Trafalgar Square. But it was not the real 
 values, the honest estimate, of this divorce suit which 
 mattered in the least. It was its effect on votes. What 
 would the National Liberal Federation meeting say at 
 Sheffield? Gladstone, more than eighty, had his ear 
 to the ground, solemnly shaking his grave politician's 
 head. Wait and watch, he wrote Morley. Look out 
 for "our Nonconformist friends." He recalled with 
 some humor that Nelson's "Life" had been circulated 
 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 
 but he guessed that Parnell would n't get away with it. 
 And, if he did n't, if the scales went down against him, 
 
 324
 
 The Land War 
 
 Gladstone knew that he could jump in on the heavy 
 side, pedestal and all. 
 
 Parnell had never concealed his hatred of English 
 hypocrisy. Now he was doomed. Morley reported to 
 Gladstone from Sheffield, "the deep instinct for moral 
 order is awake." W. T. Stead, the discoverer of White 
 Slaves and the voice of Puritanism, condemned Parnell 
 as immoral. So did the leading Methodist, Hugh Price 
 Hughes. So did Michael Davitt in the "Labor World." 
 These sincere accents swelled audibly ; and with them 
 the yelp of the man-hunt, the keen snarl of passion 
 and prejudice, the baying of the wolves. 
 
 Five days told Gladstone everything. He ap- 
 proached the Irish party with his suave, benignant air : 
 "Notwithstanding the splendid services rendered by 
 Parnell to his country, his continuance at the present 
 moment in the leadership would be productive of con- 
 sequences disastrous in the highest degree to the cause 
 of Ireland. . . . The continuance I speak of would not 
 only place many hearty and effective friends of the 
 Irish cause in a position of great embarrassment, but 
 would render my retention of the leadership of the 
 Liberal party, based as it has been mainly upon the 
 prosecution of the Irish cause, almost a nullity." 
 
 Almost a nullity ! The Irish members suddenly real- 
 325
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 ized that for five years they had been depending more 
 and more on British sympathy, British assistance, 
 British association. They had learned to repose on 
 Gladstone as on Abraham's bosom. And now, because 
 of the invaluable nonconformist conscience, Gladstone 
 could plead to them his immense, his pathetic difficul- 
 ties. The cause of Ireland, the Irish cause, was his 
 life-work. Would they not dethrone Parnell? 
 
 That was Gladstone's frontal attack. In the rear, 
 of course, was the Catholic Church. "The pope," 
 murmured Gladstone, "has now clearly got a command- 
 ment under which to pull him up." In 1881 it was 
 Gladstone who, through Cardinal Newman, had for- 
 warded the police-notes of speeches by Irish priests to 
 the supreme pontiff, out of sheer regard for Ireland, 
 "in this hour of her peril and her hope." The scandal 
 of the church in politics still appalled him, but the 
 supreme pontiff had played the English game on that 
 occasion. Now the cleric in politics could be counted 
 
 on again. 
 
 25 
 
 What would Parnell do, placed between Gladstone's 
 Irish party in front, and Gladstone's Catholic Church 
 in the rear? Would he acknowledge that he and the 
 
 326
 
 The Land War 
 
 woman he loved were caught in sin, and would he, as 
 Gladstone's messenger, Morley requested, withdraw 
 from leadership "as a concession due to feeling in 
 England"? Parnell declined. He said that "if he 
 once let go, it was all over." "His manner throughout 
 was perfectly cool and quiet, and his unresonant voice 
 was shaken. He was paler than usual, and now and 
 then a wintry smile passed over his face." 
 
 That was the end of Parnell. In Committee-Room 
 15 his party chose Gladstone and English Liberalism. 
 And in Ireland, first in the by-election in Kilkenny and 
 later elsewhere, the priests marshaled the country- 
 people to the voting-booths. By two to one the people 
 voted against his candidates. 
 
 Dr. Croke, the archbishop of Cashel, put the case 
 against Parnell in a few words : "All sorry for Parnell, 
 but still, in God's name, let him retire quietly and with 
 good grace from the leadership. If he does so, the 
 Irish party will be kept together, the honorable alli- 
 ance with Gladstonian Liberals maintained, success at 
 general election secured, home rule certain. If he does 
 not retire, alliance will be dissolved, election lost, Irish 
 
 327
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 party seriously damaged if not wholly broken up, home 
 rule indefinitely postponed, coercion perpetuated, 
 evicted tenants hopelessly crushed, and the public con- 
 science outraged. The [Parnell's] manifesto flat and 
 otherwise discreditable." 
 
 The truth was that Gladstone's published terms, 
 compelling the Irish party to reverse their election of 
 Parnell as leader, spelled subjection to English policy. 
 The center of Ireland's political gravity had shifted to 
 England. This suited Gladstone. And so long as 
 Parnell was beaten in Ireland he had succeeded in his 
 main object: reducing the Irish problem to a municipal 
 problem. He never wavered in his desire to see Par- 
 nell beaten. "I would rather see Ireland disunited than 
 see it Parnellite. . . . We are now, I think, freed from 
 the enormous danger of seeing Parnell master in Ire- 
 land.'* He called the Parnellite voters of Kilkenny 
 "rogues" or "fools." 
 
 The rogues and fools fought for Parnell in every 
 community, and Parnell threw himself into every con- 
 test with despairing energy. After his first attempt 
 to domineer, though cornered, he had offered to resign, 
 provided Gladstone would give certain guarantees to 
 Ireland. But Gladstone was already sure of the party, 
 sure of the church. He offered no guarantees. The 
 
 328
 
 The Land War 
 
 fight was carried through Kilkenny, Sligo, Carlow. 
 The spirit of each election was savage. 
 
 What will be the result of the general election, he 
 asked his biographer Barry O'Brien. 
 
 "I should think that you will come back with about 
 five followers, and I should not be surprised if you 
 came back absolutely alone." 
 
 "Well," he answered, *'if I do come back absolutely 
 alone, one thing is certain, I shall then represent a 
 party whose independence will not be sapped." 
 
 The strain of the fight, the conflict and confusion of 
 motives, the physical exhaustion, brought him to the 
 danger-point. A chill at Creggs sent him back to 
 Brighton with acute rheumatism. On October 6, 1891, 
 he failed and died, at the age of forty-five. 
 
 27 
 
 So long as Parnell had rallied the people, the con- 
 stitutional movement kept its national spear-head. 
 Without Parnell it became no more revolutionary than 
 a broomstick. A great deal of legislative power was 
 still controlled by the Irish members, and in the gen- 
 eration following Parnell a great deal of admirable 
 legislation was secured. But without being a declared 
 or even convinced separatist, Parnell gave the Irish 
 
 329
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Gael what he needed a leader who had not one drop 
 of slave-blood in him. John Dillon, T. M. Healy, T. 
 P. O'Connor, William O'Brien these men had been 
 brought to heel by Gladstone as against Parnell, and 
 even if they were as free as the wind, their action seemed 
 bloodless and timid. It was not ParnelPs so-called 
 aristocratic bearing which won the Irish ; it was his 
 mettle. His nature had something cold and hard in 
 it. "I am a man and I have told these children what 
 they want." So he said in 1890. This arrogance 
 hurt him ; but in the English parliament he had changed 
 the hunted to the hunter. He was like the race mem- 
 ory of a hero, half-God, half-human "tameless and 
 swift and proud." He held the Irish heart until he 
 was seen as a furtive lover, a man in shame and 
 disguise. 
 
 When he was gone the champions and heroes who 
 hooked laborers' cottages out of the imperial grab-bag 
 did not enable Ireland to dream dreams. The break- 
 ing of Parnell was more than the loss of a parliamen- 
 tary leader. It was the loss of a national idol. The 
 Irish let their weapons fall when their leader was slain. 
 
 To become leaders in themselves, no longer enslaved 
 to a personality, was the task of the rebuilders of the 
 Irish nation. It was a slow process, but in the dreary 
 
 330
 
 The Land War 
 
 emptiness of politics after Parnell the Irish imagina- 
 tion sought this escape from England and Westminster. 
 Meanwhile, Gladstone believed that Ireland was at last 
 frock-coated and in its right mind. 
 
 331
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE COMING OF SINN FEIN 
 1 
 
 ON the surface of events the downfall of Parnell 
 looked more tragic, more ruinous, than any 
 episode of two centuries. It tore the nation in two : it 
 ended a great militant's career. 
 
 Parnell in one sense was the best general Ireland had 
 ever had. When he entered the house of commons he 
 found the Irish parliamentarians like sheep without a 
 shepherd, contemptuously patronized by British Tories 
 and mildly tolerated by Liberals. Parnell contrived 
 in a few years to get rid of those Irish members who 
 took their tone not from Ireland but from the house 
 of commons, feeling they were members of a gentle- 
 manly club in which their chief duty was to conciliate 
 their Tory neighbors. He recruited earnest men who 
 saw themselves as the representatives of a nation per- 
 haps the most desolate and surely the most outraged 
 in northern Europe. This new party, organized as 
 shock troops under a strict command, stamped the 
 
 332
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 Irish cause and Parnell's personality into British 
 political consciousness. Anxious apprehension sup- 
 planted the old tolerant, patronizing attitude. Parnell 
 aroused class superstition and race prejudice, he was 
 feared and hated, but he forced British Liberalism to 
 make the Irish cause its own, and he drove the Tories 
 into competition for his support. Even when he re- 
 laxed his agitation and followed the Liberals in their 
 conduct of the fight, he remained the most formidable 
 figure in British politics. 
 
 With the fall of Parnell this instantly changed. The 
 constitutional movement passed from Ireland to 
 Britain, from nationalism to Liberalism, from in- 
 sistence to compromise, from life to death. Gladstone 
 did not relax. In 1893 he re-introduced the Home 
 Rule bill and fought for it with supreme skill, but his 
 greatest efforts could not procure a British majority 
 inside the commons. The Irish vote alone brought the 
 bill to the house of lords : there it was dismissed with 
 disdain. 
 
 When Gladstone retired in 1894 the Irish cause lost 
 its position even in the Liberal program. The gallantry 
 of English sympathizers like Wilfrid Scawen Blunt had 
 done little to alter the leaden indifference of Britain. 
 But this feebleness of Liberalism was the negative side 
 
 333
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 of the Parnell tragedy. The positive side was felt in 
 Ireland itself, where counsel was divided and passion 
 was fierce and barren. 
 
 At no period, perhaps, had the faults and pitiful 
 weaknesses of human character been more revealed than 
 in this day of Parnellism: the politicians running here 
 and there looking for the best bargain, the newspapers 
 full of windy preachments, the priests and the bishops 
 influencing the people in outrageous partisanship, the 
 whole country a seething mass of prejudice, anger, 
 savage insult, personal abuse, and terrorism, with 
 England enjoying the spectacle and feeding the flame. 
 Such rancorous words were spoken in this period, and 
 so little charity was preserved even by the heroes of 
 the occasion, that sane public life seemed an impos- 
 sibility for the future. It was, without bloodshed, a 
 period of civil war. 
 
 So, to all appearances, the fall of Parnell was a 
 dark calamity. It cost Ireland its leader, it created a 
 mania of controversy, revealing above everything else 
 the lack of trained political mind. 
 
 2 
 
 But this wildness of Parnellite and anti-Parnellite 
 was not fatal to Ireland. In its destructive eruption 
 
 334
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 the country was to purge itself of its preoccupation 
 with parliament. It was to turn away from West- 
 minster and to regain its national spirit. 
 
 For conflict with England was, in the end, an acci- 
 dent and interruption of Irish life. Since 1800 politics 
 had indeed been compulsive. The Penal Laws had 
 stripped the native Irish of property and power in 
 the eighteenth century. The rising of '98 had been 
 a convulsion due to the return of native vitality. 
 Brought handcuffed into the Union, the Irish people 
 had been forced to seek whatever practical social 
 amelioration was possible. The people were without 
 Catholic representatives even in the imperial parlia- 
 ment. They were, as observers like Sir Walter Scott 
 had testified, the most miserable of serfs. They had 
 no capital, no economic or political control, no strength 
 even to throw off so unjust an exaction as the tithe. 
 Poverty, the result of bad land tenure, was the first 
 fact of Irish life. It swamped Ireland like a Holland 
 with the dykes open. It kept the land in a sub-national 
 condition. Until the nineties a few thousand land- 
 lords lived luxuriously but most of them really lived 
 meanly. A few thousand merchants and liquor-dealers 
 had good bank-accounts and fat investments (outside 
 the country), but most of the small traders and hun- 
 
 335
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 dreds of the publicans were submerged in dingy, mel- 
 ancholy, poverty-stricken routine. The bishops re- 
 ceived many large contributions from generous and 
 pious Catholics. New cathedrals and numerous 
 churches, one or two of them beautiful, replaced the 
 poor chapels which had served Ireland during its 
 harassed centuries. But outside Northeast Ulster, 
 which was independent of agriculture, Ireland was a 
 land the most wretched and forlorn in northern Europe. 
 Two million of the people were practically in servitude 
 still. Two things were needed to change this abnormal 
 social state one, to get rid of landlordism; the other, 
 to move from agrarian to agricultural reform. Only 
 by new laws could land tenure be corrected; and this 
 necessity drove Ireland to Westminster. 
 
 Driven to Westminster in the fight against landlord- 
 ism, the native Irish naturally kept their eyes on 
 Westminster so long as Parnell was battling for home 
 rule. But home rule was of little or no interest to 
 Ireland, regarded simply as a measure of autonomy. 
 It was not discussed in Ireland in its details as an 
 intricate piece of legislation. It was of interest and 
 concern only as a symbol of nationalism; and when 
 
 336
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 nationalism turned into a war between Parnellites and 
 anti-Parnellites the actual terms of home rule troubled 
 no one in Ireland. 
 
 The real Ireland, in fact, could never be understood 
 merely by tracing its constitutional relation to Eng- 
 land. The real Ireland could not be measured, as 
 Australia's well-being or Canada's or New Zealand's 
 might be measured, by a happy constitutional adjust- 
 ment. These commonwealths and dominions were, after 
 all, offshoots and children of England. Ireland was 
 not an offshoot or child of England, any more than 
 France was. Years before the Angles or Saxons had 
 sprung from their lairs, Ireland had flourished as a 
 civilization. It had welcomed St. Patrick a thousand 
 years before the American continent was discovered 
 by Europe. It had a memory, a personality, a sub- 
 stance quite distinct from the memory and personality 
 and substance of John Bull's island. It was never 
 John Bull's Other Island except by military conquest. 
 In no mystical sense, but in the true sense that one 
 child differs from another or one handclasp from an- 
 other, Ireland reserved within its borders a something 
 which was beyond the scope or competence of British 
 governing. It was the sense of this difference, not a 
 desire for federation with the empire, which gave Ire- 
 
 337
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 land its interest in the home rule question. And once 
 Parnell was gone as a national leader the vitality of 
 Ireland groped for a new national expression. 
 
 4 
 
 That nationalism sought to revive the old forms of 
 the Gael. An Irishman by affiliation, Dr. Douglas 
 Hyde, saw with something like agony the threatened 
 death of the spoken Gaelic tongue. This, in any nor- 
 mal country, would have been the concern of legisla- 
 tors, but Dr. Hyde knew that the Gaelic inheritance 
 meant less than nothing to England. England had 
 smashed down the Gaelic inheritance. By statute and 
 by educational policy the English in Ireland and the 
 Anglo-Irish had done their best to kill Gaelic culture. 
 Dr. Hyde saw more clearly than any one else that if 
 the lovers of Ireland did not act for themselves this 
 barbarity of England would succeed. He did not go 
 to Westminster for help in this struggle. He believed 
 in self-help. He knew that he could not prevent the 
 emigration of the Gaelic-speaking Irish or of the 
 English-speaking Irish who were also Gaelic-speaking. 
 These numbered 700,000. But he knew that with the 
 live coal of Gaelic he could still touch the lips of 
 
 338
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 Ireland, and he and a small group of disinterested, 
 non-political enthusiasts started the Gaelic League. 
 
 In this group there was no more conventional politics 
 than there had been in the archeological ardor of Sir 
 William Wilde and Dr. George Petrie, in the editing 
 of texts by O'Donovan and O'Curry, Standish Hayes 
 O'Grady and Whitley Stokes. The Gaelic revivalists 
 were primarily scholars. Eugene O'Growney of 
 Maynooth, a priest ; Dr. Hyde, the son of a Protestant 
 clergyman; and John MacNeill of Antrim, founded 
 the Gaelic League in 1893. From this beginning, ap- 
 parently so academic, a powerful popular development 
 was to come. 
 
 It did not come easily. The native speakers were in 
 most cases the elders. In ten years a great number 
 of them died out. But while it took a little time to 
 reach them, it took much more time to reverse the dis- 
 pirited or contemptuous attitude of the younger 
 generation, to make them see the proud treasure it was 
 to have the Gaelic and to bridge the morass of Anglo- 
 Irish history back to the Gaelic past. 
 
 The labors of Dr. Hyde and his associates in the 
 first fifteen years of the Gaelic League are in them- 
 selves a thrilling history. The men and women of the 
 
 339
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Gaelic League won a decided victory in the end. Ignor- 
 ing England, in the first place, they taught all Ireland 
 its racial distinctiveness. They lifted the country- 
 people out of the mire of the road and the track of the 
 plow to a cultural life which was their own. And with 
 the revival of Gaelic came annual Gaelic festivals which 
 included singing, music, drama, dancing, story-telling. 
 Dublin at last became a center for the interior life of 
 native Ireland. 
 
 The middle-class Irish, who had little characteristic 
 culture outside reading library books, playing the violin 
 on wet afternoons, struggling with Italian love-songs, 
 and painting on china, were at first inclined to laugh 
 at Gaelic, but at last they shed their mad craving to 
 perform "Pinafore" under the patronage of the local 
 bishop and they broke through their vulgar affectations 
 into the real tradition of the people. The Gaelic 
 League did something to scour away the dreary 
 provincialism of the Irish towns. It revealed a beauty, 
 a sincerity, a dignity in the disparaged past of Ireland 
 which were totally omitted from the stupid school- 
 books of the government system. 
 
 A somewhat grudging appreciation of the Gaelic 
 League was yielded by the Irish parliamentarians. But 
 the young men and women who saw no England to edify 
 
 340
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 them except the contemporary England of the Boer 
 War were deepened in national feeling by Gaelicism. 
 In this way the Gaelic revival was inherently political. 
 But for many years and against high pressure Dr. 
 Hyde maintained the principle of neutrality. The 
 league drew strength from each province and from 
 every kind of Irishman. Gael and Gall, until 1915, 
 hung their shields on the wall side by side and greeted 
 one another as human beings. 
 
 Another enterprise, less embracingly national, was 
 the dramatic movement which began with the Irish Lit- 
 erary Theater in 1899. Edward Marty n was the beget- 
 ter of this theater, and with him were George Moore and 
 William Butler Yeats. After some years of distin- 
 guished work on the lines of an independent "literary" 
 theater Yeats led the experiment to the "four beautiful 
 green fields" of Eire. With his own creations of genius, 
 most of them drawn from Gaelic sources which had 
 been opened afresh by the revival, he and Lady Gregory 
 turned the National Theater into the medium of a 
 genuinely national expression. It was far from Yeats's 
 idea, however, to subordinate the pursuit of beauty to 
 the utility of patriotism. He wished instead to liberate 
 
 341
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 the Irish mind from its fierce preoccupation with means 
 to the lovely and glorious ends of the national being 
 itself. John Millington Synge and Padraic Colum 
 shared this passion with him, Synge in flaming idiom 
 and Colum in the sober hues and warm notes of a 
 quieter countryside. Lady Gregory and William Boyle 
 were to follow, dramatists in a flight of creativeness 
 such as Ireland had never attempted before. Their 
 subjects were in nearly all cases the "democracy" about 
 whom so many political scientists had trembled in their 
 armchairs. The actors of this movement (W. G. Fay 
 being the genius among them) were, for the most part, 
 men and women of the native Irish. Had they come 
 into Ireland before Yeats and Lady Gregory had or- 
 ganized this rare theater they would have died, as so 
 many Irish died before them, "with their music in 
 them." 
 
 The Gaelic revival and the dramatic and literary 
 renaissance (to which Ernest A. Boyd is the most 
 competent guide) had a great deal to do with the sub- 
 sequent triumph of national Ireland. Padraic Pearse, 
 to mention only one of their later leaders, was a 
 disciple of Douglas Hyde's. In 1913 he said, "I have 
 served under him since I was a boy. I am willing to 
 serve under him until he can lead and I can serve no 
 
 342
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 longer. I have never failed him. He has never failed 
 me. I am only one of the many who could write thus." 
 It was in Connacht that Pearse studied Gaelic among 
 native speakers and renewed his sense of the Gaelic 
 inheritance. From Connacht he took the name of his 
 famous school, St. Enda's a school which embodied 
 ideals of Irish culture and nationality which the British 
 occupation of Ireland had seemed to submerge. 
 
 6 
 
 In this period of non-political, cultural activity 
 which was to show such extraordinary national results 
 twenty years later, the parliamentarians by no means 
 regarded themselves as obsolete, or even secondary in 
 national importance. The amiable Justin McCarthy, 
 the ingenious and gifted T. P. O'Connor, the grave, 
 parochial John Dillon, the salient T. M. Healy, the 
 dignified John Redmond, the romantic William O'Brien, 
 the radical Michael Davitt these striking personalities 
 attracted a far greater share of public attention than 
 their inhibited programs justified. In 1895 the Union- 
 ists or Tories returned to power in Britain, and the 
 natural reaction from Gladstone's compromise with 
 nationalism was Salisbury's policy of "killing home 
 rule with kindness." Land legislation was not aban- 
 
 343
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 doned, and the Balfours identified themselves with the 
 building of light railways and the establishment of the 
 Congested Districts Board to relieve the worst poverty 
 and hardship in the west of Ireland. 
 
 John E. Redmond 
 
 Until 1897 the "split" between Parnellites and anti- 
 Parnellites persisted, with John Redmond as the chival- 
 rous advocate of Parnellism and John Dillon the new 
 chairman of the Gladstonian party. In 1897 Redmond 
 took up the revelations of the Childers Commission on 
 
 344
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 the overtaxation of Ireland. Instead of paying one- 
 twentieth of Britain's expenditure, the gross ratio, 
 Ireland had been compelled to pay about one-eleventh. 
 (Ireland's net ratio would, however, be about a thirty- 
 sixth.) This overtaxation had amounted, at the low- 
 est, to about 2,750,000 a year, and had been going on 
 for nearly forty years. To reform this abuse seemed 
 to Redmond an adequate program, with the addition 
 of home rule, manhood suffrage, political amnesty, and 
 land reform. The Tories were not unwilling to make 
 concessions. The Local Government Bill, which came 
 in 1898, transferred the county councils to farmers 
 "without experience" from a select committee of land- 
 lords in each county. These new popular bodies soon 
 were granted by Dublin Castle to be better adminis- 
 trators than the Tory cliques which had preceded them. 
 The state purchase of the land was now generally 
 advocated. The Anglo-Irish Bourbons said: "Peasant 
 Proprietors would be wasteful, extravagant, and not 
 industrious. They would subdivide, sublet, and en- 
 cumber their lands. Whole counties would fall into 
 the hands of money-lenders. The payment of less than 
 a 'natural' rent would complete the ruin of a race of 
 slaves." But the United Irish League, formed by 
 William O'Brien, agitated successfully until, in 1903, 
 
 345
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 the Wyndham Act came after a round-table conference 
 between landlords and leaguers. The financing of this 
 act was imperfect: it was remedied in 1909. Two 
 hundred million pounds of state credit was required 
 to capitalize the voluntary transfer of two-thirds of 
 the land to peasant proprietors. The Bourbons were 
 utterly wrong in their predictions. The program, not 
 yet wholly completed, has been a social and economic 
 success. The landowners as a class have lost their 
 position of privilege, but many of the "old stock," 
 so-called, have frankly given up Anglo-Ireland as their 
 country and have accepted Ireland. This change in 
 national ideal completes a transformation that was 
 promised from the day of the Geraldines. 
 
 But agriculture in Ireland remained seriously back- 
 ward. Not long before he died Michael Davitt spoke 
 witheringly of the tenants : "Nothing short of absolute 
 danger or necessity will rouse them out of their dirty, 
 slovenly habits of living from hand to mouth, a shift- 
 less, thriftless, ignoble existence. When I return home 
 from little countries like Denmark, Holland, and Bel- 
 gium, it makes me mad to look on at the criminal misuse 
 of the best land in Europe, which you see in our mid- 
 land counties and around where I live. Next (in my 
 view) to the long experience of English rule, I blame 
 
 346
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 our whole education system for this economic ruin of 
 our fertile soil." 
 
 It was with critical perceptions like these that 
 Horace Plunkett started his great national cooperative 
 
 Ho face Plunkett 
 
 movement in 1897. In 1895 he had taken advantage of 
 the fact that the Unionists (Tories) were favorably 
 disposed toward constructive legislation. So far as 
 killing home rule with kindness went, it was about as 
 intelligent as trying to kill a baby with milk. Nation- 
 
 347
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 ality throve on the process. But Plunkett's share in 
 the procedure was that of a practical diplomat who 
 gathered a representative allied committee to frame 
 the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruc- 
 tion. John Redmond so far gave him his aid. 
 
 Davitt's idea of agricultural education was subordi- 
 nate in Plunkett's program to the organizing of co- 
 operative societies. But by the unselfish and arduous 
 missionary work of Plunkett, Russell (AE.), and 
 Anderson, a tremendous economic advance was made in 
 the four provinces, particularly in the milk country 
 of Ulster and the midlands. And men came together 
 in the cooperative movement, as in the Gaelic League, 
 who had never before imagined the possibility of ac- 
 commodation and good-will. 
 
 To wheedle Ireland out of its national feeling, how- 
 ever, was a policy doomed to failure. As English 
 critics of Gladstone had always insisted, this was the 
 inherent falsity of home rule. It joined in common 
 harness two types of men whose purposes ran in con- 
 trary directions one which was inspired by national 
 feeling and wanted to strengthen the Irish nation, the 
 other which was inspired by a desire to make a more 
 
 348
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 comfortable place for Ireland inside the British sys- 
 tem. 
 
 In converting a considerable body of British opinion 
 to home rule, Gladstone had not preached Ireland a 
 Nation. For a moment he had pondered the desir- 
 ability of establishing Britain and Ireland as a dual 
 monarchy, an Austro-Hungarian empire. But this 
 idea of equal partnership he had rejected. Britain, 
 in the first place, had become immensely rich. It had 
 actually twenty times the resources of Ireland ; it held 
 the balance of power in Europe; it was the policeman 
 (and dictator) of the seas. As against its great, 
 muscular, brawny presence Ireland looked pitifully 
 weak and thin: a potato-fed peasant condemned to a 
 "dunghill civilization." In Morley's life of Gladstone 
 the words dreary, sad, sordid, squalid, are associated 
 with virtually every mention of Ireland ; and the sharp- 
 ness of Irish wrangling was of itself enough to con- 
 vince Britain that the Irish were unfit for equal part- 
 nership. Hence a local, subordinate, home rule parlia- 
 ment, decided upon by British statesmen as an act of 
 the British parliament and extended as the bounty of 
 the great British Empire, was the outcome of Glad- 
 stone's Liberalism. The native Irish were invited to 
 forget their history, to sink their desires. They were 
 
 349
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 warmly promised, and after thirty years granted, "on 
 the statute books," a lower constitutional status than 
 Newfoundland. 
 
 8 
 
 Working with the British Liberals on a home rule 
 program, the parliamentarians completely lost their 
 sense of Ireland a Nation. They favored the Boers 
 during the Boer War on the principle of the rights 
 of small nations, but in their own case they did not hold 
 to the principle. An Irish parliament without control 
 of taxation, without control of army or navy, without 
 control of the militia or volunteers, without any yes 
 or no as to conscription, without any voice as to cus- 
 toms or excise, without a word as to free political 
 utterance, without immediate control of police, with 
 an anti-democratic upper house and with a fixed, ex- 
 cessive imperial contribution as a first charge on 
 revenue that was the great Liberal Gladstone's idea 
 of home rule. In time, too, it became John Redmond's. 
 "To talk about Ireland separating from the empire," 
 he said in 1910, "is the most utter nonsense. . . . We 
 have none of these heroic ambitions and harebrained 
 ideas. . . . We simply ask for permission quietly to 
 attend to our own business in our own way." 
 
 350
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 It seems hardly possible that any so-called liberal 
 empire could have refused a once-free people this meas- 
 ure of self-government. But the fact is that Britain 
 refused even to consider this degree of self-govern- 
 ment for Ireland. In 1906 the Liberals under Sir 
 Henry Campbell-Bannerman, abetted by Sir Edward 
 Grey and H. H. Asquith, proceeded to dole out an 
 Irish Council Bill. By this bill the Irish, under paid 
 nominees of the crown, were to be permitted to act as 
 committees in superintendence of certain departments 
 of administration. This bill, proposed by the strongest 
 Liberal government that Britain had ever elected, was 
 too grotesquely undemocratic to be argued before an 
 Irish convention, and the parliamentarians found 
 themselves driven to force the Liberals to take up home 
 rule. The accession of Asquith, a weakling, did not 
 promise well, but one substantial achievement in 1908 
 was the founding of a national university which at 
 last, in the twentieth century, gave the Irish Catholics 
 a real opportunity of higher education. The worst 
 effect of the Penal Laws had undoubtedly been Ire- 
 land's deficiency in institutions of higher learning. 
 The extension of education in 1908 was of national 
 importance: for one thing, it gave Pearse and Mac- 
 Donagh material which had been lacking in the Rising 
 
 351
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 of '98 and in the work of the Old Fenians. This, with 
 the spread of secondary education through the In- 
 termediate System begun in 1879, had much to do with 
 the subsequent strength of Sinn Fein. 
 
 While John Redmond was preparing to fight for a 
 new home rule bill the people of Ireland were not ex- 
 cited. John Redmond was a parliamentary chairman, 
 not a popular leader, and he took Irish support almost 
 completely for granted. His opportunity, in addition, 
 was a somewhat technical one. The angry house of 
 lords had pulled the "citadel of privilege" about their 
 ears by daring to reject Lloyd George's radical budget. 
 They invited the Liberal day of reckoning which they 
 could not escape. In 1910 Asquith tried to tem- 
 porize: he did not enjoy overriding the lords at the 
 instance of the Irish. But the second election of 1910 
 confirmed Redmond in his balance of power and gave 
 him a right to force the issue against the chamber 
 which had repeatedly blocked self-government for Ire- 
 land. The parliament act gave the house of commons 
 the power to override the house of lords and to carry 
 home rule into law. 
 
 But home rule was not to pass unopposed. On the 
 352
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 Unionist side it was to meet the intense hostility of 
 the Tory Old Guard in England. It had also to stand 
 the assault of Belfast and Northeast Ulster. On the 
 national side it was to be sharply attacked by the 
 skirmishers of Sinn Fein. 
 
 10 
 
 The opposition of the Old Guard in England has 
 been vividly recorded by H. G. Wells in his novel, "Joan 
 and Peter." After some impatient, contemptuous, hec- 
 toring pages on the subject of nationalism, Larkinism, 
 Sinn Feinism and everything else, Mr. Wells turns to 
 the Old Guard and declares that to Ulster "they owed 
 their grip upon British Politics, upon army, navy, and 
 education; they traded nay! they existed upon the 
 open Irish sore. . . . The arming of Ulster to resist 
 the decision of parliament was incited from Great 
 Britain, it was supported enthusiastically by the whole 
 of the Unionist party in Great Britain, its headquar- 
 ters were in the west end of London, and the refusal of 
 General Gough to carry out the precautionary occupa- 
 tion of Ulster was hailed with wild joy in every Tory 
 home. It was not a genuine popular movement, it was 
 an artificial movement for which the landowning church 
 people of Ireland and England were chiefly responsible. 
 
 353
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 It was assisted by tremendous exertions on the part of 
 the London yellow press. When Sir Edward Carson 
 went about Ulster in that warm June of 1914, review- 
 ing armed men, promising 'more Mausers,' and pouring 
 out inflammatory speeches, he was manifestly prepar- 
 ing bloodshed. The old Tory system had reached a 
 point where it had to kill men or go." 
 
 In spite of this cold Tory plot, the opposition of 
 Belfast to home rule was in great part genuine. During 
 the nineteenth century Belfast had built up consid- 
 erable industry in linen, cotton, shipbuilding, whisky 
 and tobacco. Though situated on Irish soil and draw- 
 ing on a population still to some extent Gaelic, it had 
 become a modern capitalist city of the second or third 
 rank and it had combined with its grim industrialism 
 an intense conviction that the Ulster Protestant is 
 superior in race and creed to the Southern Catholic, 
 and that home rule would mean Rome rule on the 
 model of the Inquisition. This narrow faith was held 
 not only by the Presbyterian workman and his woman- 
 folk but by the employing class, their clergymen, their 
 teachers and their newspapers. The exclusion of 
 Catholics from public office in Belfast turned occasion- 
 ally with amazing swiftness to the combing of Catholics 
 from shop and factory. The Catholics entrenched 
 
 354
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 in Ulster did their best to retaliate for these upheavals, 
 and the Ancient Order of Hibernians was a Catholic 
 counterpart of the bigoted Orange organization. 
 
 As the most intolerant city in the world Belfast 
 presented an acute political problem to the Catholic 
 nationalist. The Catholic nationalist had devised no 
 real treatment for his inflammation. 
 
 "The great barrier to Irish success," Professor R. 
 M. Henry quotes an old Fenian as saying, "is the fear 
 of the Protestants unfounded and unreasonable, but 
 undeniably there that their interests would be in dan- 
 ger in a free Ireland. Remove that fear and the Irish 
 question is solved." To this end many Irishmen, 
 Fenians and non-Fenians, argued. But neither the 
 Liberals nor the Nationalists could think of anything 
 better to do in regard to Northeast Ulster than to 
 say, like Mr. Wells's Peter, "nonsense" or "Fixed 
 Ideas" or "foolery" or "it's a nuisance." 
 
 11 
 
 The nationalists to the left of John Redmond were 
 definitely willing to give home rule a chance. There 
 were a few Fenians still in Ireland, but the tone of most 
 Fenians was that of John Devoy in 1911 : "I would not 
 incite the unorganized, undisciplined and unarmed peo- 
 
 355
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 pie of Ireland to a hopeless military struggle with Eng- 
 land." Padraic Pearse had a similar attitude. In 
 1912, in fact, at the opening of the home rule campaign 
 he spoke at the same great O'Connell Street meeting as 
 John Redmond: "We have no wish to destroy the 
 British, we only want our freedom. We differ among 
 ourselves on small points, but we agree that we want 
 freedom, in some shape or other. There are two sec- 
 tions of us one that would be content to remain under 
 the British government in our own land, another that 
 never paid and never will pay homage to the King of 
 England. I am of the latter, and every one knows it. 
 But I should think myself a traitor to my country 
 if I did not answer the summons to this gathering, for 
 it is clear to me that the Bill which we support today 
 will be for the good of Ireland and that we shall be 
 stronger with it than without it. I am not accepting 
 the Bill in advance. We may have to refuse it. We 
 are here only to say that the voice of Ireland must 
 be listened to henceforward. Let us unite and win a 
 good Act from the British ; I think it can be done. 
 But if we are tricked this time, there is a party in 
 Ireland, and I am one of them, that will advise the 
 Gael to have no counsel or dealings with the Gall [the 
 foreigner] for ever again, but to answer them hence- 
 
 356
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 forward with the strong hand and the sword's edg. 
 Let the Gall understand that if we are cheated once 
 more there will be red war in Ireland.'* 
 
 Arthur Griffith in his weekly paper Sinn Fern showed 
 a similar tolerance, and in 1912 the executive of the 
 Sinn Fein organization expressed the earnest hope that 
 the home rule bill would be a genuine measure of reform. 
 But Sinn Fein warned the Parliamentarians: "They 
 have had the government 'in the hollow of their hands' 
 for years they have removed the house of lords from 
 their path there is nothing to prevent the Liberal 
 government introducing and passing a full measure of 
 home rule save and except its enmity to Ireland. 
 With a majority of over 100 and the lords' veto re- 
 moved the fullest measure of home rule can be passed 
 in two years. It is the business of the parliamentary 
 party to have it passed or to leave the stage to those 
 who are in earnest." 
 
 When the terms of the bill were made known Arthur 
 Griffith spoke these candid and practical words: 
 
 "The definition of the third Home Rule Bill as a 
 charter of Irish liberty is subject to the following 
 corrections: The authority of the proposed parlia- 
 ment does not extend to the armed men or to the tax- 
 gatherer. It is checked by the tidal waters and 
 
 357
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 bounded by the British treasury. It cannot alter the 
 settled purposes of the cabinet in London. It may 
 make laws, but it cannot command power to enforce 
 them. It may fill its purse, but it cannot have its purse 
 in its keeping. If this be liberty, the lexicographers 
 have deceived us. . . . The measure is no arrangement 
 between nations. It recognizes no Irish nation. It 
 might equally apply to the latest British settlement in a 
 South Sea island. It satisfies no claim of the Irish na- 
 tion whose roots are in Tara, or the Irish nationalism 
 which Molyneux first made articulate." 
 
 12 
 
 From these words of Pearse and Griffith, and from 
 the utterances of contemporary Irish labor papers, it 
 is evident that new forces had been taking shape in 
 Ireland under the surface of conventional politics. 
 
 Arthur Griffith was the son of a Dublin typographer. 
 He had founded his weekly the United Irishman in 
 1899 and changed its name to Sinn Fein in 1906. In 
 1904 he had printed a series of articles entitled the 
 "Resurrection of Hungary" and in November, 1905, he 
 outlined his Sinn Fein program at the first annual con- 
 vention of the Sinn Fein national council, Edward 
 Martyn presiding. His was a non-parliamentarian 
 
 358
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 program based on the experience of Hungary. It 
 followed the German economist List in its nationalistic 
 economics and it advocated self-help on Hungarian 
 lines in the belief that it would lead to the ultimate 
 
 Afthur Griffith 
 
 freedom of Ireland: "I say ultimate, because no man 
 can offer Ireland a speedy and comfortable road to 
 freedom, and before the goal is attained many may 
 have fallen and all will have suffered. Hungary, Fin- 
 land, Poland, all have trodden or tread the road we 
 
 359
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 seek to bring Ireland along, but none repine for the 
 travail they have undergone. We go to build up the 
 nation from within, and we deny the right of any but 
 our own countrymen to shape its course. That course 
 is not England's, and we shall not justify our course 
 to England. The craven policy that has rotted our 
 nation has been the policy of 'justify ing* our existence 
 in our enemy's eyes. Our misfortunes are manifold, 
 but we are still men and women of a common family, 
 and we owe no nation an apology for living in accord- 
 ance with the laws of our being. In the British 
 Liberal as in the British Tory we see our enemy, and 
 in those who talk of ending British misgovernment we 
 see the helots. It is not British misgovernment, but 
 British government in Ireland good or* bad we stand 
 opposed to, and in that holy opposition we seek to band 
 all our fellow-countrymen. For the Orangeman of the 
 North, ceasing to be the blind instrument of his own 
 as well as his fellow-countryman's destruction, we have 
 the greeting of brotherhood as for the Nationalist of 
 the South, long taught to measure himself by English 
 standards and save the face of tyranny by sending 
 Irishmen to sit impotently in a foreign legislature 
 while it forges the instruments of his oppression." 
 
 360
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 Ireland's freedom was no less the dream of James 
 Connolly, who in 1896 had led a forlorn hope in found- 
 ing the Irish Socialist Republican Party. 
 
 James Connolly 
 
 James Connolly was born in Monaghan in 1870 and 
 at the age of ten was working for his living in Edin- 
 burgh, where his father was a municipal garbage-man. 
 After a peculiarly hard youth, in which he combined 
 a variety of occupations with continual study, Con- 
 
 361
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 nolly came to Dublin in 1896. Already he had formu- 
 lated his belief that the Irish question was at bottom 
 economic and that "the Irish socialist was in reality 
 the best Irish patriot." In 1898 he started the Work- 
 ers' Republic, in which he printed his "Labor in Irish 
 History.'* In 1903 he emigrated to the United States, 
 where he remained till 1910. When he returned to Ire- 
 land, after constant socialist activity in the United 
 States, he was not less nationalistic than before. The 
 Irish Transport and General Workers' Union was then 
 new, and Jim Larkin was a rising star, with Fred 
 Ryan and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington among the intel- 
 lectuals of Irish socialism. At first Connolly had no 
 great popular following but within a few years he and 
 Larkin had paved the way for the immense development 
 of organized labor in Ireland and in addition had 
 given nationalism a militancy which was to be demon- 
 strated in 1916. To Connolly the home rule bill was 
 play-acting. He was no more a home rule Republican 
 than he was a Fabian Socialist. But it was far below 
 the surface that men like Padraic Pearse, Sheehy- 
 Skeffington, Connolly and Larkin were affecting opin- 
 ion. Politicians who believed they knew Ireland, like 
 John Redmond, dismissed these figures as "isolated 
 cranks." 
 
 362
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 13 
 
 The obvious and striking situation was provided 
 by Sir Edward Carson in Northeast Ulster and by the 
 Unionists in England. 
 
 It had long been clear to the beneficiaries of Prot- 
 estant ascendancy in Ireland that if the home rule 
 bill should ever become law there would have to be a 
 transvaluation of Irish values. Undesirable as this ap- 
 peared to a limited class inside Ireland, it served the 
 purposes of the Unionists in England as no other 
 issue could have done. It gave the Unionists a chance 
 to appeal to religious prejudice, to tribal loyalty, to 
 race hatred and the cult of the superior people. Kip- 
 ling wrote a poem, as might be expected, and all the 
 old animosities were deliberately and enthusiastically 
 aroused. As early as 1911 the Unionists of Northeast 
 Ulster declared that they would never submit to home 
 rule ; and Bonar Law in England, the son of a Canadian 
 Orangeman, promptly asserted that armed resistance 
 to home rule would be justifiable. "I can imagine no 
 length of resistance," he said in 1912, "to which Ulster 
 will go in which I shall not be ready to support them." 
 With Bonar Law and Carson stood Lord Londonderry, 
 Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Hugh Cecil, the Duke 
 
 363
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 of Abercorn, Lord Roberts, Lord Willoughby de 
 Broke, F. E. Smith and the whole Unionist party. By 
 September, 1912, over 250,000 Ulstermen of fighting 
 age were asserted to have signed a solemn league and 
 covenant to "stand by one another in using all means 
 which may be found necessary to defeat the present 
 conspiracy to set up a home rule parliament.'* "In 
 the event of such a parliament being forced upon us," 
 the oath concluded, "we further solemnly "pledge our- 
 selves to refuse to recognize its authority.'* 
 
 The organizing of the Ulster rebellion was no secret. 
 It was fully advertized to the British cabinet, the Irish 
 government, the secret service and the police. From 
 1911 onward, rifles and machine guns were freely im- 
 ported and the Ulster forces openly drilled, chiefly 
 by reserve officers of the British army. In April 1914, 
 when war with Germany was almost in sight, Sir Ed- 
 ward Carson's followers imported 35,000 rifles and 
 2,500,000 rounds of ammunition from Hamburg, which 
 the Germans were pleased to supply. A few weeks pre- 
 viously Sir Edward had been presented with a silver 
 sword at the Ritz hotel in London ; Lord Londonderry, 
 Lord Salisbury, the Duke of Marlborough, Sir Bryan 
 Mahon, Lord Milner and various other Tories giving 
 it to him "in sure hope that God will defend the right." 
 
 364
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 A week later a number of officers at the Curragh, in 
 Kildare, resigned rather than serve against the Ulster 
 Protestants, the British government being constantly 
 advised in public speeches that Northeast Ulster cared 
 nothing for the law or the constitution. Contempt 
 for the government, in fact, was expressed by nearly 
 every leading Unionist. As Lord Birkenhead, then F. 
 E. Smith, summarized it : "You are dealing with a gov- 
 ernment which understands one argument the argu- 
 ment of force." 
 "D'inrr ofit fmfeildjd.r.1 y-, ** 
 
 These were dangerous words to bandy in Ireland, and 
 they were not wasted on the Republicans, the Irish 
 Revolutionary Brotherhood, the Sinn Fein advocates 
 and the labor forces in the South. For a long time the 
 rank and file of the nationalists could not believe that 
 the Ulstermen were really importing cannon, machine 
 guns and rifles. "King Carson" was jeered at, and 
 the cabinet was echoed when it cried, "opera bouife." 
 But while the Ulster rebellion was, no doubt, a staged 
 hold-up by which the Liberals were to yield reluctantly 
 to the partition of Ireland under the threat of civil war, 
 the fraud required for its effectiveness the use of 
 genuine military properties, and this was all that was 
 needed by the radical nationalists in the South. 
 
 365
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 The fact was indisputable that Carson had made ar- 
 rangements for a provisional government, that 1,- 
 000,000 had been publicly appropriated for Volunteer 
 widows and orphans, that the British League for 
 the Support of Ulster was active, that Carson gloried 
 in the fact that "the Volunteers are illegal, and the 
 government know they are illegal, and the government 
 dare not interfere with them." These concessions to 
 style might or might not be preliminary to a Liberal 
 betrayal of John Redmond on the plea of avoiding 
 the horrors of civil war. They established the prece- 
 dents, at any rate, for which radical nationalists 
 had long been waiting, never daring to hope or dream 
 that the grammar of anarchy would be supplied by the 
 Tories, the army and the lords. 
 
 As soon as the British government saw that the South 
 of Ireland was going to copy Carson they prohibited 
 the import of arms. But there had been a horrible 
 strike in 1913, in which the Dublin employers had 
 banded together to break down the unionizing of labor, 
 and Jim Larkin elected to form a Citizen Army for 
 Irish Workers "by taking a leaf out of the book of 
 Carson." The founding of the Irish National Volun- 
 teers, November, 1913, under the leadership of Eoin 
 
 366
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 MacNeill, vice-president of the Gaelic League, had 
 the effect of slowing down the formation of this Citizen 
 Army. But within a few months, under Captain White 
 and Madame Markievicz, the body was well organized 
 on Carsonian lines. By June, 1914, the Southern 
 Volunteers were estimated at 80,000, as against 84,- 
 000 Ulster Volunteers; and by July 9, 1914, they were 
 reckoned by the police to number 132,000, of whom 
 40,000 were army reservists. This retort to Carson 
 created an interesting situation. 
 
 15 
 
 It was a situation in which John Redmond as a 
 professed constitutionalist felt obliged to act. He 
 knew that if the Volunteer movement proceeded inde- 
 pendently of his party his power in Ireland was gone 
 forever, and he at once negotiated with Eoin Mac- 
 Neill and Sir Roger Casement for a share in the control 
 of the Volunteers. Eight of the provisional committee, 
 including Pearse, resigned when Redmond's nominees 
 were accepted. But it was only a question of a few 
 months when the body split into two sections: the 
 National or Redmond Volunteers and the Irish or 
 Sinn Fein Volunteers. 
 
 367
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Three events in July, 1914, helped to precipitate 
 the situation which British politics had created in 
 Ireland. 
 
 On July 10, armed Ulster Volunteers marched 
 through Belfast, and Sir Edward Carson held the first 
 meeting of his provisional government. 
 
 On July 24, Mr. Asquith, the prime minister, an- 
 nounced that the Buckingham Palace conference on the 
 partition of Ireland had failed. "The possibility of 
 defining an area for exclusion from the operation of 
 the Government of Ireland Bill was considered, and 
 the Conference being unable to agree either in prin- 
 ciple or in detail on such an area, it concluded." 
 
 On July 26, the British troops (King's Own Scottish 
 Borderers) killed three persons and wounded thirty-two 
 in Bachelor's Walk, Dublin, on returning from their 
 futile attempt to stop the gun-running at Howth. 
 
 These three events did much to disillusion even 
 moderate home rulers with the British government. 
 The successful gun-running in the North had taken 
 place with the probable connivance of the authorities. 
 In the South it had led to the killing of innocent per- 
 sons. The defiant attitude of Carson and the establish- 
 ment of his provisional government had involved noth- 
 ing more terrible than a conference with the King at 
 
 368
 
 The Coming of Sinn Fein 
 
 Buckingham Palace. And out of this conference had 
 come the news that Carson would not accept Redmond's 
 concession of four Ulster counties. In addition he 
 wanted Tyrone and Fermanagh to be excluded from 
 home rule, even though the nationalists were in a 
 majority in those two counties. 
 
 This Tory position was consecrated by the Liberals 
 some weeks after the European war had broken out 
 when, on September 18, the home rule bill was signed 
 but its amendment arranged for and its operation in- 
 definitely suspended. 
 
 
 369
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE IRISH REPUBLIC 
 
 WITH the outbreak of the European war John 
 Redmond did not wait an instant to consult 
 the will of Ireland. "I honestly believe," he told the 
 house of commons on August 4, 1914, "that the democ- 
 racy of Ireland will turn with the utmost anxiety and 
 sympathy to this country in every trial and danger 
 with which she is faced." 
 
 Believing that the home rule act was Ireland's magna 
 charta, John Redmond did not hesitate for a second to 
 haggle because it was amended or suspended. In the 
 hour of Britain's urgent need he committed himself and 
 Ireland as deeply as possible on the side of the Allies. 
 He made up his mind at once, and never altered it, to 
 recruit for Britain among Irish nationalists, and he 
 gladly and proudly saw his son and his brother join 
 the British army and go to France. 
 
 This pledge of loyalty from John Redmond was 
 hailed with delight by Englishmen in politics and out of 
 
 370
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 politics, and it netted 50,000 Irish Nationalist fighting 
 men within a year. But the guarantees which it drew 
 from Asquith, the prime minister, in regard to a dis- 
 tinctively Irish corps and in regard to the use of the 
 National Volunteers for home defense were never lived 
 up to. Instead the pro-war Irish were deeply dis- 
 trusted by Kitchener, and, in Lloyd George's phrase, 
 were treated with a stupidity which sometimes almost 
 looked like malignancy. The truth of Redmond's 
 loyalty to Britain was only apparent to men like 
 Pearse and MacNeill who split away in disgust from 
 his organization of National Volunteers. 
 
 Sinn Fein, the Republicans and the Citizen Army did 
 not espouse the cause of the Allies. The intimation 
 that Britain was engaged in fighting for the rights of 
 small nations left critical Irishmen singularly cold. 
 The statement of the Liverpool Post in September, 
 1914, that "the capture of the German trade is almost 
 as vital to the existence of the Empire as the destruc- 
 tion of Prussian militarism" was treasured as more ac- 
 curate than most of the stories of atrocities, and 
 Sinn Fein insisted that "the fact that out of 200,000 
 Unionists of military age in Ireland men who talked 
 Empire, sang Empire and protested they would die 
 for the British Empire four out of every five are still 
 
 371
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 at home, declaring they will not have home rule, is proof 
 that the Irish Unionist knows his present business." 
 These sharp comments, however, did not represent the 
 current popular feeling in the South of Ireland. Out 
 of 170,000 National Volunteers, according to Stephen 
 Gwynn, "only a trifle over 12,000 adhered to Professor 
 MacNeill. But in Dublin the opponents were nearly 
 2,000 out of 6,700; and two strong battalions went 
 almost solid against Redmond." 
 
 The "raising of the Irish Brigades," as Mr. Gwynn 
 calls it, kept John Redmond busy in spite of such in- 
 sults to national Ireland as the accession of Sir Edward 
 Carson to the cabinet. But no recruiting campaign 
 could alter the drift of radical feeling. That feeling 
 was impatient from the start of Britain's pretensions 
 in the war. The suppression of nationalist weeklies, 
 the deporting of Volunteer organizers and the imprison- 
 ment of an anti-militarist like Sheehy-Skeffington 
 simply added to the intense conviction that unless 
 some positive step was taken the Irish nation would 
 eventually be conscripted for imperial purposes and so 
 confirmed in subjection. 
 
 2 
 
 Early in the war Roger Casement had gone from 
 the United States to Germany to procure German aid 
 
 372
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 for a rising in Ireland. In this difficult mission, for 
 which he was not equipped by a knowledge of the lan- 
 guage, Casement did not succeed in convincing the 
 Germans of Ireland's military importance, nor did 
 
 Y'i ho'-on/. .r.n 
 
 Roger David Casement 
 
 he convince himself of German sympathy or under- 
 standing. Early in 1916, indeed, he made up his mind 
 that the Germans were anxious to provoke a hopeless 
 rebellion in Ireland merely for the sake of creating a 
 
 373
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 temporary "diversion," and he resolved to stop it if 
 possible, since the only aid he could secure from Ger- 
 many was a consignment of Russian rifles. 
 
 On Good Friday, 1916, Roger Casement landed on 
 the coast of Kerry, with two companions. Arrested by 
 stupid mischance, he was taken to the tower of London, 
 but not before he conveyed word to MacNeill to call 
 off the rising. 
 
 On Easter Monday, 1916, however, the Volunteer 
 forces in Dublin, under Pearse, and the Citizen Army, 
 under James Connolly, seized the strategic points in 
 the city and from the Post Office proclaimed the Irish 
 Republic. 
 
 From Monday, April 24, to Sunday, April 30, 
 various detachments of the small Republican force held 
 out. On April 28 Pearse declared of his comrades, 
 "they have redeemed Dublin from many shames, and 
 made her name splendid among the names of cities.'* 
 And he added, "I am satisfied that we have saved Ire- 
 land's honor." One name he mentioned in his procla- 
 mation. "I will name only that of Commandant Gen- 
 eral James Connolly, commanding the Dublin division. 
 He lies wounded, but is still the guiding brain of our 
 resistance." 
 
 One of the last leaders to surrender was Eamon de 
 374
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 Valera, professor of mathematics at Maynooth College, 
 who held Boland's Mill until Sunday noon. 
 
 3 
 
 The leaders who surrendered to General Maxwell 
 were not treated as prisoners of war. They were re- 
 garded as conspirators, rebels and criminals; and the 
 soldiers, therefore, of a conquered nation. They were 
 court-martialled in batches and ordered shot, day by 
 day. 
 
 On May 3, Padraic Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and 
 Thomas J. Clarke were shot at dawn. 
 
 On May 4, Joseph Plunkett, Edward Daly, Michael 
 O'Hanrahan and William Pearse were executed. 
 
 On May 5, John MacBride was executed. 
 
 On May 7, Cornelius Colbert, Edmund Kent, Michael 
 Mallon and J. J. Heuston were executed. 
 
 On May 8, Thomas Kent was executed. 
 
 On May 12, James Connolly, nursed back from his 
 wounds, was carried from an ambulance, and shot. 
 Sean McDermott was also shot on May 12. 
 
 About 500 lives were lost in the rising, with 1100 
 combatants wounded. 
 
 Roger Casement was executed in August, after a 
 375
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 state trial, while over a hundred participants in the 
 rising were given long terms of imprisonment. 
 
 Padi-aic H. Pearse 
 
 4 
 
 The rising was neither nation-wide nor popular, in 
 spite of several years' recruiting for the Irish volun- 
 teers. But the stealthy military executions which 
 followed Easter Week struck like successive blows on 
 Ireland's imagination. One coming after another, day 
 
 376
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 after day, the killing of these young men reverberated 
 through Ireland like the deliberate accent of a mighty, 
 somber bell. It was the bell of Ireland's history which 
 General Maxwell had tolled, the death-bell of Emmet 
 and Tone. 
 
 To an Ireland which had observed the condonation of 
 Ulster, these executions opened before its eyes the 
 glowing illuminated page of a terrible and sacrificial 
 history. Ireland read again the names of glorious 
 rebels who had borne their arms on the open field. It 
 read the names of rebels who had died on the scaffold. 
 To those names it now added Pearse, MacDonagh, 
 Connolly, and a litany of others. Labor had taken 
 up arms with Gaelic scholarship, and the statesman 
 with the poet. Their crime was treason. Their crime 
 was love. Their crime was rebellion. Their crime 
 was the resurrection of Ireland. 
 
 Once the Irish people looked again to this past, 
 across the abyss of conquest and confiscation, they real- 
 ized that they still formed the nation which England 
 branded as criminal. The deliberate plan of conquest, 
 the Elizabethan wars, the settlement of Ulster, Crom- 
 well's savagery, Cromwell's confiscations, the broken 
 treaty of Limerick, the penal code, the White Terror 
 of '98, the infamous Union, Pitt's broken pledge to 
 
 377
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 emancipate the Catholics, the tithe war, the artificial 
 famine, the Insurrection Acts, the Coercion Acts, the 
 clearances, the land war, the broken pledge of home 
 rule this unhappy legend simply to prove the truth 
 of Lincoln's words : "No man is good enough to rule 
 another man, without that other man's consent." 
 
 After the rising, Britain scoured Ireland to find 
 every man of quick national feeling and spirit, and 
 obeying the least hint of the Royal Irish Constabulary 
 and the wildest suspicions of Dublin Castle, swept 3,000 
 or more into internment camps across the Irish Sea. 
 Then, when the world had pondered how Francis 
 Sheehy-Skeffington had met his death during the rising, 
 at the hands of an officer reputed insane, Asquith set 
 out for Ireland to see what statesmanship could add to 
 General Maxwell's contributions. 
 
 Having himself made home rule into a tragic farce, 
 having shown neither character nor intelligence in his 
 dealings with Redmond, having yielded to the military 
 on the executions, Asquith could do nothing except 
 make empty and pretentious proposals which deceived 
 no one. 
 
 5 
 
 The next great effort of British statesmanship was 
 Lloyd George's. Before he became premier in Decem- 
 
 378
 
 379
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 ber he undertook the role of negotiating an Irish 
 peace. As a temporary expedient, Redmond agreed 
 to the exclusion of the six Ulster counties and with 
 the aid of Devlin secured local consent to temporary 
 exclusion. But when this side of the agreement was 
 completed, Lord Lansdowne went back on the Unionist 
 side of the bargain, and Lloyd George and Herbert 
 Samuel tried to corner Redmond into accepting per 
 manent exclusion. This treachery ended Redmond in 
 Ireland, as his biographer Stephen Gwynn testifies. 
 "We had incurred the very great odium of accepting 
 even temporary partition and a partition which, 
 owing to this arbitrary extension of area, could not 
 be justified on any ground of principle; we had in- 
 volved with us many men who voted for that accept- 
 ance on the faith of Redmond's assurance that the 
 government were bound by their written word ; and now 
 weawere thrown over." 
 
 Lloyd George as premier, however, made another 
 spectacular effort. In May, 1917, he sent out invita- 
 tions for a convention of Irishmen who were to frame 
 their own proposals for self-government, "within the 
 Empire.'* And he guaranteed that, "if substantial 
 agreement should be reached as to the character and 
 scope of the constitution for the future government 
 
 380
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 of Ireland within the Empire," his government would 
 give legislative effect to it. 
 
 Under the chairmanship of Sir Horace Plunkett 
 this convention sat from May, 1917, to April, 1918, 
 John Redmond dying in the course of its proceedings. 
 By the term "within the Empire," and by the fact that 
 the delegates were appointed, Sinn Fein was excluded 
 from the convention, but even if it had participated 
 "substantial agreement" could never have been secured. 
 The Ulster Unionist Alliance controlled its delegates as 
 a body and had Lloyd George's pledge that "Ulster" 
 would never be coerced. The actual outcome of the 
 convention was five separate reports, the Southern 
 Unionists agreeing to the principle of home rule and 
 the Nationalists presenting their case for a "dominion" 
 home rule, the Ulster Unionists dissenting. 
 
 The findings of the convention were hardly in Lloyd 
 George's hands before he announced that, without 
 regard to anything else, he proposed to apply conscrip- 
 tion to Ireland. 
 
 No British proposal could have had a more profound 
 effect on national Ireland. The Catholic bishops de- 
 clared the law was "an oppressive and unjust law, 
 which the Irish people have a right to resist by all 
 means consonant with the law of God." Several 
 
 381
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 Protestant bishops assented, and Sinn Fein, parlia- 
 mentarians and labor united in pledging themselves 
 against conscription. The impossibility of enforcing 
 it was evident, no matter what the need for men might 
 be, and the discovery of a famous "German plot," 
 which led to the arrest of prominent Sinn Feiners, in 
 no way helped the government. 
 
 6 
 
 Not till the armistice and the election which followed 
 it was the victory of Sinn Fein certainly indicated. 
 But the 1918 election left no doubt. Out of eighty 
 nationalist constituencies, seventy-three had voted for 
 the Irish Republican candidates. On January 21, 
 1919, these members met in Dail Eireann and issued 
 Ireland's declaration of independence: 
 
 "Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people ; 
 
 "And whereas for seven hundred years the Irish 
 people has never ceased to repudiate and has repeatedly 
 protested in arms against foreign usurpation; 
 
 "And whereas English rule in this country is, and 
 always has been, based upon force and fraud and main- 
 tained by military occupation against the declared 
 will of the people; 
 
 "And whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in 
 382
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Repub- 
 lican Army, acting on behalf of the Irish people; 
 
 "And whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure 
 and maintain its complete independence in order to 
 promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to 
 provide for future defense, to insure peace at home and 
 good will with all nations and to constitute a national 
 policy based upon the people's will, with equal right and 
 equal opportunity for every citizen, 
 
 "And whereas at the threshold of a new era in his- 
 tory the Irish electorate has in the general election of 
 December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare 
 by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to 
 the Irish Republic; 
 
 "Now, therefore, we, the elected representatives of 
 the ancient Irish people, in national parliament assem- 
 bled, do, in the name of the Irish nation, ratify the 
 establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge our- 
 selves and our people to make this declaration effective 
 by every means at our command. 
 
 "To ordain that the elected representatives of the 
 Irish people alone have power to make laws binding 
 on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament 
 is the only parliament to which that people will give its 
 allegiance. 
 
 383
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 "We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland 
 to be an invasion of our national right, which we will 
 never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our 
 country by the English garrison; 
 
 "We claim for our national independence the recog- 
 nition and support of every free nation of the world, 
 and we proclaim that independence to be a condition 
 precedent to international peace hereafter; 
 
 "In the name of the Irish people we humbly commit 
 our destiny to Almighty God, who gave our fathers the 
 courage and determination to persevere through cen- 
 turies of a ruthless tyranny, and strong in the justice 
 of the cause which they have handed down to us, we 
 ask His divine blessing on this, the last stage of the 
 struggle which we have pledged ourselves to carry 
 through to freedom." 
 
 7 
 
 The policy on which Britain now embarked was to 
 repress the Irish Republic. Denying the Irish an 
 opportunity to present their case before the Peace 
 Conference at Versailles, the British sought to coerce 
 the Irish in a fashion which they themselves had repro- 
 bated in the case of Northeast Ulster. The Irish Re- 
 
 384
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 publicans, however, had useful armed forces. They 
 soon drove the Royal Irish Constabulary into the larger 
 towns and cleared the way for the establishment of 
 arbitration courts and the functioning of Sinn Fein 
 officials in many districts. In the course of 1919-1920 
 the number of British troops in Ireland was steadily in- 
 creased, and by the middle of 1920 a new force popu- 
 larly known as the "Black and Tans" was employed 
 to carry out repression and the destruction of life 
 and property. The assassination of prominent Re- 
 publicans, the torturing and murdering of prisoners, 
 the killing of innocent men, women, and children, the 
 destruction of houses, villages, and sections of towns, 
 the use of gasoline sprays and bombs in the way of ter- 
 rorism, the burning of factories and creameries, the 
 destruction of crops and of animals, the practice of 
 "reprisals" these were the distinguishing features of 
 the British military policy in which about 80,000 
 troops were eventually employed, using full war equip- 
 ment, bayonets, rifles, bombs, machine guns, tanks and 
 airplanes. 
 
 These troops might have cowed an Ireland which 
 had not heard of the rights of small nations and the 
 principle of self-determination. But in the election of 
 
 385
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 1918 the Irish people had overwhelmingly affirmed their 
 independence, and they were prepared, weak as they 
 were, to wage their fight for freedom. Nor were they 
 the open enthusiasts of the United Irish days who re- 
 vealed all their plans, nor the simple men of Wexford 
 who rushed to arms in a frenzy of indignation. The 
 Irish Republic had an educated and disciplined citizen- 
 ship to rely on. And it had paid attention to the 
 stern and bitter words of Michael Davitt in 1899: 
 "I have for four years tried to appeal to the sense of 
 justice in this house of commons on behalf of Ireland. 
 I leave, convinced that no just cause, no cause of right, 
 will ever find support from this house of commons un- 
 less it is backed by force." 
 
 Under de Valera and Griffith, every type of Irishman 
 and Irishwoman united the moral-force advocates, the 
 men of physical force who remembered Mitchel and 
 Tone, the "one big union" of labor who remembered 
 Lalor and Connolly, the believers in an ideal Catho- 
 lic state. The heroism of Terence MacSwiney in his 
 slow vigil of death, the heroism of Michael Collins in 
 his swift embassy of war these made possible the 
 triumph of Ireland. So did the steadfastness of hunger- 
 strikers, tortured prisoners, occupied areas, a whole 
 country coerced. The wickedness of conquest was 
 
 386
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 reenacted, with English soldiers shouting "Halt !" to 
 Irishmen as in the days of Elizabeth, and English mer- 
 cenaries burning houses and murdering prisoners as in 
 
 
 Eamon de Valera 
 
 the days of '98. But not the whole wickedness of con- 
 quest, not the war on the Catholic religion and the 
 venom of the yeoman, not the quartering of the sol- 
 diers and the demonism of rape. And the Irish Re- 
 publican Army fought back, harassed the enemy, 
 
 387
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 planned ambushes and carried out the killing of hun- 
 dreds of individual men. 
 
 The war in Ireland, 1920-21, was to the Irish people 
 an intolerable and hateful revival of a conquest steeped 
 in shame. England, under the goad of agitation, had 
 undone its work of confiscation. It had, bit by bit, un- 
 latched the Penal Laws. Could England now have 
 candor, have courage, to meet "the claim of the Irish 
 nation whose roots are in Tara"? 
 
 8 
 
 In July, 1921, began the negotiations between Lloyd 
 George and the Irish Republic. 
 
 The British people had, in 1914, rallied like one man 
 against the armed invasion of Belgium. They 
 showed no such emotion, not even in the ranks of 
 labor, when their own army of occupation held Ireland. 
 But the process of re-conquest was not genuinely sup- 
 ported in Britain. Lloyd George and Hamar Green- 
 wood could not go the limit. The negotiations, there- 
 fore, were in some measure a response to conscience, 
 though Lloyd George refused from the start to debate 
 "any abandonment, however informal, of the principle 
 of allegiance to the King, upon which the whole fabric 
 
 388
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 of the empire and every constitution within it are 
 based." 
 
 On September 30, 1921, de Valera consented to a 
 
 Michael Collins 
 
 conference "with a view to ascertaining how the as- 
 sociation of Ireland with the community of nations 
 known as the British Empire may best be reconciled 
 with Irish National aspirations." 
 
 The treaty of December, 1921, later accepted by a 
 
 
 389 

 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 bare majority of the Dail Eireann, became early in 
 1922 the subject of perhaps the most searching con- 
 troversy in which Irishmen ever engaged. 
 
 9 
 
 For Ireland, much more than for England, the 
 present treaty is a problem. The wise Irishman knows 
 that this treaty forces him into an undesired associa- 
 tion with England. He also knows that many peoples 
 have lost everything they desired because they could 
 not read their fate. 
 
 Beneath these modern nations, his own and Eng- 
 land's, there still lurks the savage Northman, the 
 savage Celt, the barbarous Briton or Saxon, only a 
 few hundred years out of his cave. In those few hun- 
 dred years, by the trembling light of reason, in the 
 search for the good life, men have gained a little se- 
 curity and civilization. But the process is slow, and the 
 war-mind distorts it. For a thousand years Ireland 
 has been afflicted by the war-mind. Would it now be 
 wise to engage solely in the slow, laborious, rational 
 processes of peace and consent? 
 
 Is the poem of Seumas Cartan still worth remem- 
 bering ? 
 
 The Irish nation has suffered. It can blame conquest, 
 390
 
 The Irish Republic 
 
 theft, tyranny, for much of its sufferings. But in this 
 world of half-savage, half-reasonable, wholly human 
 beings it can only expect its absolute rights if it for- 
 gets its own humanity. 
 
 As Ireland purges itself of the war-spirit, under- 
 standing its enemies as well as fighting them, it will 
 see its way to accepting or rejecting the imperfect 
 measure which its human agents have wrought. 
 
 Perhaps even that imperfect measure may help it 
 to stride to a new and happier history. So its agents 
 hoped. And Ireland's history can scarcely continue 
 to be so incomparably unjust and tragic. It is destined 
 to be free, and to belong to the whole world. For every- 
 where there are hopes that attend Ireland. Men look 
 especially to those who have served the Irish nation in 
 its worst crisis de Valera, Griffith, Collins, the men 
 and women of Dail Eireann. These men and women 
 are responsible to something deeper than names and 
 phrases. They have a positive, creative task before 
 them. They will be judged by their charity, their wise 
 tolerance, their divination. They will be judged above 
 all by their unity as Irishmen for Ireland. 
 
 391
 
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 "A Short History of the Irish People," by Mary Hayden and 
 
 G. A. Moonan. Longmans. 
 
 "A Smaller History of Ancient Ireland," by P. W. Joyce. Long- 
 mans. 
 
 "Pagan Ireland," by Eleanor Hull. M. H. Gill & Son. % 
 
 "Pre-Christian Ireland," by U. J. Burke. Browne & Nolan. 
 "A Literary History of Ireland," by Douglas Hyde. Fisher 
 
 Unwin. 
 
 "Phases of Irish History," by Eoin MacNeill. B. Herder. 
 "The Making of Ireland, and Its Undoing," by Alice Stopford 
 
 Green. Macmillan. 
 
 "Strongbow's Conquest of Ireland," edited by Barnard. Putnam. 
 "The Midland Septs and the Pale," by F. R. M. Hitchcock. Sealy. 
 "Sir Walter Raleigh in Ireland," by Pope Hennessy. Kegan Paul 
 
 Trench. 
 "The Political History of England, 1066-1216," by G. B. Adams. 
 
 Longmans. 
 
 "Life of Hugh O'Neill," by John Mitchel. J. Duffy. 
 "Ireland," by Charles Johnston. John C. Winston. 
 "Confiscation in Irish History," by W. F. T. Butler. Talbot Press. 
 "Ireland the Outpost," by Grenville A. J. Cole. Oxford University 
 
 Press. 
 
 "Dublin," by Samuel A. Ossory Fitzpatrick. Dutton. 
 "The Scotch-Irish in America," by Henry Jones Ford. Princeton 
 
 University Press. 
 
 "The Prince," by Nicolo Macchiavelli. Dutton. 
 "O'Neill and Ormond," by Diarmid Coffey. Norman Remington. 
 "Oliver Cromwell," by Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Longmans. 
 "Oliver Cromwell," by John Morley. Century. 
 "The Beginnings of Modern Ireland," by Philip Wilson. Norman 
 
 Remington. 
 
 "Ireland in the European System," by James Hogan. Longmans. 
 "The Economic Writings of Sir W. Petty," edited by Charles 
 
 Henry Hull. Cambridge University Press. 
 
 "The Story of Mankind," by H. W. van Loon. Boni & Liveright. 
 "History of Western Europe," by James Harvey Robinson. Gmn. 
 
 392
 
 Books Consulted 
 
 "Ireland under Elizabeth and James I," by Arnold Morley. Rout- 
 ledge. 
 
 "The Indestructible Nation," by P. S. O'Hegarty. Maunsel. 
 "A Hundred Years of Irish History," by R. Barry O'Brien. 
 "Two Centuries of Irish History," edited by R. Barry O'Brien. 
 
 Murray. 
 
 "The Legacy of the Past Years," by Lord Dunraven. Murray. 
 "A Short History of Scotland," by C. S. Terry. Cambridge. 
 "Outlines of the Industrial History of Ireland," by John F. Burke. 
 
 Fallon Brothers. 
 "Guide to Celtic Antiquities of the Christian Period," by George 
 
 Coffey. Hodges, Figgis. 
 "Ireland," by Emily Lawless. Putnam. 
 
 "The S,tory of Burnt Njal," translated by G. W. Dasent. Button, 
 ^rose Writings of Swift," arranged by Walter Lewin. Walter 
 
 Scott Co. 
 
 "A Short History of the English People," by J. R. Green. Harper. 
 "The Economic History of Ireland in the Seventeenth Century," 
 
 by George O'Brien. Maunsel. 
 "Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," by W. E. H. Lecky, five 
 
 volumes. Appleton. 
 
 "The Great Fraud of Ulster," by T. M. Healy. M. H. Gill & Son. 
 "The Constitutional and Parliamentary History of Ireland Till 
 
 the Union," by J. G. Swift MacNeill. Talbot Press. 
 "A Constitutional History of England," by G. B. Adams. Holt. 
 "State Policy in Irish Education, 1536-4816," by T. Corcoran. 
 
 Longmans. 
 "A Hidden Phase of American History," by M. J. O'Brien. Dodd, 
 
 Mead. 
 
 "The Evolution of Sinn Fein," by R. M. Henry. Talbot Press. 
 "The Viceroy's Post Bag," by Michael MacDonagh. Murray. 
 "Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland," by W. E. H. Lecky, two 
 
 volumes. Longmans. 
 "The Economic History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," by 
 
 George O'Brien. Maunsel. 
 "The Autobiography of Wolfe Tone," edited by R. Barry O'Brien. 
 
 Fisher Unwin. 
 
 "The War in Wexford," by Wheeler and Broadley. John Lane. 
 "Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature," Vol. IV, by 
 
 Georg Brandes. Macmillan. 
 
 "Essays Relating to Ireland," by C. Litton Falkiner. Longmans. 
 "Pitt," by Lord Rosebery. Macmillan. 
 "The Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation," by Sir Jonah Barrington. 
 
 Duffy. 
 "Letters from an American Farmer," by J. H. St. John de Creve- 
 
 cceur. Dutton. 
 
 393
 
 The Story of the Irish Nation 
 
 "Ireland From '98-'98," by W. O'Connor Morris. Innes. 
 
 "A Consideration of the State of Ireland in the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury," by G. Locker Lampson. Button. 
 
 "The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland," by Michael Davitt. Harpers. 
 
 "Michael Davitt," by F. Sheehy Skeffington. Fisher Unwin. 
 
 "The History of Landholding in Ireland," by Joseph Fisher. Long- 
 mans. 
 
 "Life of Gladstone," by John Morley, three volumes. Macmillan. 
 
 "The Life of Parnell," by R. Barry O'Brien. Harper. 
 
 "The Parnell Movement," by T. P. O'Connor. Cassell. 
 
 "Labour in Ireland," by James Connolly. Maunsel. 
 
 "Cooperation and Nationality," by G. W. Russell. (^E.) Maunsel. 
 
 "The Irish Convention and Sinn Fein," by Wells and Marlowe. 
 Maunsel. 
 
 "Resurrection of Hungary," by Arthur Griffith. Whelan. 
 
 "The Irish Labor Movement," by W. P. Ryan. Huebsch. 
 
 "Contemporary Ireland," by L. Paul-Dubois. Baker & Taylor. 
 
 "The Life of John Redmond," by Warre B. Wells. Doran. 
 
 "Ireland's Literary Renaissance," by E. A. Boyd. Lane. 
 
 "Wakeman's Irish Antiquities," edited by John Cooke. Hodges, 
 Figgis. 
 
 "Report of the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland." 
 
 "John Redmond's Last Years," by Stephen Gwynn. Longmans. 
 
 "The Unbroken Tradition," by Nora Connolly, Boni and Liveright. 
 
 "A Handbook for Rebels," compiled by Thomas Johnson. Maunsel. 
 
 "The Story of the Irish Citizen Army," by P. O'Cathasaigh. 
 Maunsel. 
 
 "The Resurrection of Hungary," by Arthur Griffith. Whelan. 
 
 "The Irish Rebellion of 1916," edited by Maurice Joy. Devin- 
 Adair Co. 
 
 394
 
 
 CENSUS. YEAR ' 1 
 
 POPULATION 
 
 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921] 
 
 8,000,000 
 7,000,000 
 6,000,000 
 5,000,000 
 4,000,000 
 3,000,000 
 2,000,000 
 1,000,000 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 
 -- >, s&msa 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 Drawn by J. D. Hackett 
 
 395
 
 INDEX 
 
 Agrarian Societies: Whiteboys, 
 183; Oakboys, 184; Hearts-of- 
 Steel Boys, 184; Defenders, 
 212; Peep o' Day Boys, 212; 
 Ribbonmen, 273. 
 
 Allen, Larkin and O'Brien: 178. 
 
 Ancient Order of Hibernians: 
 355. 
 
 Anglo-Irish Ascendancy: be- 
 gun, 169; its Protestant tone, 
 199; inflamed, 231-232; domi- 
 nates administration, 239-240; 
 last stand, 363. 
 
 "Ardagh" chalice: 51. 
 
 Asquith, H. H.: 378. 
 
 B 
 
 Bachelor's Walk: affray in. 368. 
 Benburb: 126. 
 "Black and Tans": 385. 
 Boyne, battle of the: 158. 
 Brandes, Georg: quoted as to 
 
 1798, 215. 
 Brehon law: 32-34. 
 Brian Boru: at Clontarf, 56-59; 
 
 rule of, 60. 
 Bruce, Edward: high-king of 
 
 Ireland, 93; killed, 94. 
 Butt, Isaac: 292-293. 
 
 Carson, Sir Edward: 354, 363. 
 
 Cartan, Shemus: poem trans- 
 lated by Lady oregory, 105. 
 
 Casement, Sir Roger: goes to 
 Germany, 373; captured, 374; 
 executed, 375. 
 
 Castlereagh : as corruptionist, 
 235-237. 
 
 Catholic Emancipation: be- 
 trayed by Pitt, 247; passed, 
 248-250. 
 
 Catholics: their timidity, 199- 
 200; organized by Tone, 230. 
 
 Celt: origin of, 8. 
 
 Church: early independence of, 
 41-42; ends raids on Britain, 
 51 ; subordinated to Normans, 
 67; Papal Bull Laudabiliter, 
 74; Synod of Clonmel, 75; 
 Penal laws, 162-168; aids 
 common people, 173-174; sup- 
 ports Union, 233; during 
 famine, 265; under Cardinal 
 Cullen, 272; condemns Land 
 League, 304; denounces Par- 
 nell, 318; cooperates with 
 Gladstone against Parnell, 
 326 ; against conscription, 
 375. See Catholic emancipa- 
 tion, Catholics, Tithes. 
 
 Citizen Army: 366; 374. 
 
 397
 
 Index 
 
 Clontarf : 56-58. 
 
 Clyn, Friar John: quoted, 94. 
 
 Coercion acts: 280-281. 
 
 Collins, Michael: 386. 
 
 Columbanus: 48. 
 
 Columcille: 48, 52. 
 
 Confiscations: under Mary, 118; 
 under Elizabeth, 124; under 
 James I, 131-139; under 
 Cromwell, 152-154; under 
 William III, 162. 
 
 Connolly, James: his career, 
 361-362; bravery, 374; exe- 
 cuted, 375. 
 
 Cooperation. See Horace Plun- 
 kett. 
 
 Cornwallis: admits outrages, 
 224-225 ; captures Humbert, 
 225; dislikes corruption, 234- 
 237. 
 
 Councils Bill: 351. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver: arrives Ire- 
 land, 146; campaign, 146-150; 
 confiscations, 150-154. 
 
 Curlews, battle of the: 127. 
 
 D 
 
 Dail Eireann: first meeting, 
 
 383. 
 
 Danes. See Vikings. 
 Davies, Sir John: confiscation 
 
 policy, 139. 
 Davis, Thomas. See Young 
 
 Ireland. 
 Davitt, Michael: his career, 299; 
 
 meets Parnell, 300; meets 
 
 Devoy, 302; land agitation, 
 
 304-308 ; criticizes farmers, 
 
 346. 
 
 de Barri, Gerald: describes 
 
 Normans, 78. 
 Derbfine: 18. 
 
 Desmond, earl of: 123-124. 
 de Valera, Eamon: 375. 
 Devoy, John: works with Davitt, 
 
 297-298; on revolution, 355- 
 
 356. 
 
 Diamond, battle of the: 212. 
 Drogheda massacre: 146-149. 
 Druids: 31-32. 
 Dublin Castle: 239-240. 
 
 E 
 
 Education: proselytizing in, 
 174; primary system of, 253- 
 254; Young Ireland and, 263; 
 funds for, 286; university 
 bill, 287; Davitt criticizes, 
 346-348 ; national university, 
 351-352. 
 
 Elizabeth : applauds conquest, 
 121-122. 
 
 Emmet, Robert : insurrection 
 of, 240-244. 
 
 Erigena, John Scotus: 48. 
 
 F 
 
 Famine: in 1640-1641, 172; in 
 
 1846-1849, 265-270. 
 Fenians: founded, 275; and 
 
 Gladstone, 278-279. 
 Feudalism: introduced, 87-88. 
 Firbolg: coming of, 6; conquest 
 
 of, 10; castes of, 14. 
 Fitzgerald, Lord Edward: heads 
 
 insurrection, 218-220. 
 Fitzwilliam: lord lieutenant, 
 
 206-208. 
 
 398
 
 Index 
 
 "Flight of the Earls." See 
 
 Hugh O'Neill. 
 Ford, Henry Jones: quoted as 
 
 to Scotch-Irish, 137-138. 
 France: at Battle of the Boyne, 
 
 158; helps Wolfe Tone, 911; 
 
 sends Humbert, 225; sends 
 
 Wolfe Tone, 225-228. 
 
 G 
 
 "Gaelic fringe": 20. 
 
 Gaelic League: need for, 338; 
 started, 339-341. 
 
 Gaelic Revival: 341-342. 
 
 Genealogies: 25. 
 
 George, Lloyd: negotiations of, 
 380; appoints convention, 
 380; negotiates with Irish Re- 
 public, 388. 
 
 Geraldines: 100-104; 120; 123- 
 124. 
 
 Gladstone: on Fenianism, 279; 
 fiscal policy of, 284; dises- 
 tablishment, 283-286 ; land 
 policy of, 309-311; political 
 skill of, 312; attempts com- 
 promise with Tories, 319; 
 introduces home rule, 320; 
 against Parnell, 324-327; ca- 
 reer closes, 333. 
 
 Grattan, Henry: nationalism of, 
 182; leadership, 187-188; gra- 
 titude for "independent" par- 
 liament, 191; leaves parlia- 
 ment in protest, 216; sup- 
 ports Catholic emancipation, 
 247. 
 
 Green, Alice Stopford: quoted, 
 95. 
 
 Griffith, Arthur: 357-360. 
 
 H 
 
 Henry II: aids Dermot Mac- 
 Murrough, 69; Papal Bull, 
 74; in Ireland, 75-76; descrip- 
 tion of, 79. 
 
 Henry VIII: policy of, 106-108; 
 King of Ireland, 111. 
 
 Home Rule: agitation begins, 
 291; first bill, 320; second 
 bill, 333; defects, 349-350; 
 third bill, 352-353. 
 
 Hyde, Dr. Douglas: quoted, 
 42-50; president Gaelic 
 League, 338. 
 
 Iberians: 5. 
 
 Insurrections: of 1641, 142; of 
 1798, 215; of 1848, 265; of 
 1867, 277; of 1916, 374. 
 
 Keating, Geoffrey: quoted on 
 English commentators, 142. 
 
 Kilkenny, Confederation of: 
 145. 
 
 Kinsale, siege of: 128. 
 
 Land League: founded, 308; 
 suppressed, 313. 
 
 Land system: defects, 257; re- 
 form begins, 287-289; state 
 purchase, 345-346. 
 
 Land War: in Ulster, 184; in 
 the South, 313. 
 
 Limerick, Treaty of: 162.
 
 Index 
 
 M 
 
 MacArt, Cormac: reign of, 25; 
 description of, 27-29. 
 
 MacCool, Finn: poem by, 13. 
 
 MacMurrough, Art: harries 
 English, 97-98. 
 
 MacMurrough, Dermot: King 
 of Leinster, 68; seeks Nor- 
 man aid, 69; accompanies 
 Normans, 72. 
 
 McCracken, Henry Joy: exe- 
 cuted, 222. 
 
 Mitchel, John: Young Irelander, 
 262; revolutionary, 264; de- 
 ported, 265. 
 
 N 
 
 Nation, The: founded, 261. 
 
 Niall of the Nine Hostages: 26. 
 
 Normans: civilization of, 63-66; 
 landing of, 71 ; description of, 
 72-83; effects of invasion, 84- 
 86; settlements of, 89; inter- 
 marriage with Gaels, 91 ; 101. 
 
 O 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel: opposes Un- 
 ion, 244; youth of, 244-246; 
 Catholic emancipation, 248- 
 250; enters house of com- 
 mons, 251 ; with Melbourne, 
 253; lord mayor of Dublin, 
 254; repeal movement, 258; 
 end of career, 259-260. 
 
 O'Donnell, Hugh Roe: kid- 
 napped, 125; joins Hugh 
 O'Neill, 126; assassinated, 
 128. 
 
 O'Donnell, Manus: 116. 
 
 O'Donnell, Rory: flight of, 129- 
 130. 
 
 O'Neill, Con: becomes earl, 111; 
 fights heir, 116. 
 
 O'Neill, Hugh: plans war, 125; 
 success, 126; failure, 128; 
 flight, 129-130. 
 
 O'Neill, Owen Roe: general, 
 143-146; usages in war, 149. 
 
 O'Neill, Shane: 117. 
 
 Orangemen: founded, 212. 
 
 Ormonde, James, Duke of: 
 Royalist general, 145-146; in- 
 dustrial plans of, 176. 
 
 O'Shea, Katherine: 317-318. 
 See Parnell. 
 
 Parliament. See Political Struc- 
 ture. 
 
 Parliamentary party. See Par- 
 nell, Davitt, Redmond. 
 
 Parnell, Charles Stewart : enters 
 public life, 293; policy, 294- 
 297; obstructionist, 303-304; 
 land agitation, 306; in jail, 
 314; cooperates with Glad- 
 stone, 320; "Times" Commis- 
 sion, 322 ; O'Shea divorce case, 
 323; last fight, 327-329; ef- 
 fects of his career, 332-334. 
 See Katherine O'Shea. 
 
 Patrick, Saint: 30; confession 
 of, 35-39; mission of, 40-41. 
 
 Pearse, Padraic: and Gaelic 
 League, 342-343 ; supports 
 home rule, 356; leads rising, 
 374. 
 
 400
 
 Index 
 
 "Penal Code": enacted, 162-168; 
 relaxed, 183. 
 
 Pension List: abuses of, 179. 
 
 Petty, Sir William: estimates 
 population, 150, 155. 
 
 Phoenix Park murders: 315-316. 
 
 Picts: 5. 
 
 Pitt: desires Union, 204-205; re- 
 calls Fitzwilliam, 208; passes 
 Union, 234-237 ; betrays Cath- 
 olic emancipation, 247. 
 
 "Plan of Campaign": 321. 
 
 Plunkett, Sir Horace: coopera- 
 tive movement, 347; presides 
 over convention, 381. 
 
 Plunkett, Saint Oliver: exe- 
 cuted, 157. 
 
 Political structure : pentarchy, 
 24; struggle for high-king- 
 ship, 53; "Kings with opposi- 
 tion," 61 ; Norman parliament, 
 91 ; Gaelic unity, 92 ; parlia- 
 ment of 1689, 158; Anglo- 
 Irish parliament, 177-183; "in- 
 dependent" parliament, 187- 
 188; limits to "independence," 
 192-194. 
 
 Poyning's Act: 100, 175. 
 
 Pre-Celts: 5. See Firbolg. 
 
 Pretani: 20. 
 
 R 
 
 Raid of Cooley: 14. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter: 121-122. 
 
 Redmond, John: 344; against 
 separation, 350; third home 
 rule bill, 352 ; Volunteers con- 
 trolled by, 366; supports Eu- 
 ropean war, 370; tricked by 
 Lloyd George, 380. 
 
 Reformation: under Henry 
 VIII, 108; under Elizabeth, 
 118. 
 
 Richard II: 97. 
 
 Roman Empire: and Gaels, 23. 
 
 Roosevelt: on Cromwell, 148- 
 149. 
 
 Scandinavians. See Vikings. 
 
 Schools and Scholars: early 
 work of, 42-50; in twelfth 
 century, 67; at Oxford, 95. 
 
 Scoti: 21. 
 
 Sheares, John and James: exe- 
 cuted, 221. 
 
 "Silken Thomas": rebellion of, 
 103; execution of, 104. 
 
 Sinn Fein, founded, 357. See 
 Arthur Griffith. 
 
 Smerwick massacre: 120-122. 
 
 Spain: helps Ireland, 120, 128. 
 
 Spenser, Edmund: describes 
 conquest of Munster, 123. 
 
 Stephens, James: 275-277. 
 
 "Strongbow": 71, 78. 
 
 Swift, Dean: describes Irish 
 misery, 169-171; political 
 ideals of, 178. 
 
 "Tara" brooch: 51. 
 
 Tithes: injustice of, 255; agita- 
 tion against, 256; removed, 
 285. 
 
 Tone, Wolfe: describes condi- 
 tions, 196-198; as to "inde- 
 pendent"' parliament, 200; 
 
 401
 
 Index 
 
 secretary Catholic Committee, 
 203; separatist, 210-212; ob- 
 jects, 214; captured and exe- 
 cuted, 225-228. 
 
 "To Hell or Connacht": 153. 
 
 Towns: founded by Anglo-Nor- 
 mans, 96; depletion, 154. 
 
 Trade: 1200-1600, 95; British 
 destruction of, 175-176; em- 
 bargoes, 185; restraints and 
 the Pitt treaty, 201-204. 
 
 U 
 
 Ui Neill: 53. 
 
 Ulster: clearances in, 134; Scot- 
 tish settlers in, 137; insur- 
 rection of 1641, 142; republi- 
 canism in, 209; bitterness of, 
 232; Tory control of, 353; 
 in rebellion, 363-365; seeks 
 partition, 368-369. 
 
 United Irishmen: pro-French, 
 190; spiritual origins, 201; 
 program of, 206; activity of, 
 
 209; helped by Orange fe- 
 rocity, 214; plan insurrection, 
 218. 
 
 Union, the: desired by Pitt, 
 204-205; carried, 233-237; 
 Act, 238-239. 
 
 Vikings: first raids of, 54-55; 
 
 Clontarf, 56. 
 Volunteers: in 1779, 185-188; in 
 
 Ulster, 365-366; in the South. 
 
 366-367. 
 
 W 
 
 Wentworth: economic policy of 
 
 140-141. 
 Wexford: rising in, 222-224. 
 
 Yellow Ford: 126. 
 Young Ireland: 261-265. 
 
 402
 
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