Ireland

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Geography

Ireland lies in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Great Britain, from which it is separated in the north-east by the North Channel, in the east by the Irish Sea, and in the south-east by St. George's Channel. Situated between the fifty-first and fifty-sixth degrees of latitude, and between the fifth and eleventh parallels of longitude (Greenwich), its greatest length is 302 miles, its greatest breadth 174 miles, its area 32,535 square miles. It is divided into four provinces, these being subdivided into thirty-two counties. In the centre the country is a level plain; towards the coast there are several detached mountain chains. Its rivers and bays are numerous, also its bogs; its climate is mild, though unduly moist. In minerals it is not wealthy like Great Britain, but is soil is generally more fertile, and is specially suitable for agriculture and pasturage.

Early history

In ancient times it was known by the various names of Ierna, Juverna, Hibernia, Ogygia, and Inisfail or the Isle of Destiny. It was also called Banba and Erin, and lastly Scotia, or the country of the Scots. From the eleventh century, however, the name Scotia was exclusively applied to Caledonia, the latter country having been peopled in the sixth century by a Scottish colony from Ireland. Henceforth Ireland was often called Scotia Major and sometimes Ireland, until, after the eleventh century, the name Scotia was dropped and Ireland alone remained. Even yet it is sometimes called Erin—chiefly by orators and poets. Situated in the far west, out of the beaten paths of commercial activity, it was little known to the ancients. Festus Avienus wrote that it was two days' sail from Britain. Pliny thought that it was part of Britain and not an island at all; Strabo that it was near Britain, and that its inhabitants were cannibals; and all that Caesarknew was that it was west of Britain, and about half its size. Agricola beheld its coastline from the opposite shores of Caledonia, and had thought of accepting the invitation of an Irish chief to come and conquer it,believing he could do so with a single legion. But he left Ireland unvisited and unconquered, and Tacitus could only record that in soil and climate it resembled Britain, and that its harbours were then well known to foreign merchants.

But if we have not any detailed description from his lively pen, the native chroniclers have furnished us with abundant materials, and, if all they say betrue, we can understand the remark of Camden that Ireland was rightly called Ogygia, or the Ancient Island, because in comparison, the antiquity of all other nations is in its infancy. Passing by the absurd story that it was peopled before theDeluge, we are told that, beginning with the time of Abraham, several successive waves of colonization rolled westward to its shores. First came Parthalon with 1000 followers; after which came the Nemedians, the Firbolgs, and the Tuatha-de-Dananns, and lastly the Milesians or Scots. In addition, there were the Fomorians, a people of uncertain origin, whose chief occupation was piracy andwar, and whose attacks on the various settlers were incessant. These and the Milesians excepted, the different colonists came fromGreece, and all were of the same race. The Milesians came from Scythia; and from that country toEgypt, fromEgypt toSpain, fromSpain to Ireland their adventures are recorded in detail. The name Scot which they bore was derived from Scota, daughter ofPharaoh ofEgypt, the wife of one of their chiefs; from their chief Miledh they got the name Milesians, and from another chief Goidel they were sometimes called Gadelians, or Gaels. Thewars and battles of these colonists are largely fabulous, and the Partholanians, Nemedians, and Fomorians belong rather to mythology than to history. So also do the Dananns, though sometimes they are taken as a real people, of superiorknowledge and skill, the builders of those prehistoric sepulchral mounds by the Boyne, at Dowth, Knowth, and Newgrange. The Firbolgs however most probably existed, and were kindred perhaps to those warlike Belgae of Gaul whom Caesar encountered in battle. And the Milesians certainly belong to history, though thedate of their arrival in Ireland is unknown. They were Celts, and probably came from Gaul to Britain, and from Britain to Ireland, rather than direct fromSpain. Under the leadership of Heremon and Heber they soon became masters of the island. Some of the Firbolgs, it is said, crossed the seas to the Isles of Arran, where they built the fort of Dun Engus, which still stands and which tradition still associates with their name. Heber and Heremon soon quarrelled, and, Heber falling in battle, Heremon became sole ruler, the first in a long line of kings. This list of kings, however, is not reliable, and we are warned by Tighearnach, the most trustworthy of Irish chroniclers, that all events before the reign of Cimbaeth (300 B.C.) are uncertain. Even after the dawn of theChristian Era fact and fiction are interwoven and events are often shrouded in shadows and mists. Such, for instance, are the exploits of Cuchullain and Finn Macumhael. Nor have many of these early kinds been remarkable, if we except Conn of the Hundred Battles, who lived in the first century after Christ; Cormac, who lived a century later; Tuathal, who established the Feis of Tara; Niall, who invaded Britain; and Dathi, who in the fifth century lost his life at the foot of the Alps.

The Irish were thenpagans, but not barbarians. Their roads were indeed ill-constructed, their wooden dwellings rude, the dress of their lower orders scanty, their implements of agriculture andwar primitive, and so were their land vehicles, and the boats in which they traversed the sea. On the other hand, some of their swords and shields showed some skill in metal-working, and their war-like and commercial voyages to Britain and Gaul argue some proficiency in shipbuilding and navigation. They certainlyloved music; and, besides their inscribed Ogham writing, they had aknowledge of letters. There was a high-king of Ireland (ardri), and subject to him were the provincial kings and chiefs of tribes. Each of these received tribute from his immediate inferior, and even in a sept the political and legal administration was complete. There was thedruid who explained religion, the brehon who dispensedjustice, the brughaid or public hospitaller, the bard who sang the praises of his chief or urged his kinsman to battle; and each was an official and had his appointed allotment of land. Kings, though taken from onefamily, were elective, the tanist or heir-apparent being frequently not the nearest relation of him who reigned. This peculiarity, together withgavelkind by which the lands were periodically redistributed, impeded industry and settled government. Nor was there any legislative assembly, and theBrehon law under which Ireland lived was judge-made law. Sometimes the ardri's tribute remained unpaid and his authority nominal; but if he was a strong man he exacted obedience and tribute. The Boru tribute levied on the King of Leinster was excessive andunjust, and led to many evils. Thepagan Irish believed inDruidism, resembling somewhat theDruidism Caesar saw in Gaul; but thepagan creed of the Irish was indefinite and their gods do not stand out clear. They held theimmortality and the transmigration ofsouls, worshipped the sun and moon, and, with an inferior worship, mountains, rivers, and wells. And they sacrificed to idols, one of which, Crom Cruach, they are said to have propitiated with humansacrifices. They also believed in fairies, holding that the Tuatha-de-Dananns, when defeated by the Milesians, retired into the bosom of the mountains, where they held their fairy revels. One of thewomen fairies (thebanshee) watched the fortunes of greatfamilies, and when some great misfortune was impending, the doomedfamily was warned at night by her mournful wail.

Early Christian period

Intercourse with Britain and the Continent through commerce andwar sufficiently accounts for the introduction ofChristianity before the fifth century. There must have been then a considerable number ofChristians in Ireland; for in 430Palladius, abishop and native of Britain, was sent by Pope Celestine "to the Scotsbelieving in Christ".Palladius, however, did little, and almost immediately returned to Britain, and in 432 the samepope sentSt. Patrick. He is the Apostle of Ireland, but this does not imply that he found Ireland altogetherpagan and left it altogetherChristian. It is however quitetrue that whenSt. Patrick did comepaganism was the predominantbelief, and that at his death it had been supplanted as such byChristianity. The extraordinary work whichSt. Patrick did, as well as his own attractive personal character, has furnished him with many biographers; and even in recent years his life and works have engaged erudite and able pens. But in spite of all that has been written many things in his life are stilldoubtful and obscure. It isdoubtful when and where he was born, how he spent his life between his first leaving Ireland and his return, and in what year he died. It has been maintained that he never existed; that he andPalladius were the same man; that there were two St. Patricks; again, some, like Jocelin, have multiplied hismiracles beyondbelief. These contradictions and exaggerations have encouraged the scoffer to sneer; and Gibbon was sure that in the sixty-six lives ofSt. Patrick there must have been sixty-six thousand lies. In reality there seems no solid reason for rejecting the traditional account, viz., thatSt. Patrick was born at Dumbarton inScotland about 372; that he was captured and brought to Ireland by the Irish king, Nial; that he was sold as a slave to an Ulster chief Milcho, whom he served for six years; that he then escaped and went back to his own people; that in repeated visions he, apiousChristian, heard the plaintive cry of thepagan Irish inviting him to come amongst them; that,believing he was called byGod to do so, he went first to themonastery ofSt. Martin of Tours, then to that ofSt. Germanus of Auxerre, after which he went to Lérins and toRome; and then, beingconsecratedbishop, he was sent by Pope Celestine to Ireland, where he arrived in 432.

From Wicklow, where he landed, his course is traced to Antrim; back by Downpatrick, near which he converted Dichu and got from him a grant of land for his first church at Saul; then by Dundalk, where Benignus was converted; and to Slane, where in sight of Tara itself he lighted the paschal fire. The enrageddruids pointed out to the ardri the heinousness of the offence, for during the greatpagan festival then being celebrated it was death to light any fire except at Tara. ButSt. Patrick came to Tara itself,baptized the chief poet, and even the ardri; then marched north and destroyed at Leitrim the idol, Crom Cruach, after which he entered Connaught, and remained there for seven years. Passing through Connaught to Ulster, he went through Donegal, Tyrone, and Antrim,consecrated MacartenBishop of Monaghan, and FiaceBishop of Sletty; after which he entered Munster. Finally he returned to Ulster, and died at Saul in 493. His early captivity in Ireland interfered seriously with hiseducation, and in his Confession and in his Epistle to Caroticus, both of which have survived the wreck of ages, we can discover nograces of style. But we see his great familiarity with the Scripture. And the man himself stands revealed; hispiety, his spirit ofprayer, his confidence inGod, hiszeal, his invinciblecourage. But while putting his entire trust inGod, and giving Him all the glory, he rejected no human aid. Entering into apagan territory he first preached to the chief men, knowing that when they were converted the people would follow. Wonderful indeed was his labour, and wonderful its results. He preached in almost every district in Ireland, confounded in argument thedruids and won the people from their side; he built, it is said, 365 churches andconsecrated an equal number ofbishops, establishedschools andconvents, and heldsynods; and when he died the whole machinery of a powerful Church was in operation, fully equal to the task of confirming in thefaith those already converted and of bringing those yet in darkness into theChristian fold.

One of the apostle's first anxieties was to provide a native ministry. For this purpose he selected the leading men—chiefs, brehons, bards—men likely to attract the respect of the people, and these, after little training, and often with littleeducation, he hadordained. Thus equipped thepriest went among the people, with hiscatechism,missal, and ritual, thebishop in addition hiscrosier and bell. In a short time, however, these primitive conditions ceased. Abut 450 acollege was established at Armagh under Benignus; otherschools arose atKildare, Noendrum, and Louth; and by the end of the fifth century these colleges sent forth a sufficient supply of trainedpriests. Supported by a grant of land from the chief of the clan or sept and byvoluntary offerings,bishop andpriests lived together, preached to the people, administered thesacraments, settled their disputes, sat in their banquet halls. To many ardent natures this state of things was abhorrent. Fleeing from men, they sought for solitude and silence, by the banks of a river, in the recesses of a wood, and, with the scantiest allowance of food, the water for their drink, a few wattles covered with sods for their houses, they spent their time inmortification andprayer. Literally they weremonks, for they were alone withGod. But their retreats were soon invaded by others anxious to share their penances and their vigils, and to learn wisdom at their feet. Each newcomer built his little hut, a church was erected, a grant of land obtained, their master becameabbot, and perhapsbishop; and thus arose monastic establishments the fame of which soon spread throughoutEurope. Noted examples in the sixth century were Clonard, founded by St. Finian, Clonfert bySt. Brendan, Bangor bySt. Comgall, Clonmacnoise by St. Kieran, Arran by St. Enda; and, in the seventh century, Lismore bySt. Carthage and Glendalough bySt. Kevin.

There were still bardicschools, as there was stillpaganism, but in the seventh centurypaganism had all but disappeared, and the bardic were overshadowed by themonasticschools. Frequented by the best of the Irish, and by students from abroad, these latter diffusedknowledge over westernEurope, and Ireland received and merited the title of Island of Saints and Scholars. The holy men who laboured withSt. Patrick and immediately succeeded him were mostlybishops and founders of churches; those of the sixth century were of the monastic order; those of the seventh century were mostlyanchorites wholoved solitude, silence, continuedprayer, and the most rigid austerities. Nor were thewomen behindhand in this contest forholiness.St. Brigid is a name still dear to Ireland, and she, as well asSt. Ita, St. Fanchea and others, founded manyconvents tenanted bypiouswomen, whosesanctity andsacrifices it would be indeed difficult to surpass. Nor was the Irish Church, as has been sometimes asserted, out of communion with theSee of Rome. The Roman and Irishtonsures differed, it istrue, and the methods of computingEaster, and it may be thatPelagianism found some few adherents, thoughArianism did not, nor theerrors as to the natures and wills of Christ. In the number of itssacraments, in its veneration for theBlessed Virgin, in itsbelief in the Mass and inPurgatory, in its obedience to theSee of Rome, the creed of the early Irish Church was theCatholic creed of today (seeCELTIC RITE). Abroad as well as at home IrishChristianzeal was displayed. In 563 St. Columba, a native of Donegal, accompanied by a few companions, crossed the sea to Caledonia and founded amonastery on the desolate island ofIona.

Fresh arrivals came from Ireland; themonastery with Columba as itsabbot was soon a flourishing institution, from which the Dalriadian Scots in the south and the Piets beyond the Grampians were evangelized; and when Columba died in 597,Christianity had been preached and received in every district in Caledonia, and in every island along its west coast. In the next centuryIona had so prospered that itsabbot,St. Adamnan, wrote in excellent Latin the "Life of St. Columba", the best biography of which theMiddle Ages can boast. FromIona had gone south the Irish Aidan and his Irish companions to compete with and even exceed inzeal the Roman missionaries underSt. Augustine, and to evangelize Northumbria, Mercia, and Essex; and if Irishzeal had already been displayed inIona, equalzeal was now displayed on the desolate isle ofLindisfarne. Nor was this all. In 590 St. Columbanus, a student of Bangor, accompanied by twelve companions, arrived inFrance and established themonastery ofLuxeuil, the parent of manymonasteries, then laboured at Bregenz, and finally founded themonastery ofBobbio, which as a centre ofknowledge andpiety was long the light of northernItaly. And meantime his friend and fellow-student St. Gall laboured with conspicuous success inSwitzerland,St. Fridolin along the Rhine,St. Fiacre near Meaux,St. Kilian at Wurzburg, St. Livinus in Brabant,St. Fursey on the Marne, St. Cataldus in southernItaly. And whenCharlemagne reigned (771-814), Irishmen were at his court, "men incomparably skilled in human learning".

In the civil history of the period only a few facts stand out prominently. About 560, in consequence of a quarrel with the ardri Diarmuid about the right of sanctuary, St. Columba and Rhodanus (Reudan) of Lorrha publicly cursed Tara, an unpatriotic act which dealt a fatal blow at the prospect of a strong central government by blighting with maledictions its acknowledged seat. Nearly thirty years later the National Convention of Drumceat restrained the insolence and curtailed the privileges of the bards. In 684 Ireland was invaded by the King of Northumbria, though no permanent conquest followed. And in 697 the last Feis of Tara was held, at which, through the influence ofAdamnan,women were interdicted from taking part in actual battle. At the same time the ardri Finactha, at the instance of St. Moling, renounced for himself and his successors the Boru tribute. As the eighth century neared its close, religion and learning still flourished; but unexpected dangers approached and a new enemy came, before whose assaultsmonk andmonastery and saint and scholar disappeared.

These invaders were the Danes from the coasts of Scandinavia.Pagans and pirates, theyloved plunder andwar, and both on land and sea were formidable foes. Like the fabled Fomorians of earlier times they had a genius for devastation. Descending from their ships along the coast of westernEurope, theymurdered the inhabitants or made them captives and slaves.

In Ireland as elsewhere they attacked themonasteries and churches,desecrated the altars, carried away the gold and silver vessels, and smoking ruins andmurderedmonks attested the fury of their assaults. Armagh and Bangor, Kildare and Clonmacnoise,Iona andLindisfarne thus fell before their fury. Favoured by disunion among the Irish chiefs, they crept inland, effected permanent settlements at Waterford and Limerick and established a powerful kingdom atDublin; and, had their able chief Turgesius lived much longer, they might perhaps have subdued the whole island. For a century after his death in 845 victory and defeat alternated in theirwars; but they clung tenaciously to their seaport possessions, and kept the neighbouring Irish in cruel bondage. They were, however, signally defeated by the Ardri Malachy in 980, and Dublin was compelled to pay him tribute. But, able as Malachy was, an abler man soon supplanted him in the supreme position. Step by step Brian Boru had risen from being chief of Thomond to be undisputed ruler of Munster. Its chiefs were his tributaries and his allies; the Danes he had repeatedly chastised, and in 1002 he compelled Malachy to abdicate in his favour.

It was a bitter humiliation for Malachy thus to lay down the sceptre which for 600 years had been in the hands of hisfamily. It gave Ireland, however, the greatest of her high-kings and unbroken peace for some years. War came when the elements of discontent coalesced. Brian had irritated Leinster by reviving the Boru tribute; he had crushed the Danes; and these, with the Danes of the Isle of Man and those ofSweden and the Scottish Isles, joined together, and onGood Friday, 1014, the united strength ofDanes and Leinstermen faced Brian's army at Clontarf. The victory gained by the latter was great; but it was dearly bought by the loss of Brian as well as his son and grandson. The century and a half which followed was a weary waste of turbulence andwar. Brian's usurpation encouraged others to ignore the claims of descent. O'Loughlin and O'Neill in the North, O'Brien in the South, and O'Connor beyond the Shannon fought for the national throne with equal energy and persistence; and as one set of disputants disappeared, others replaced them, equally determined to prevail. The lesser chiefs were similarly engaged. This ceaseless strife completed the work begun by the Danes. Under native andChristian chiefs churches were destroyed, church lands appropriated bylaymen,monasticschools deserted, layabbots ruled at Armagh and elsewhere. Bishops wereconsecrated without sees and conferred orders for money, there was chaos in church government and corruption everywhere. In a series ofsynods beginning with Rathbreasail (1118) and including Kells, at which thepope'slegate presided, many salutary enactments were passed, and for the first timediocesanepiscopacy was established. Meanwhile,St. Malachy,Archbishop ofArmagh, had done very remarkable work in his own diocese and elsewhere. His early death in 1148 was a heavy blow to the cause of church reform. Nor could so many evils be cured in a single life, or by the labours of a single man; and in spite of his efforts and the efforts of others the decrees ofsynods were often flouted, and the newdiocesan boundaries ignored.

The Anglo-Normans

In Henry II ofEngland an unexpected reformer appeared. The murderer of Thomas a' Becket seemed ill-fitted for the role, but he undertook it, and in the first year of his reign (1154) he procured aBull from the English-bornPope Adrian IV authorizing him to proceed to Ireland "to check the torrent of wickedness to reformevil manners, to sow the seeds ofvirtue." The many troubles of his extensive kingdom thwarted his plans for years. But in 1168 Macmurrogh, King of Leinster, driven from his kingdom sought Henry's aid, and then Adrian'sBull was remembered. a first contingent of Anglo-Normans came to Ireland in 1169 under Fitzgerald, a stronger force under Strongbow (de Clare, Earl ofPembroke) in 1170, and in 1171 Henry himself landed at Waterford and proceeded toDublin, where he spent the winter, and received the submission of all the Irish chiefs, except those of Tyrconnell and Tyrowen. These submissions, however, aggravated rather than lessened existing ills. The Irish chiefs submitted to Henry as to a powerful ardri, still preserving their privileges andrights underBrehon law. Henry, on his side, regarded them as vassals holding the lands of their tribes by military service and in accordance withfeudal law. Thus a conflict between the clan system andfeudalism arose. Exercising his supposedrights, Henry divided the country into so many great fiefs, giving Meath to be Lacy, Leinster to Strongbow, while de Courcy was encouraged to conquer Ulster, and de Cogan Connaught. At a later date the de Burgos settled inGalway, the Fitzgeralds in Kildare and Desmond, the Butlers inOssory. Discord enfeebled the capacity of the Irish chiefs for resistance; nor were kernes and gallowglasses equal to mail-cladknights, nor the battle-axe to the Norman lance, and in a short time large tracts had passed from native to foreign hands.

The new Anglo-Irish lords soon outgrew the position of English subjects, and to the natives became tyrannical and overbearing. Ignoring the many evidences of culture in Ireland, her Romanesque architecture, her high crosses, her illuminatedmanuscripts, her shrines and crosiers, the scholars that had shed lustre on herschools, thesaints that had hallowed her fame throughoutEurope — ignoring all these, they despised the Irish as rude and barbarous, despised their language, theirlaws their dress, their arms; and, while not recognizing theBrehon law, they refused Irishmen the status of English subjects or the protection of English law. At last, despairing of union among their own chiefs, or ofjustice from Irish viceroy or English king, the oppressed Irish invited Edward Bruce fromScotland. In 1315 he landed in Ireland and wascrowned king. Successful at first, his allies beyond the Shannon were almost annihilated in the battle ofAthenry (1316); and two years later he was himself defeated and slain at Faughart. His ruin had been effected by a combination of the Anglo-Irish lords, and this still further inflated theirpride. Titles rewarded them. Birmingham became Lord ofAthenry and Earl of Louth, Fitzgerald Earl of Kildare, his kinsman Earl of Desmond, de Burgo Earl of Ulster, Butler Earl of Ormond. But these titles only increased their insolence and disloyalty. Favoured by the weakness of the viceroy's government the native chiefs recovered most of the ground they had lost.

Meanwhile the DeBurgos in Connaught changed their name to Burke, and became Irish chiefs; many others followed their example; even the ennobled Butlers and Fitzgeralds used the Irish language, dress, and customs, and were as turbulent as the worst of the native chiefs. To recall these colonists to their allegiance the Statute of Kilkenny made it penal to use Irish customs, language, or law, forbade intermarriage with the mere Irish, or the conferring ofbenefices on the native-born. But the barriers of race could not be maintained, and the intermarrying of Irish with Anglo-Irish went on. The longwar withFrance, followed by the Wars of the Roses, diverted the attention ofEngland from Irish affairs; and the viceroy, feebly supported fromEngland, was too weak to chastise these powerful lords or putpenal laws in force. The hostility of native chiefs was bought off by the payment of "black rents". The loyal colonists confined to a small district nearDublin, called "the Pale", shivered behind its encircling rampart; and when the sixteenth century dawned, English power in Ireland had almost disappeared. Those within the Pale were impoverished by grasping officials and by the payment of "black rents". Outside the Pale the country was held by sixty chiefs of Irish descent and thirty of English descent, each making peace orwar as he pleased. Lawlessness and irreligion were everywhere. Theclergy of Irish quarrelled with those of English descent; thereligious houses were corrupt, theirpriors andabbots great landholders with seats in Parliament, and more attached to secular than to religious concerns; the greatmonasticschools had disappeared, the greatest of them all, Clonmacnoise, being in ruins; preaching was neglected except by themendicant orders, and these were utterly unable to cope with the disorders which prevailed.

The Tudor period

Occupied with English and Continental affairs,Henry VIII, in the beginning of his reign, bestowed but little attention on Ireland, and not until he was a quarter of a century on the throne were Irish affairs taken seriously in hand. The king was then in middle age, no longer the defender of the Faith againstLuther, but, likeLuther, a rebel againstRome; no longer generous or attractive in character, but rather a cruel capricious tyrant whom it was dangerous to provoke and fatal to disobey. InEngland his hands were reddened with the best blood of the land; and in Ireland the fate of the Fitzgeralds, following the rebellion of Silken Thomas, struck Irish and Anglo-Irish alike with such terror that all hastened to make peace. O'Neill, renouncing the inheritance of his ancestors, became Earl of Tyrone; Burke became Earl of Clanrickard, O'Brien Earl of Thomond, Fitzpatrick Lord ofOssory; the Earl of Desmond and the other Anglo-Irish nobles were pardoned all their offences, and at a Parliament in Dublin (1541) Anglo-Irish and Irish attended. And Henry, who like his predecessors had been hitherto but Lord of Ireland (Dominus Hiberniae), was now unanimously given the higher title of king. This Parliament also passed the Act of Supremacy by which Henry was invested withspiritual jurisdiction, and, in substitution for thepope, proclaimed head of theChurch. As the proctors of theclergy refused to agree to this measure, the irate monarch deprived them of the right of voting, and in revenge confiscated church lands and suppressedmonasteries, in some cases shed the blood of their inmates, in the remaining cases sent them forth homeless and poor. These severities, however, did not win the people from theirfaith. Theapostate friar Browne, whom Henry madeArchbishop ofDublin, theapostate Staples,Bishop ofMeath, and Henry himself, stained with so many adulteries andmurders, had but poor credentials as preachers of reform; whatever time-serving chiefs might do, theclergy and people were unwilling to make Henrypope, or to subscribe to the varying tenets of his creed. His successor, an ardentProtestant, tried hard to make IrelandProtestant, but the sickly plant which he sowed was uprooted by theCatholic Mary, and at Elizabeth's accession all Ireland wasCatholic.

Like her father Henry, the young queen was a cruel and capricious tyrant, and in herwar with Shane O'Neill, the ablest of the Irish chiefs, she did not scruple to employ assassins. She was neither a sincereProtestant nor a willing persecutor of theCatholics; and though she re-enacted the Act of Supremacy and passed the Act of Uniformity, makingProtestantism the state creed, she refused to have these acts rigorously enforced. But when thepope and the Spanish king declared against her, and the IrishCatholics were found in alliance with both, she yielded to herministers and concluded, with them, that aCatholic was necessarily a disloyal subject. Henceforth toleration gave way topersecution. The tortures inflicted on O'Hurley,Archbishop ofCashel, andO'Hely,Bishop of Mayo, theSpaniardsmurdered in cold blood at Smerwick, the desolation of Munster during Desmond's rebellion, showed how cruel her rule could be. Far more formidable than the rebellion of Desmond, or even than that of Shane O'Neill, was the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, Early of Tyrone. No such able Irish chief had appeared since Brian Boru. Cool, cautious, vigilant, he laid his plans with care andknew how to wait patiently for results. Never impulsive, never boastful, wise in council and wary in speech, from his long residence inLondon in his youth he learned dissimulation, and was as crafty as the craftiest English minister. Repeatedly he foiled the queen's diplomatists in council as he did her generals in the field, and at the Yellow Ford (1598) gained the greatest victory ever won in Ireland over English arms. What he might have done had he been loyally supported it is hard to say. For nearly ten years he continued thewar; he continued it after his Spanish allies had brought upon him the disaster of Kinsale; after his chief assistant, O'Donnell, had been struck down by an assassin's hand; after Carew had subdued Munster, and Mountjoy had turned Ulster into adesert; after the Irish chiefs had gone over to the enemy. And when he submitted it was only on condition of being guaranteed his titles and lands; and by that time Elizabeth, whohated him so much and so longed for his destruction, had breathed her last.

Under the Stuarts

James I (1603-25) was the first of the Stuart line, and from the son ofMary Stuart the IrishCatholics expected much. They were doomed, however, to an early disappointment. The cities which rejoiced that "Jezabel was dead", and that now they could practise their religion openly, were warned by Mountjoy that James was a goodProtestant and as such would have no toleration of popery. Salisbury, who had poisoned the mind of the queen against theCatholics, was equally successful with her successor, with the result thatpersecution continued. Proclamations were issued ordering theclergy to quit the kingdom; those who remained were hunted down;O'Devany,Bishop of Down, and others were done to death. The Acts of Supremacy and uniformity were rigorously enforced. The Act of Oblivion, under which participants in the late rebellion were pardoned, was often forgotten or ignored. English law, which for the first time was extended to all Ireland, was used by corrupt officials to oppress rather than to protect the people. The Earl of Tyrone and the Early of Tyroconnell (Rory O'Donnell) was so spied upon and worried byfalse charges of disloyalty that they fled the country,believing that their lives were in danger; and to all their pleas forjustice the king's response was toslander their characters and confiscate their lands. It is indeedtrue that Irish juries found the earls guilty of high treason, and an Irish Parliament, representing all Ireland, attained them. But these results were obtained by carefully packing the juries, and by the creation of small boroughs which sent creatures of the king to represent them in Parliament. And theCatholic members acquiesced under threat of having enacted a fresh batch ofpenal laws. Thus, aided by corrupt juries and a complaisant Parliament, James I was enabled to plant the confiscated lands of Ulster withEnglish Protestants and ScotchPresbyterians. Other plantations had fared badly. That of King's and Queen's County in Mary's reign had decayed; and the plantation of Munster after the Desmondwar had been swept away in the tide of O'Neill's victories. The plantation of Ulster was more thorough and effective than either of these. Whole districts were given to the settlers, and these, supported by aProtestant Government, soon grew into a powerful and prosperous colony, while the despoiledCatholics, driven from the richer to the poorer lands, looked helplessly on, hating those colonists for whose sake they had been despoiled.

Under the new king, Charles I (1625-49), the policy ofpersecution and plantation was continued. Under pretence of advancing the public interest and increasing the king's revenue, a crowd of hungry adventurers spread themselves over the land, inquiring into the title by which lands were held. With venal judges, venal juries, and sympathetic officials to aid them, good titles were declared bad, and lands seized, and the adventurers were made sharers in the spoil. The O'Byrnes were thus deprived of their lands in Wicklow, and similar confiscations and plantations took place in Wexford, King's County, Leitrim, Westmeath, and Longford. Hoping to protect themselves against suchrobbery, theCatholics offered the king a subsidy of £120,000 in exchange for certain privileges called "graces", which among other things would give them indefeasible titles to their estates. These "graces" granted by the king, were to have the sanction of Parliament to make them good. The money was paid, but the "graces" were withheld, and the viceroy, Strafford, proceeded to Connaught to confiscate and plant the whole province. The projected plantation was ultimately abandoned; but the sense ofinjustice remained. All over the country were insecurity, anxiety, unrest, and disaffection; Irish and Anglo-Irish were equally menaced. Seeing the futility of appealing to a helpless Parliament, a despotic viceroy, or a perfidious king, the nation took up arms.

To describe the rebellion as the "massacre of 1641" isunjust. The details of cruelmurders committed and horrible tortures inflicted by the rebels are mischievouslyuntrue. On the other hand, it istrue that theProtestants suffered grievous wrong, and that many of them lost their lives, exclusive of those who fell inwar. TheCatholics wanted the planters' lands; when driven away in wintry weather, without money, or food, or sufficient clothes, many planters perished of hunger and cold. Others fell by the avenging hand of some infuriatedCatholic whom they might have wronged in the days of their power. Many fell defending theirproperty or theproperty and lives of their friends. The plan of the rebel leaders, of whom Roger Moore was chief, was to capture the garrison towns by a simultaneous attack. But they failed to capture Dublin Castle, containing large stores of arms, owing to the imprudence of Colonel MacMahon. He imparted the secret to a disreputable Irishman named O'Connolly, who at once informed the Castle authorities, with the result that the Castle defences were strengthened, and MacMahon and others arrested and subsequently executed. In Ulster, however, the whole open country and many towns fell into the rebels' hands, and Munster and Connaught soon joined the rebellion, as did theCatholics of the Pale, unable to obtain any toleration of their religion, or security of theirproperty, or even of their lives. Before the new year was far advanced theCatholic Bishops declared the rebellion just, and theCatholics formed a confederation which, from its meeting place, was called the "Confederation of Kilkenny". Composed ofclergy andlaity its membersswore to be loyal to the king, to strive for the free exercise of their religion, and to defend the lives, liberties, and possessions of all who took the Confederateoath. Supreme executive authority was vested in a supreme council; there were provincial councils also, all these bodies deriving their powers from an elective body called the "General Assembly".

The Supreme Council exercised all the powers of government, administeredjustice, raised taxes, formed armies, appointed generals. One of the best-known of these officers was General Preston, who commanded in Leinster, having come from abroad with a good supply of arms and ammunition, and with 500 trained officers. A more remarkable man still wasGeneral Owen Roe O'Neill, nephew of the great Earl of Tyrone, who took command in Ulster, and whose defence ofArras against the Frenchcaused him to be recognized as one of the first soldiers inEurope. He also, like Preston, brought officers, arms, and ammunition to Ireland. At a later state cameRinuccini, thepope'snuncio, bringing with him a supply of money. Meanwhile, civilwar raged inEngland between king and Parliament; the Government atDublin, ill supplied from across the Channel, was ill fitted to crush a powerful rebellion, and, in 1646, O'Neill won the great victory of Benburb. But the strength of which this victory was the outcome was counterbalanced by elements of weakness. TheCatholics of Ulster and those of the Pale did not agree; neither did Generals O'Neill and Preston. The Supreme Council, with a feeble old man, Lord Mountgarret, at its head, and four provincial generals instead of a commander-in-chief, was ill-suited for the vigorous prosecution of awar. Moreover, the influence of the Marquis of Ormond was a fatal cause of discord. A personal friend of the king, and charged by him with the command of his army and with the conduct of negotiations, aProtestant withCatholic friends on the Supreme Council, his desire ought to have been to bringCatholic and Royalist together. But hishatred of theCatholics was such that he would grant them no terms, even when ordered to do so by His Majesty. TheCatholics' professions of loyalty he despised, and his great diplomatic abilities were used to sow dissensions in their councils and to thwart their plans. Yet the Supreme Council, dominated by an Ormondist faction, continued fruitless negotiations with him, agreed to a cessation when they themselves were strong and their opponents weak, and agreed to a peace with him in spite of the victory of Benburb, and in spite of the remonstrances of thenuncio and of General O'Neill. Nor did they cease these relations with him even after he had treacherously surrendered Dublin to the Parliament (1647), and left the country. On the contrary, they still putfaith in him, entered into a fresh peace with him in 1648, and when he returned to Ireland as the Royalist viceroy they received him in state at Kilkenny. In disgust, General O'Neill came to a temporary agreement with the Parliamentary general, andRinuccini, despairing of Ireland, returned toRome.

The Civil War inEngland was then over. The Royalists had been vanquished, the king executed, the monarchy replaced by a commonwealth; and in August, 1649, Oliver Cromwell came to Ireland with 10,000 men. Ormond meanwhile had rallied his supporters, and, with the greater part of theCatholics of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, theProtestants of the Pale and of Munster, and great part of the UlsterPresbyterians, his strength was considerable. His obstinate bigotry would not allow him to make terms with the Ulster army, and he thus lost the support of General O'Neill at a critical time. Early in August he had been disastrously beaten by thePuritan general Jones, at Rathmines; in consequence he offered no opposition to Cromwell's landing and made no attempt to relieve Drogheda. It was soon captured by Cromwell and its garrison put to the sword. A month later the same fate befell Wexford. Waterford repelled Cromwell's attack, and Clonmel and Kilkenny offered him a stout resistance; but other towns were easily captured, orvoluntarily surrendered; and when he left Ireland, in May, 1650, Munster and Leinster were in his hands. His successors, Ireton and Ludlow, within two years reduced the remaining provinces. MeanwhileOwen Roe O'Neill had died after making terms with Ormond, but before meeting with Cromwell. TheCatholic Bishops, however, repudiated Ormond, who then left Ireland. Some negotiations subsequently between Lord Clanricarde and the Duke of Lorraine came to nothing, and the longwar was ended in which more than half the inhabitants of the country had lost their lives.

In the beginning of the rebellion many Englishmen subscribed money to put it down, stipulating in return for a share of the lands to be forfeited, and thushatred of theCatholics was mingled with hope of gain. The English Parliament accepted the money on the terms proposed, and the subscribers became known as "adventurers", because they adventured their money on Irish land. When the rebellion was over, the problem was to provide the lands promised, and also to provide lands for the soldiers who were in arrears of pay. It was a difficult problem. There was an Act for Settling Ireland, and Act for the Satisfaction of Adventurers in Lands and Arrears due to the soldiers and other public Debts; there was a High Court of Justice to determine who were guilty of rebellion; there were soldiers who had got special terms when laying down their arms; and there were those who had never had a share in the rebellion, but had merely lived in the rebel quarters during thewar. The best of the lands east of the Shannon were for the adventurers and soldiers, the dispossessed being driven to Connaught. To determine where the planters were to be settled and where the transplanted, and what amount they were to get, there were commissions, and committees, and surveys, and court of claims. Nor was it till 1658 that the Cromwellian Settlement was complete, and even then many of the transplanted protested their innocence of any share in the rebellion, and many of the adventurers and soldiers complained that they had been defrauded of their due. In the amount of suffering it entailed and wrong inflicted the whole scheme far exceeded the plantation of Ulster. But it failed to make Ireland either English orProtestant, and in setting up a system of alien landlords and native tenants itproved the curse of Ireland and the fruitful parent of many ills.

To the Irish Cromwell's death in 1658 was welcome news, all the more so because Charles II (1660-85) was restored. For their attachment to the cause of the latter they had suffered much; and now theCatholic landlord in his Connaught cabin and the Irish soldier abroad felt equally assured that the recovery of their lands and homes was at hand. They soon learned that Stuart gratitude meant little and that Stuart promises were written on sand. Had Charles been free to act, the Cromwellian Settlement would not have endured; for heloved theCatholics much more than heloved thePuritans. But the planters were a dangerous body to provoke, sustained as they were by the English Parliament and by the king's chief adviser, Ormond, who indeedhated the Cromwellians, buthated theCatholics much more. Some attempt, however, was made to right the wrong that had been done, and by theAct of Settlement, six hundred innocentCatholics were restored to their lands. Many more would have been restored had the court of claims been allowed to continue its sittings. The irate planters wanted toknow what was to become of them if the despoiled papist thus back their lands; utterings threats and even breaking out into rebellion they alarmed the king. Under Ormond's advice the Act of Explanation was then passed (1665) and the court of claims set up by theAct of Settlement closed its doors, though three thousand cases remained untried. Thus the Cromwellians who hadmurdered the king's father were, with few exceptions, left unmolested while theCatholics were abandoned to their fate. Before the rebellion two-thirds of the lands of the country were in the hands of the latter; after the Act of Explanation scarcely one-third was left them, a sweeping confiscation especially in the case of men who were denied even thejustice of a trial. After this the toleration of theCatholics was but a small concession. Not, however, during the whole of Charles's reign; for Ormond, now a duke, filled the office of viceroy for many years; he at least would maintainProtestant ascendancy, and exclude theCatholics from the bench and the corporations. In the English Council and in Parliament he bitterly attacked and defeated the proposed revision of theAct of Settlement. He does not appear to have had any sympathy with the lying tales of Oates and Bedloe, or with the storm ofpersecution which followed, and he disapproved of the judicialmurder ofOliver Plunket. But his aversion from theCatholics continued, and was in no way chilled by advancing age. One of the last acts of Charles was to dismiss him from office as an enemy to toleration. The king himself soon after died in theCatholicFaith, and James II, an avowedCatholic, succeeded, the firstCatholic sovereign since the death ofMary Tudor.

Religious toleration had then made little progress throughoutEurope, andEngland, aggressivelyProtestant, looked with special disfavour onCatholicism. In these circumstances James II should have moved with caution. He should have taken account of national prejudices and the temper of the times, and respected established institutions; while conscientiously practising his own religion, he should have sought for no favour for it, at least until the nation was in a more tolerant and yielding mood. Instead of this, and in defiance of English bigotry and English law, he appointedCatholics to high civil and military offices, opened the corporations and theuniversities to them, had apapal nuncio at his court, and issued a declaration ofIndulgence suspending thepenal laws. When theProtestantbishops refused to have this declaration read from theirpulpits he prosecuted them. Their acquittal was the signal for revolt, and James, deserted by all classes, fled toFrance leaving the English throne to William of Orange, whom theProtestants invited fromHolland. Meanwhile sweeping changes had been effected in Ireland by the viceroy, the Duke of Tyreconnell, a militantCatholic and a special favourite of King James.Protestant magistrates, sheriffs, and judges had been displaced to make room forCatholics; the army and corporations underwent similar changes; and theAct of Settlement was to be repealed. TimidProtestants trembling for their lives fled toEngland; others formed centres of resistance to the viceroy in Munster and Connaught, and, in Ulster,Derry and Enniskillen expelled theCatholics and closed their gates against the viceroy's troops. This was rebellion, for James, though repudiated inEngland, was still King of Ireland. In March, 1689, he arrived at Kinsale fromFrance to subdue these rebels. But the task was beyond his strength. Derry and Enniskillen defied all his attacks, and a Wiliamite force, issuing from the latter town, almost annihilated a Jacobite army at Newton-Butler.

Disaffection became general among theProtestants when the Irish Parliament repealed theAct of Settlement and attained eighteen hundredpersons who had fled toEngland through fear; and when, in August, a Williamite force of twenty thousand landed at Carrickfergus, theProtestants everywhere welcomed it. This great force, however, effected nothing, and in June, 1690, William himself came and encountered James on the banks of the Boyne. The battle was fought on 1 July, and resulted in the defeat of James. Hastening to Dublin he told the Duchess of Tyrconnell that the Irish soldiers had shamefully run away, to which the lady is said to have replied; "But your Majesty won the race." The retort was just. The Irish cavalry behaved with conspicuous gallantry, as did the greater part of the infantry. Some of the latter did run away, but not so fast as James himself, who fled taking the ablest of the Irish generals,Sarsfield, with him. That the Irish were no cowards was soon shown by their defence of Athlone and the still more glorious defence ofLimerick. After being compelled to raise the siege of the latter city, King Williams left forEngland, committing thecivil authority to lords justices and the military command to General Ginkel. In the following year Ginkel captured Athlone, owing to the carelessness of the Jacobite general, St-Ruth; and on 12 July, 1691, the last great battle of thewar was fought at Aughrim. The Irish were not inferior to their opponents in numbers, discipline, or valour, and though overmatched in heavy guns they had the advantage of position. Nor was St-Ruth inferior to Ginkel in military capacity. His dispositions were excellent, and after several hours' desperate fighting Ginkel was driven back at every point. Just then St-Ruth was struck down by a cannon ball. Panic-stricken, the Irish fell back, allowing their opponents to advance and inflict on them a crushing defeat. The surrender ofGalway and Sligo followed, and in a short time Ginkel and his whole army were before the walls ofLimerick. When he had effectually surrounded it and made a breach in the walls, further resistance was seen to be hopeless, andSarsfield and his friends made terms. By the end of the year thewar was over, King William had triumphed, andProtestant ascendancy was secure.

The eighteenth century

By the Treaty of Limerick theCatholic soldiers of King James were pardoned, protected against forfeiture of their estates, and were free to go abroad if they chose. AllCatholics might substitute anoath of allegiance for theoath of supremacy, and were to have such privileges "as were consistent with thelaws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the reign of Charles II". King William also promised to have the Irish Parliament grant a further relaxation of thepenal laws in force. This treaty, however, was soon torn to shreds, and in spite of William's appeals the Irish Parliament refused to ratify it, and embarked on fresh penal legislation. Under these newlawsCatholics were excluded from Parliament, from the bench and bar, from the army and navy, from all civil offices, from the corporations, and even from the corporate towns. They could not haveCatholicschools at home or attend foreignschools, or inherit landedproperty, or hold land under lease, or act as executors or administrators, or have arms or ammunition, or a horse worth £5. Neither could they bury their dead inCatholic ruins, or makepilgrimages to holy wells, or observeCatholic holidays. They could not intermarry with theProtestants, theclergyman assisting at such marriages being liable to death. The wife of aCatholic landlord turningProtestant got separate maintenance; the son turningProtestant got the whole estate; and theCatholic landlord having onlyCatholic children wasobliged at death to divide his estate among his children in equal shares. All theregularclergy, as well asbishops and vicars-general should quit the kingdom. Thesecular clergy might remain, but must be registered, nor could they have on their churches either steeple or bell. This was the Penal Code, elaborated through nearly half a century with patience, and care, and ingenuity, perhaps the mostinfamous code ever elaborated by civilized man.

Such legislation does not generate conviction, and, in spite of all, theCatholics clung to their Faith. Deprived ofschools at home, the youngclerical student sought the halls of Continental colleges, and beingordained returned to Ireland, disguised perhaps as a sailor and carried in a smuggler's craft. And in secrecy and obscurity he preached, taught, lived, and died, leaving another generation equallypersecuted to carry on the good fight. Poverty was his portion, and frequently theprison and the scaffold; and yet, whileProtestantism made no progress,Catholicism more than held its own. In 1728 theCatholics were to theProtestants as five to one, and half a century later Young calculated that to make IrelandProtestant would take 4000 years. Indeed theProtestantclergy made no serious effort to convert theCatholics; nor was this the object of the Penal Code. Passed byProtestants possessing confiscatedCatholic lands, it object was to impoverish, to debase, to degrade, to leave the despoiledCatholics incapable of rebellion andignorant of their wrongs. In this respect it succeeded. A fewCatholics, with the connivance of some friendlyProtestants, managed to hold their estates; the remainder gradually sank to the level of cottiers and day-labourers, living in cabins, clothed in rags, always on the verge of famine. Shut out from every position of influence, rackrented by absentee landlords, insulted by grasping agents and drunken squireens, payingtithes to a Church they abhorred, hating the Government which oppressed them and thelaw which made them slaves, their condition was the worst of any peasantry inEurope. From a land blighted by suchlaws the enterprising and ambitious fled, seeking an outlet for their enterprise andambition in happier lands. In the time of Elizabeth and James, and still more in Cromwell's time, thousands joined the army ofSpain. But in the latter half of the seventeenth century the stream was diverted toFrance, then the greatest military power inEurope. ThitherSarsfield and his men went after the fall ofLimerick, and in the fifty years which followed 450,000 Irish died in the service ofFrance. They fought and fell inSpain andItaly, in the passes of the Alps, in the streets ofCremona, at Ramillies and Malplaquet, at Blenheim and Fontenoy. Irishmen were marshals ofFrance; an Irishman commanded the armies ofMaria Theresa; another the army ofRussia; and there were Irish statesmen, generals, and ambassadors all overEurope. Beyond the Atlantic, Irish had settled inPennsylvania andMaryland, inKentucky and Carolina and the New England states; Irish names were appended to the Declaration of Independence; and Irish soldiers fought throughout the War of Independence.

Now were soldiers and statesmen the only Irish exiles whompenal laws had sent abroad. The decay ofschools and colleges continued from the eleventh to the sixteenth century; nor did Ireland in that period produce a single great scholar, exceptDuns Scotus, who was partlyeducated broad. Any hope of a revival of learning in the sixteenth century was blasted by thesuppression of monasteries and thepenal laws; early in the seventeenth century, however, Irish colleges were already established atLouvain, Salamanca, and Seville, atLisbon, Paris, andRome. In these colleges the brightest Irish intellects learned and taught, andColgan and O'Clery, Lynch andRothe,Wadding and Keating recalled the greatest glories of their country's past. At home Trinity College had been established (1593) to wean the Irish from "Popery and other ill qualities"' but theCatholics held aloof, and either went abroad or frequented the fewCatholicschools left. The children of thepoor, avoiding theProtestantschools, met in the open air, with only some friendly hedge to protect them from the blast; but they met in fear and trembling, for the hedge-school and its master were proscribed. Thus was the lamp of learning kept burning during the long night of the penal times.

In the Irish Parliament meanwhile a spirit of independence appeared. As the Parliament of the Pale it had been so often used for factious purposes that in 1496 Poyning's Law was passed, providing that henceforth no Irish Parliament could meet, and no law could be proposed, without the previous consent of both the Irish and English Privy Councils. Further, the English Parliament claimed theright to legislate for Ireland; and in thelaws prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle (1665), and Irish woollen manufactures (1698), and that dealing with the Irish forfeited estates (1700), it asserted its supposed right. The Irish Parliament, dominated by bigotry and self-interest, had not thecourage to protest, and when one member, Molyneux, did, the English Parliament condemned him, and ordered his book to be burned by the common hangman. Moreover, it passed an Act in 1719 expressly declaring that it had power to legislate for Ireland, taking away also the appellatejurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords. The fight made by Swift against Wood's halfpence showed that, though Molyneux was dead, his spirit lived; Lucas continued the fight, and Grattan in 1782 obtained legislative independence.England was then beaten by the American colonies; an Irish volunteer force had been raised to defend Ireland against a possible invasion, and it seemscertain that legislative independence was won less by Grattan's eloquence than by the swords of the Volunteers. These events favoured the growth of toleration. TheCatholics, in sympathizing with Grattan and in subscribing money to equip the Protestant Volunteers, earned the goodwill of the Protestant Nationalists; in consequence thepenal laws were less rigorously enforced, and from the middle of the century penal legislation ceased. In 1771 came the turn of the tide, whenCatholics were allowed to hold reclaimed bog under lease. The grudging concession was followed in 1774 by an Act substituting anoath of allegiance for theoath of supremacy; in 1778 by an Act enablingCatholics to hold all lands under lease; and in 1782 by a further Act allowing them to erectCatholicschools, with the permission of theProtestantbishop of thediocese, to own a horse worth more than £5, and to assist at Mass without being compelled to accuse the officiatingpriest. Nor wereCatholicbishops any longer compelled to quit the kingdom, norCatholic children specially rewarded if they turnedProtestant. Not for ten years was there any further concession, and then an Act was passed allowingCatholics to erectschools without seekingProtestant permission, admittingCatholics to the Bar, and legalizing marriages betweenProtestants andCatholics. Much more important was the Act of 1793 giving theCatholics the Parliamentary and municipal franchise, admitting them to theuniversities and to military and civil offices, and removing all restrictions in regard to the tenure of land. They were still excluded from Parliament, from the inner Bar, and from a few of the higher civil and military offices.

Always in favour of religious liberty, Grattan would have swept away every vestige of the Penal code. But, in 1782, he mistakenly thought that his work was done when legislative independence was conceded. He forgot that the executive was still left independent of Parliament, answerable only to the English ministry; and that, with rotten boroughs controlled by a few greatfamilies, with an extremely limited franchise in the counties, and with pensioners and placement filling so many seats, the Irish Parliament was but a mockery of representation. Like Grattan, Flood and Charlemont favoured Parliamentary reform, but, unlike him, they were opposed toCatholic concessions. As for Foster and Fitzgibbon, who led the forces of corruption and bigotry, they opposed every attempt at reform, and consented to the Act of 1793 only under strong pressure from Pitt and Dundas. These Englishministers, alarmed at the progress ofFrench revolutionary principles in Ireland, fearing a foreign invasion, wished to have theCatholics contented. In 1795 further concessions seemed imminent. In that year an illiberal viceroy, Lord Westmoreland, was replaced by the liberal-minded Lord Fitzwilliam, who came understanding it to be the wish of Pitt that theCatholic claims were to be conceded. He at once dismissed from office a rapacious office-holder named Beresford, so powerful that he was called the "King of Ireland"; he refused to consult Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon or Foster, the Speaker; he took Grattan and Ponsonby into his confidence, and declared his intention to support Grattan's bill admittingCatholics to Parliament. The high hopes raised by these events were dashed to the earth when Fitzwilliam was suddenly recalled, after having been allowed to go so far without any protest fromPortland, the home secretary, or from the premier, Pitt. The latter, disliking the Irish Parliament because it had rejected his commercial propositions in 1785, and disagreed with him on the regency in 1789, already mediated a legislative union, and felt that the admission ofCatholics to Parliament would thwart his plans. He was probably also influenced by Beresford, who had powerful friends inEngland, and by the king, whom Fitzgibbon had mischievously convinced that to admitCatholics to Parliament would be to violate hiscoronationoath. Possibly, other causes concurred with these to bring about the sudden and disastrous change which filledCatholic Ireland with grief, and the whole nation with dismay.

The new viceroy, Lord Camden, was instructed to conciliate theCatholicbishops by setting up aCatholic college for the training of Irish priests; this was done by the establishment ofMaynooth College. But he was to set his face against all Parliamentary reform and allCatholic concessions. These things he did with a will. He at once restored Beresford to office and Foster and Fitzgibbon to favour, the latter being made Earl of Clare. And he stirred up but too successfully the dying embers of sectarian hate, with the result that the Ulster factions, theProtestant "Peep-of-Day Boys" and theCatholic "Defenders", became embittered with a change of names. The latter, turning to republican and revolutionary ways, joined the United Irish Society; the former became merged in the recently formed Orange Society, taking its name from William of Orange and havingProtestant ascendancy andhatred ofCatholicism as its battle cries. Extending from Ulster, these rivalsocieties brought into the other provinces the curse of sectarian strife. Instead of putting down both, the Government took sides with the Orangemen; and, while their lawless acts were condoned, theCatholics were hunted down. An Arms' Act, an Insurrection Act, an Indemnity Act, a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act placed them outside the pale of law. An undisciplined soldiery, recruited from the Orange lodges, were than let loose among them. Martial law, free quarters, flogging, picketing, half-hanging, destruction ofCatholicproperty and life, outrages onwomen followed, until at lastCatholic blood was turned into flame. Then Wexford rose. Looking back, it now seems certain that, had Hoche landed at Bantry in 1796, had even a small force landed at Wexford in 1798, or a few other counties displayed the heroism of Wexford, English power in Ireland would, temporarily at least, have been destroyed. But one county could not fight the British Empire, and the rebellion was soon quenched in blood.

Camden's place was then given to Lord Cornwallis, who came to Ireland for the express purpose of carrying a Legislative Union. Foster refused to support him and joined the opposition. Fitzgibbon, however, aided Cornwallis, and so did Castlereagh, who for some time had discharged theduties of chief secretary in the absence of Mr. Pelham, and who was now formally appointed to the office. And then began one of the most shameful chapters in Irish history. Even the corrupt Irish Parliament was reluctant to vote away its existence, and in 1799 the opposition was too strong for Castlereagh. But Pitt directed him to persevere, and the great struggle went on. On one side were eloquence and debating power, patriotism, and public virtue, Grattan, Plunket, and Bushe, Foster, Fitzgerald, Ponsonby, and Moore, a truly formidable combination. On the other side were the baser elements of in Parliament, the needy, the spendthrift, the meanly ambitious, operated upon by Castlereagh, with the whole resources of the British Empire at his command. The pensioners and placemen who voted against him at once lost their places and pensions, the military officer was refused promotion, the magistrate was turned off the bench. And while anti-Unionists were unsparingly punished, the Unionists got lavish rewards. The impecunious got well-paid sinecures; the briefless barrister was made a judge or a commissioner; the rich man, ambitious of social distinction, got a peerage, and places and pensions for his friends; and the owners of rotten boroughs to large sums for their interests. TheCatholics were promised emancipation in a united Parliament, and in consequence manybishops, someclergy, and a few of thelaity supported the Union, not grudging to end an assembly so bigoted and corrupt as the Irish Parliament. By these means Castlereagh triumphed, and in 1801 the United Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland opened its doors.

Since the Union

The next quarter of a century was a period of baffled hopes. Anxious to stand well with the Government, Dr. Troy, theArchbishop ofDublin, had been a strong advocate of the Union, and had induced nine of his brotherbishops to concede to the king a veto on episcopal appointments. In return, he wanted emancipation linked with the Union, and Castlereagh was not averse; but Pitt was non-committal and vague, though theCatholic Unionists had nodoubt that he favoured immediate concession. Disappointment came when nothing was done in the first session of the United Parliament, and it was increased when Pitt resigned office and was succeeded by Addington, a narrow-minded bigot. Cornwallis, however, assured Dr. Troy that Pitt had resigned, unable to overcome the prejudices of the king, and that he would never again take office if emancipation were not conceded. Yet, in spite of this, he became premier in 1804, no longer an advocate of emancipation but an opponent, pledged never again to raise the question in Parliament, during the lifetime of the king. To this pledge he was as faithful as he had beenfalse to his former assurances; and when Fox presented theCatholic petition in 1805, Pitt opposed it. After 1806, when both Pitt and Fox died, theCatholic champion was Grattan, who had entered the British Parliament in 1805. In the vain hope of conciliating opponents he was willing, in 1808, to concede the veto. Dr. Troy and the higherCatholics acquiesced; but the otherbishops were unwilling, and neither they nor theclergy, still less the people, wanted a state-paidclergy or state-appointedbishops. The agitation of the question, however, did not cease, and for many years it distractedCatholic plans and weakenedCatholic effort. Further complications arose when, in 1814, the prefect of thePropaganda, Quarantotti, issued arescript favouring the veto. He acted, however, beyond his powers in the absence ofPius VII, who was inFrance, and when thepope returned toRome, after the fall ofNapoleon, therescript was disavowed.

In these years theCatholics badly needed a leader. John Keogh, the able leader of 1793, was then old, and Lords Fingall and Gormanstone, Mr. Scully and Dr. Dromgoole, were not the men to grapple with great difficulties and powerful opponents. An abler and more vigorous leader was required, one with lessfaith in petitions and protestations of loyalty. Such a leader was found in Daniel O'Connell, aCatholic barrister whose first public appearance in 1800 was on an anti-Unionist platform. A great lawyer and orator, a great debater, of boundlesscourage and resources, he took a prominent part onCatholic committees, and from 1810 he held the first place inCatholic esteem. Yet theCatholic cause advanced slowly, and, when Grattan died in 1820, emancipation had not come. Nor would the House of Lords accept Plunket's Bill of 1821, even though it passed the House of Commons and conceded the veto. At last O'Connell determined to rouse the masses, and in 1823, with the help ofRichard Lalor Sheil, he founded the Catholic Association. Its progress at first was slow, but gradually it gathered strength.Dr. Murray, the newCatholicArchbishop ofDublin, joined it, andDr. Doyle, the greatBishop of Kildare; otherbishops followed; theclergy and people also came in; and thus rose a great national organization, supervising from its central office in Dublin subsidiary associations in everyparish; maintained by aCatholic rent; watching over local and national affairs, discharging, as Mr. Canning described it, "all the functions of a regular government, and having obtained a complete mastery and control over the masses of the Irish people". The Association was suppressed in 1825 by Act of Parliament; but O'Connell merely changed the name; and the New Catholic Association with its New Catholic rent continued the work of agitation as of old. Nor was this all. By theCatholic Relief Act of 1793 the forty-shilling freeholders obtained the franchise. These freeholders, being so poor, were necessarily in the power of the landlords and were wont to be driven to the pools like so many sheep. But now, protected by a powerful association, and encouraged by thepriests and by O'Connell, the freeholders broke their chains, and in Waterford, Louth,Meath, and elsewhere they voted for the nominees of the Catholic Association at elections, and in placing them at the head of the pool humbled the landlords. When they returned O'Connell himself for Clare in 1828, the crisis had come. The Toryministers, Wellington and Peel, would have still resisted; but the people were not to be restrained: it must be concession or civilwar, and rather than have the latter theministers hauled down the flag of no surrender, and passed theCatholic Relief Bill of 1829. The forty-shilling freeholders were disfranchised, and there were some vexations provisions excludingCatholics from a few of the higher civil and military offices, prohibitingpriests from wearing vestments outside their churches,bishops from assuming the titles of their sees, regulars form obtaining charitable bequests. In other respectsCatholics were placed on a level with otherdenominations, and at last were admitted within the pale of the constitution.

From that hour O'Connell was the uncrowned king of Ireland. Where he led the people followed. They cheered him when he praised Lord Anglesey and when he attacked him; when he supported the Whigs and when he described them as "base, brutal and bloody"; when he advocated the Repeal of the Union and when he abandoned the Repeal agitation; and when, after long years of waiting for concessions that never came, he again unfurled the flag of Repeal, they flocked to hear him, and laughed or wept with him, responsive to his every mood. Finally, to leave him free to devoted his whole time to public affairs they subscribed yearly to the O'Connell tribute, given him thus an income which never fell below £16,000 and often went far beyond that figure. And yet the legislative results of nearly twenty years of such devotion and sacrifice were poor. The National Education system, established in 1831, required much amendment before it worked smoothly, and even now is far from being an ideal system. The Commutation of Tithes Act only transferred the odium of collection from the parson to the landlord, but gave little relief to the people. The Poor Law system, though it often relieved destitution, too often encouraged idleness and immorality. And the Corporation Act, while reforming a few of the corporations, abolished many. Nor could anything be more complete than the failure of the Repeal agitation. The explanation is not far to seek. O'Connell had a wretched party, men without capacity or patriotism. His acceptance of offices for his friends and his alliances with the Whigs was surely not a sound policy. And when he took up Repeal in earnest he was already old, with the shadow of death upon him. Lastly, as he neared the end, he lost the support of the Young Irelanders, the most vigorous and capable section of his followers. These things embittered his last days and hastened his death in 1847.

Meantime the shadow of famine had fallen upon the land. The potato blight first appeared in Wexford, in 1845, whence it marched with stealthy tread all over the country, poisoning the potato fields as it passed. The stalks withered and died, the potatoes beneath the soil became putrid, and when they were dug and the sound ones separated from the unsound ones and put into pits, it was soon discovered that disease had entered the pits. The reckless creation of forty-shilling freeholders by the landlords for political purposes, the reckless subdivision of holdings by the tenants, had so augmented the population that in 1845 the inhabitants of Ireland were well beyond 8,000,000, most of them living in abject poverty with the potato as their only food. And now, with half the crop of 1845 gone and with the loss of the whole crop in the two succeeding years, millions were face to face with hunger. To cope with such a calamity required heroic measures, and O'Connell urged that distilleries should be closed, the export of provisions prohibited, public granaries set up, and reproductive works set on foot. But the premier, Peer, minimized the extent of the famine, and Lord John Russell, who succeeded him in 1846 was equally sceptical. He would neither stop distilling nor the export of provisions, nor build railways; and when he set up public works they were not reproductive, and the money expended on them, largely levied on the rates, was squandered by corrupt officials. Ultimately indeed he set up government stores, and in many cases food was distributed free. Charity supplemented the efforts of Government, and with no niggard hand. There wereQuaker, Evangelical, andBaptist relief committees, and subscriptions from Great Britain and from ContinentalEurope, fromAustralia and from the West Indies. But America was generous most of all. In every city fromBoston toNew Orleans meetings were held and subscriptions given. Philadelphia sent eight vessels loaded with provisions; Mississippi and Alabama large consignments of Indian corn; railroads and shipping companies carried relief parcels free; and the Government turned some of thewar vessels into transports to carry food to the starving millions beyond the Atlantic. Yet were the sufferings of the people great, and the number of deaths from famine and famine-fever appalling. Thousands lived for weeks on cabbage and a little meal, on cabbage and seaweed, on turnips, on diseased horse and ass flesh; and one case is recorded where awoman ate her dead child. Men died from cold as well as from hunger. They died on the roads and in the fields, at the relief works and on their way to them, at the workhouses and at the workhouse doors. They died in their cabins unattended, often surrounded by the dying and frequently by the dead. Flying from the country they died in thehospitals ofLiverpool or Glasgow, or on board the sailing vessels to America. And thousands who crossed the ocean reached America only to die. In 1848 and in 1849 the famine was only partial, but in the latter year cholera appeared. In 1851 the famine was over, and such was the havoc wrought that a population, which at the previous rate of increase should have been 9,000,000, was reduced to 6,500,000.

The conduct of the landlords during this terrible time was selfish and cruel. With few exceptions they gave no employment and no subscriptions to the relief funds. Unable to get rents from tenants unable to pay, they used their right to evict, and in thousands of cases the horrors of eviction were added to the horrors of famine. Retribution soon followed. The evictors, without rents and crushed by poor-rates, became hopelessly insolvent. The British Parliament considered them a nuisance and a curse, and in 1849 passed the Encumbered Estates Act, under which a creditor might petition to have the estate sold and hisdebt paid. Insolvent landlords were thus sent adrift, and solvent men took their places, and to such an extent that in a few years land to the value of £20,000,000 changed hands. But the new landlords were no better than the old. They raised rents, confiscated the tenant's improvements, worried him with vexatious estate rules, evicted him cruelly; and from 1850 to 1870 was the period of the great clearances. Thenecessary result was a constant and ever-increasing stream of emigration from Ireland, chiefly to America. Nor would British statesmen do anything to stem the tide, Lord John Russell would not interfere with therights ofproperty by passing a Land Act. Lord Derby was a landlord with a landlord's strong prejudices. Lord Palmerston declared that tenant right was landlord wrong. Nothing could be expected from the Irish members. Sadleir and Keogh broke up the Tenant Right party; Lucas was dead;Duffy in despair went to Australia; Moore was out of Parliament; and from 1855 to 1870 the Irish members were but placehunters and traitors. In these circumstances the Irish peasant joined the Ribbon Society, which was secret and oath-bound, and specially charged to defend the tenants' interests. Agrarian outrages naturally followed. The landlord evicted, the Ribbonman shot him down, and the evictor fell unpitied by the people, who refused to condemn the assassin. After 1860 the Robbonmen were gradually merged in the Fenian Society, which extended to America andEngland, and had national rather than agrarian objects in view. The Irish are not good conspirators, and the attempted Fenian insurrection in 1867 came to nothing. But the mediated assault on Chester Castle, the Clerkenwell explosion, and the Fenian raids intoCanada showed the extent and intrepidity of Irish disaffection. An increasing number ofEnglishmen began to think that thenon possumus attitude of Lord Palmerston was no longer wise; and with the advent to power of Mr. Gladstone in 1868, at the head of a large Liberal majority, the case of Ireland was taken up.

TheCatholic masses had a threefold grievance calling urgently for redress: the state Church, landlordism, andeducational inequality. Mr. Gladstone called them the three branches of the Irish ascendancy upas tree. Commencing with theChurch, he introduced a Bill disendowing and disestablishing it. Commissioners were appointed to wind it up, taking charge of its enormousproperty, computed at more than £15,000,000 ($75,000,000). Of this sum, £10,000,000, ultimately raised to £11,000,000, was given to the disestablished Church, part to the holders of existing offices, part to enable theChurch to continue its work. A further sum of nearly £1,000,000 was distributed betweenMaynooth College, deprived of its annual grant, and thePresbyterian Church deprived of theRegium Donum, the latter getting twice as much as the former. The surplus was to be disposed of by Parliament for such public objects as it might determine. This was generous treatment for the state Church which had been so conspicuous a failure. Supported with an ample revenue, and by the whole power of the State, its business was to make IrelandProtestant and English. It succeeded only in intensifying their attachment toCatholicity and theirhatred ofProtestantism andEngland. In 1861, after the havoc wrought by the famine, theCatholics were seven times as numerous as the members of the state Church. There were manyparishes without a singleProtestant; and in a poor country a Church numbering but 600,000persons had an income of nearly £700,000, mostly drawn from people of a different creed, who at the same time had their own Church to support. Yet there were members of Parliament who described Mr. Gladstone's Bill asrobbery and sacrilege. The House of Lords, afraid to reject it altogether, emasculated it in committee. And UlsterProtestants declared that if it became law they would kick the Queen's crown into the Boyne. Ignoring these threats, Mr. Gladstone rejected the Lord.' amendments, though on some minor points he gave way, and in spite of all opposition the Bill became law. And thus one branch of the upas tree came crashing to the earth. The Land Act of 1870 was well-meant, but in reality gave the tenants no protection against rackrenting or eviction. Two years later the Ballot Act freed the Irish tenant from the terrors of open voting.

In 1873 theeducation question was reached. And first as to the primaryschools. What theCatholic primaryschools were in the early years of the nineteenth century we learn from Carleton. The teacher, the product of a local hedge-school and of a Munster classicalschool, or perhaps an ex-student of Maynooth, had first been employed as a tutor in some farmer'sfamily. Then he became a hedge-schoolmaster, and the manner in which he attained to this position was peculiar. Challenging the schoolmaster already in possession to a public disputation, they met at the church gates on Sunday in presence of the congregation. Theintellectual swordplay between the combatants was keenly relished, and, if the younger man won the applause of the audience by his depth of learning and readiness of reply, his opponent left the district and the victor was installed in his place. Hisschool, built by the roadside by the people'svoluntary efforts, was of earthen sods, with an earthen floor, a hole in the roof for a chimney, and stones for the pupils' seats. In many districts the teacher received little fees, but the people supplied him liberally with potatoes, meal, bacon, and turf, and entertained him at their houses. A century before Carleton's time the Charterschools were established, and endowed toeducate the children of the destitute poor. They were to give industrial as well as literary training, and took religion and learning as their motto. But they became dens ofinfamy, with incompetent and immoral teachers, who taught the pupils nothing except to hateCatholicism. As such theschools were shunned by theCatholics, and were manifest failures, and yet till 1832 they received government grants. Suchsocieties as the Society for Discountenancing Vice, theLondon Hibernian Association, and the Baptist Society were proselytizing institutions. The Kildare Street Society founded in 1811, thoughProtestant in its origin, was on different lines. The design was to haveCatholics andProtestantseducated together in secular subjects, leaving their religious training to theministers of their religion outside ofschool hours. O'Connell favoured the scheme and joined the governing board, grants were obtained from Parliament, and for some years all went well. But again the bread ofknowledge given toCatholics was steeped in the poison of proselytism. The bigots insisted on having theBible read in theschools "without note or comment"; the Society was then vigorously assailed byJohn MacHale, at the time a young professor atMaynooth, and O'Connell retired from the board.

Recognizing the failure of such a system, Lord Stanley; the Irish chief secretary, passed through Parliament in 1831 a bill empowering the lord lieutenant to constitute a National Board of Education with an annual grant for buildingschools, and for payment of teachers and inspectors. Religious instruction was to be given on one day of the week byministers of the differentreligions to children of their own Faith. Theschools were open to alldenominations, and even "the suspicion of proselytism" was to be excluded. But theCatholics were treated unfairly. In spite of their numbers they were given but two of the seven members of the Board. Mr. Carlisle, aPresbyterian, was made resident commissioner, and as chief executive officer appointed non-Catholics to the principal offices; and he and his fellow-commissioner, Dr. Whately, theProtestantArchbishop ofDublin, compiled lesson-books, in which the history of Ireland and theCatholic religion were treated withinjustice. In a few years the original rules of the Board were so changed thatCatholicpriests were entirely excluded from all Ulsterschools underPresbyterian management. Outside of Ulster, a bigotedProtestantclergyman, named Stopford, was able in 1847 to abrogate the rule compellingCatholic child inProtestantschools to leave when the hour for religious instruction arrived. This left it optional with the children to remain, and brought much suffering on poorCatholics at the hands of tyrannical and bigoted landlords.

Among theCatholicbishops there was toleration rather than approval of the National system. ButDr. MacHale, who had becomeArchbishop ofTuam in 1834, opposed the system from the first,believing thateducation not founded on religion was a curse. He preferred to have in hisdiocese theChristian Brothers'schools in which religious instruction was given the premier place.Dr. Murray ofDublin andDr. Crolly of Armagh were not so hostile, and, when the matter was referred toRome in 1841, the reply was that the National system might be given a further trial. The "Stopford Rule" strengthenedMacHale's hands, as did a board rule in 1845 providing that allschools even partially erected by a board grant should be vested in the Board itself, and not as hitherto in the local manager, who inCatholicschools was usually thepriest.MacHale also objected to the disproportionately small representation ofCatholics on the Board, to the character of the lesson-books, to the large number of non-Catholics in the higher positions. These attacks told. In 1850 the Synod of Thurles condemned the Nationalschools as then conducted. In 1852Dr. Murray ofDublin died, and was succeeded byDr. Cullen, who sharedMacHale's views. The following year Whately's lesson-books were withdrawn from the Board's lists, and Whately in consequence resigned his seat. In 1860 the board was enlarged from seven to twenty, and thenceforth half of these were to beCatholics. The "Stopford Rule" and the rule regarding the vesting ofschools were abrogated, and, with the resident commissioner aCatholic, the system became more acceptable toCatholics. For the training of teachers however there was only one Training College under non-Catholic control, but theCatholics established the Training College at Drumcondra, and in 1883 that at Baggot Street,Dublin, and since then they have established others at Belfast,Limerick, and Waterford. But even as the National system stood in 1873, Mr. Gladstone thought that theCatholics had no substantial grievance, and did nothing.

Nor did he interfere with the state of things in intermediateeducation, though the inequality which existed was glaring. Thediocesan freeschools of Elizabeth, maintained by county contributions, and the freeschools of James I and those ofErasmus Smith, maintained by confiscatedCatholic lands, were underProtestant management and as such generally shunned byCatholics. Further, theProtestants were the richer classes, and, though their Church had been disestablished, it had been but partially disendowed. The Dissenters also had wealth and had well-equippedschools. But theCatholics, long prohibited from having anyschools, got no help from the state even when the pressure of penal legislation had been removed. They had, however, set manfully to work, and, partly by private donations, principally by collections, had established colleges all over the land. Carlow College was founded in 1793, Navan College in 1802,St. Jarlath's College,Tuam, in 1817, Clongowes by theJesuits in 1814, and others in the years that followed. but they could get no state assistance till 1879, when the Intermediate Education Act was passed. The yearly interest on £1,000,000 was then appropriated for prizes and exhibitions to pupils, and for result fees to colleges, and without distinction of creed, following competitive examinations to be annually held. The system, depending so much on examination and encouraging cramming, is certainly not ideal, but is has been of enormous assistance to strugglingCatholicschools.

It was in the field of highereducation thatCatholics suffered most. In 1795Maynooth College had been founded for theeducation of theclergy. Its annual Parliamentary grant had been lost in 1869, but it nevertheless continued to flourish, and flourishes still as one of the firstecclesiastical colleges in the world. There were otherecclesiastical colleges at Carlow, Thurles, Waterford, and Drumcondra. But thelaity had only Trinity College or the Queen's Colleges. The former had first opened its doors toCatholics in 1793, but would give them no share in its emoluments, nor did it abolish religious tests till 1873. The Queen's Colleges, three in number, one atGalway, one atCork, and one at Belfast, were constituent colleges of the Queen's University, and were meant by Peel to do for highereducation what Stanley had done for the primaryschools. But theCatholicbishops' demand to have some adequate provision made for religious teaching, some voice in the appointment and dismissal of professors, and separate chairs in history and philosophy, not been acceded to, the Queen's Colleges were denounced byDr. MacHale as godless colleges, and condemned byRome as intrinsically dangerous tofaith andmorals; and at the Synod of Thurles, in 1850, it was resolved on the advice ofRome to set up a Catholic University. The model given was theUniversity of Louvain. A committee was then appointed, subscriptions received both from Ireland and from abroad, a site was purchased in Stephen's Green,Dublin,Dr. Newman was made firstrector, professors and lecturers were appointed, and in 1854 work was begun.

But there were difficulties from the first. The nation still felt the effects of the famine, the secondaryschools were but imperfectly organized and unable to furnish sufficient students, andDr. MacHale andDr. Cullen did not agree.Dr. MacHale complained that the administration was too centralized, that he could get no details of the expenditure, that there were too many Englishmen among the professors. He objected also toDr. Newman. Though the great Oratorianloved Ireland, he was an Englishman withEnglishideas, and wanted Oxford and Cambridge men as his colleagues.MacHale, on the contrary, would have the whole atmosphere of the University Irish, and thus, trained by Irish teachers, Irish students would go forth to exhibit the highest capabilities of the Irish character.Dr. Cullen did not fully share these views, and generally agreed withNewman. Not always, however, for he objected to haveNewman appointed an Irishbishop, and he dislikedNewman's excessive partiality for professors trained in theEnglishuniversities. This want of harmony was not conducive to enthusiasm or efficiency, and the pecuniary contributions obtained left the various faculties woefully undermanned. Nor could nay provision be made for students' residence or for tutorial superintendence. Most fatal of all, the Government refused to give a charter, and students could not be expected to frequent auniversity where they could get no degree. Unable to succeed where the elements of failure were so many,Newman resigned in 1857. In 1866 the Government of Earl Russell granted a supplemental charter making the Catholic University a constituent college of the queen's University, a sort of fourth Queen's College, but the charter was found to be illegal. Nor did Lord Mayo's attempt to settle theuniversity question in 1868 succeed, and thus the Catholic University struggled painfully on.

Nor was Mr. Gladstone's Bill of 1873 satisfying. He proposed to abolish the Queen's University and the Queen's College,Galway, and to have Dublin University separated from Trinity College, but with Trinity College, the Queen's Colleges at Belfast andCork, Magee College and the Catholic University as constituent colleges. From Trinity College £12,000 a year would be taken and given to the Dublin University, which would have in all an income of £50,000, for the payment of examiners and professors and the founding of fellowships, scholarships, and prizes to be competed for by students of all the constituent colleges. There was to be a senate, at first wholly nominated by the Crown and subsequently half and half by the Crown and Senate. The endowment of the Queen's Colleges would remain, though the Catholic University would get nothing; nor would there be in any of the colleges any endowment for chairs of history,theology, or philosophy. This was perpetuating the inferior position of the Catholic University, as it was perpetuating the endowment of the godless colleges, and it would be almost impossible for theCatholics ever to have their proper share of representation in the Senate. Finally, men asked what sort ofuniversity that was which had no chairs of history or philosophy. The Bill in fact satisfied nobody, and Mr. Gladstone being defeated resigned office.

It will be convenient here to anticipate. In 1879 the Queen's University was abolished and the Royal University took its place, empowered to give degrees to all comers who passed its examinations. The Queen's Colleges were left. In 1882 the Catholic University passed underJesuit control, and of the twenty-eight fellowships of £400 a year founded by the Royal University fourteen were given to the Catholic University staff. With this slender indirect endowment it entered the lists with the Queen's Colleges and beat them all. Subsequently there were two University commissions, one dealing with the Royal University, the other with Trinity College, but nothing was done. Finally, in 1908, Mr. Birrell passed his Irish Universities Act leaving Trinity College untouched. Abolishing the Royal University, the Act sets up two newuniversities, the Queen's University with the Queen's College at Belfast, and the National University atDublin, with the Queen's Colleges atCork andGalway and a new college atDublin as constituent colleges. In these colleges there are new governing bodies, largelyCatholic and National, but religious services of any kind are prohibited within the precincts, and there are no religious tests. This change has resulted in theJesuits severing their connection with the Catholic University, the buildings of which have been taken over by the new Dublin college.

To go back, when Mr. Gladstone was replaced by the Tories, in 1874, a new Irish party had been already formed demanding an Irish Parliament, with full power to deal with purely domestic matters. It was called the Home Rule party, Mr. Butt, aProtestant lawyer of great ability, being its chief. At the general election in 1874, sixty Home Rulers were returned. But Mr. Butt accomplished nothing. His own methods of conciliation and argument were not the most effective. His party, nominal Home Rulers, were mostly place-hunters, and except the Intermediate Education Act of 1878 there were no legislative results. Mr. Butts died in 1879, and for a brief period the Home Rule leader was Mr. Shaw; but after the general election of 1880 Mr. Shaw was deposed, and a younger and more vigorous leader was appointed in theperson of Charles Stewart Parnell. There had been a serious failure of the potato crop in 1877 and 1878, but in 1879 there was only half the average yield. The landlords unable to get their rents began to evict, and it seemed as if the horrors of 1847 were to be renewed. Large relief funds were collected and disbursed by the Duchess of Marlborough, the viceroy's wife, and by the Lord Mayor ofDublin; and Mr. Parnell went to America in the last days of 1879 and appealed in person to the friends of Ireland. He was accompanied by Mr. John Dillon, son of Mr. Dillon, the rebel of 1848. Within two months they addressed meetings in sixty-two cities, bringing back with them to Ireland £40,000 ($200,000). Nor would Mr. Parnell have come back in March but that the Tory premier, Lord Beaconsfield, had dissolved Parliament. Appealing to the county on an anti-Irish cry, his answer came in a crushing defeat, and in the return of Mr. Gladstone to power with a strong Liberal majority. Of the Home Rulers returned many were mere Whigs, but a sufficient number favoured an active policy to depose Mr. Shaw and put Mr. Parnell in his place.

In 1879 the Torries had followed up the Intermediate Act by the Royal University Act, which left the Queen's Colleges and Trinity College untouched, but set up the Royal University, a mere examining board. But they would do nothing to restrain the landlords and nothing effective to relieve Irish distress. Better was expected from the new Liberal Government which included, besides Mr. Gladstone, such men as Bright, Chamberlain, and Forster, the latter appointed chief secretary for Ireland. Yet theLiberals were slow to move, and not until evictions had swelled to thousands did they introduce the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. It was thrown out in the Lords and not reintroduced. But the Irish peasants were in no humour to acquiesce in their own destruction and already a great land agitation was shaking Ireland from sea to sea. Begun in Mayor by Mr. Michael Davitt, the son of a Mayo peasant, and favoured by the prevailing distress and by the heartlessness of the landlords, it rapidly spread. Mr. Parnell soon joined it, and in October, 1979, the Land League was formed, its declared object being to protect tenants from eviction and to substitute peasant proprietary for the existing system of landlordism. Extending to America, many branches were formed there and large subscriptions sent home. In November, 1879, an abortive prosecution of Mr. Davitt and others only strengthened the League. In the new year a Mayo land agent, Captain Boycott, roused the ire of his tenants by issuing processes and threatening evictions; in consequence no servant would remain with him, no labourer would work for him, no shopkeeper would deal with him, no neighbour would speak to him. This system of ostracism became known asboycotting, and was freely used by the League against landlords, agents, and grabbers, with the result that they were compelled to make terms with the people. Government was unable to aid theboycotted, and before the end of 1880 thelaw of the League had supplanted thelaw of the land.

These events changed Mr. Forster in a coercionist. He prosecuted Mr. Parnell and thirteen others in November, 1880, but failed to convict them. Then he asked for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Mr. Gladstone reluctantly acquiesced, and early in 1881, after a fierce struggle with the Irish members, the measure passed. In a short time nearly two hundredpersons were in jail without trial. Mr. Gladstone next passed a comprehensive Land Act, setting up courts to fix rents, and giving increased facilities to tenants to purchase their holdings. But the Irish members, angered because of the Coercion Act, received the Land Act without gratitude; and Mr. Parnell advised the tenants not to rush to the land courts, but rather go there with a limited number of test cases. Mr. Gladstone retorted by imprisoning Mr. Parnell and his principal lieutenants. For the next few months terror reigned supreme. Mr. Forster filled the jails, broke up meetings, suppressed newspapers, and yet succeeded so ill in pacifying the country that he felt compelled to ask for more drastic coercion. Mr. Gladstone, however, had had enough of coercion, and in May, 1882, Lord Cowper, the viceroy, and Mr. Forster were relieved of office, and Mr. Parnell and his colleagues were set free; and by an arrangement often called the Kilmainham Treaty an Arrears' Bill was to be introduced, while Parnell on his side, was to curb the agitation and gradually re-establish the reign of law.

On the evening of 6 May thesehappy changes were fatally marred by themurder in the Phoenix Park,Dublin, of the under-secretary, Mr. Burke, and of the new chief secretary, Lord Frederick Cavendish. The assassins, entirely unconnected with the Land League, belonged to asecret society called the Invincibles. Mr. Parnell was stunned, the Irish cause grievously injured, and inEngland there was a cry of rage. A new Coercion Act was passed and vigorously enforced, and during the remainder of Gladstone's parliament between the Irish and theLiberals there was bitter enmity. But meanwhile Parnell's power increased. In place of the suppressed land League the National League was established, and spread over the United Kingdom and America. Mr. Parnell, while opposing Mr. Dillon's project of a renewed land agitation and Mr. Davitt's scheme of land nationalization, was aided by the Fenians; and though English intrigue succeeded in obtaining apapal rescript condemning a testimonial that was being raised for him, its only effect was to increase the subscriptions. Being friendly with the Tories, he joined with them to defeat Mr. Gladstone in 1885, and for a brief period Lord Salisbury was premier. He governed without coercion, and passed the Ashbourne Act, which advanced £5,000,000 to Irish tenants for the purchase of their holdings. In return, Mr. Parnell advised the Irish electors in Great Britain to vote for the Tories at the general election in October, 1885. But theLiberals were given a majority over the Tories, though not sufficient to form a government without the Irish. On the understanding that Home Rule was to be conceded,Liberals and Irish coalesced, the Tories were turned out, and Gladstone because premier and brought in his Home Rule Bill of 1886, setting up an Irish Parliament with an executive dependent on it. Deserted by a large section of his followers under Bright, Chamberlain, and Hartington, he was defeated, and going to the country was seriously defeated at the polls. In August Lord Salisbury was again in office at the head of the Tories and Liberal Unionists, and in overwhelming strength.

The rejection of Mr. Parnell's Bill of 1886 providing for the admission of leaseholders to the benefits of the Land Act of 1881, and for a revision of judicial rents to meet the recent heavy fall in prices, led to the starting of the Plan of Campaign by Messers. Dillon and O'Brien. The tenant was to offer his landlord a fair rent; and if it was refused he banked the money and fought the landlord, and was assisted by his fellow tenants throughout the land. The Plan was not approved or by Mr. Parnell, and it had the unfortunate effect of placing the perpetual Coercion Act of 1887 on the Statute Book. But it caused the Government to pass the very measure they had so lately rejected, and it compelled many of the poorer landlords to make terms with the tenants. While on the one hand the Plan was thus put in operation in Ireland, and on the other hand the Coercion Act, theLiberals and Irish worked well together in Parliament and on British platforms, theLondon "Times", always the bitter enemy of Ireland, became enraged, and in its anxiety to do harm published a series of articles on Parnellism and Crime. It relied, as it pretended, on authentic documents which connected Parnell and his colleagues with crime, and showed that Parnell himself condoned the Phoenix Parkmurders. A Special Commission appointed by Parliament discovered that the chief letters were forgeries and that the "Times" had been fooled by a disreputable Irishman named Richard Pigott. Theforger confessed his crime and then committedsuicide, and Parnell became the hero of the hour. When the Special Commission issued its report, early in 1890, the tide had turned with a vengeance against the Tories. Their majority was then seriously diminished, and when the general election came it was certain that nothing could prevent the triumph of Home Rule. In the midst of these bright hopes for Ireland there came the mournful wail of the banshee, and, even before the Special Commission report was issued, Captain O'Shea had filed a petition fordivorce on the ground of his wife'sadultery with Mr. Parnell. There was no defence, and could be none, and thedecree was issued, Mr. Gladstone evidently expected that Mr. Parnell would have retired from the leadership, and, finding that he did not, intimated that his continuance in that position would wreck Home Rule. The Irish party which had re-elected Mr. Parnell were not prepared to go so far, and, as he would not retire even for a day, they deposed him. A minority still supported him, and at the head of these he appealed to the Irish people. Week after week he attended meetings and made speeches. But his health, already bad, could not stand the strain; the stubborn and reckless fight ended in his collapse, and at Brighton, on the 6th of October, 1891, the greatest Irish leader since O'Connell breathed his last.

In the years that followed faction was lord of all. At the general election in 1892 the Parnellite members were reduced to nine, while the anti-Parnellites were seventy-two, and at the election in 1895 there was no material change. To argument and entreaty the minority refused to listen, and though the anti-Parnellite leaders, Mr. MacCarthy and Mr. Dillon, were ready to make any sacrifice for unity and peace, their opponents rejected all overtures; and under the shelter of Parnell's name they continued to shout Parnell's battle-cries. At last patriotism triumphed over faction, and in 1900 Mr. John Redmond, the Parnellite leader, was elected chairman of the reunited Irish party. Much had been lost during these years of discord in unity and strength, in national dignity and self-reliance. To faction it was due that the Liberal victory of 1892 was not more sweeping; that, in consequence, the Home Rule Bill of 1893 was rejected by the Lords; and that, in 1894, Mr. Gladstone retired, baffled and beaten, from the struggle. At the elections of 1895 and 1900 the Tories were victorious, and during their long term of power the Coercion Act was frequently enforced. But there were concessions also. In 1890, Mr. Balfour's Land Act provided £33,000,000 for Irish land purchase, and in 1891 the Congested Districts Board was established. In 1896, there was an amending Land Act; and in 1898, the Local Government Act transferred the government of counties and rural districts from the non-representative Grand Juries to popularly elected bodies. A further important Act was that of Mr. Wyndham, in 1903, providing more than £100,000,000 for the buying out of the whole landlord class. Mr. Wyndham also favoured a policy of devolution, that is a delegation to local bodies of larger powers. But nothing was done till theLiberals came into office in 1906, and they had nothing more generous to offer than Mr. Birrell's National Councils Bill, a measure so halting and meagre, that an Irish National Convention rejected it with scorn. Mr. Birrell has been more fortunate in his University Bill, which, though not establishing a purely Catholic University, provides one in whichCatholic influences will predominate. In recent years also the programmes both in the national and secondaryschools have been made more practical, facilities have been given for agricultural and technicaleducation, and the greatecclesiastical college of Maynooth continues to maintain its reputation as the firstecclesiastical college in the world.

Relations between Church and state

By theCatholic Relief Act of 1829 legal proscription ceased for theCatholicChurch, as did legal ascendancy for theProtestant Church by Mr. Gladstone's Act of 1869. In practice, however,Protestant ascendancy largely remains still. Only within living memory was the firstCatholic lord chancellor appointed in theperson ofLord O'Hagan;Catholics are still excluded, except in rare instances, from the higher civil and military offices; and from the lord-lieutenancy they continue to be excluded bylaw.

Ecclesiastical organization

TheCatholicChurch, divided into four provinces, not, however, corresponding with the civil divisions, is ruled by fourarchbishops and twenty-threebishops. But the number ofdioceses is more than twenty-seven, for there have been amalgamations and absorptions. Cashel, for instance, has been joined with Emly, Waterford with Lismore, Kildare with Leighlin, Down with Connor, Ardagh with Clonmacnoise,Kilmacduagh with Galway, thebishop ofGalway being also Apostolic Administrator of Kilfenora. In manydioceses there are chapters, in others none. The number ofparishes is 1087. A few are governed by administrators, the remainder byparishpriests, while the total number of thesecular clergy —parishpriests, administrators,curates,chaplains, and professors in colleges — amounts to 2967. There are also many houses of theregularclergy: Augustinians,Capuchins,Carmelites,Fathers of the Holy Ghost,Dominicans,Franciscans,Jesuits,Marists, Order of Charity, Oblates,Passionists,Redemptorists, andVincentians. The total number of theregularclergy is 666. They are engaged either in teaching or in giving missions, but not charged with the government ofparishes. There is, however, one exception—that of thePassionists of Belfast, who have charge of theparish of Holy Cross in the city. There are the twoCistercianabbeys of Mount Melleray and Roscrea, each ruled by a mitredabbot, and having forty-three professedpriests.

Statistic

The population of Ireland has been steadily diminishing. In 1861, it was 5,798,564; in 1871, 5,412,377; in 1881, 5,174,836; in 1891, 4,704,751; in 1901, 4,458,775. The decrease is due to emigration, and as the great majority of the emigrants areCatholics, theCatholic population has suffered most. In 1861, it numbered 4,505,265; in 1871, 4,150,867; in 1881, 3,960,891; in 1891, 3,547,307; in 1901, 3,310,028. In the period from 1851 to 1901 the total number of emigrants, being natives of Ireland, who left Irish ports was 3,846,393. No less than 89 per cent went to theUnited States, the remainder going to Great Britain,Australia,Canada, and New Zealand. The saddest feature of this exodus is that 82 per cent of the emigrants were between 15 and 35 years of age. The healthy and enterprising have gone, leaving the weaker in mind and body at home, one result being that the number of lunatics increased from 16,505 in 1871 to 21,188 in 1891. In the latter year the total number of primaryschools was 9157, of which 8569 were under the National Board, 97 under theChristian Brothers and other communities, and 471 other primaryschools. In 1908 the total number of National Boardschools was 8538 under 3057 managers, of whom 2455 wereclerical and 602laymen. Of theclerical managers 1307 wereCatholics, 713 wereProtestant Episcopalians, 379Presbyterians, 52Methodists, and 4 unclassed. In 1901 the number of pupils in all the primaryschools was 636,777, of whom 471,910 wereCatholics. There has been a steady improvement in the matter of illiteracy. In 1841 the percentage of those above five years who could neither read not write was 53; in 1901 it had fallen to 14. Of the whole population 14 per cent could speak Irish. In 1901 there were 35,373 pupils in the Intermediateschools, the number ofCatholics being 78 per cent of the totalCatholic population. TheCatholic girls in theseschools were for the most parteducated in the variousconvents. The boys wereeducated in thediocesan colleges, or in the colleges of thereligious orders, and a proportion also in theChristian Brothers'schools. "In Colleges of Universities and other Colleges", in 1901, there were 3192 students, of whom 91 werefemales. The highest form ofecclesiasticaleducation is obtained atMaynooth, other such colleges being All Hallows and Clonliffe inDublin, Thurles, Waterford, and Carlow colleges.

Church property, churches, schools, cemeteries

Church property is usually held in trust by theparishpriest for theparish, thebishop for thediocese, the religious superior for his order, and often associated with other trustees. In many cases the title-deeds have been lost, but undisputed possession is considered sufficient, and theparish-priest or other superior for the time being is recognized as the legal owner of the church, church grounds, and cemetery, if there be such. New churches are built on land purchase out, or acquired free of rent or under very long lease, and church and ground are exempt from taxation. New cemeteries belong to the District Council, and many of the older cemeteries have been taken over by the same authority. Schools under the National Board are either vested or non-vested. If vested, they are held by trustees—usually thepriest, who is manager, and two others—and in this case only two-thirds of the cost of building is granted by Government. In the case of non-vestedschools, which are theproperty of the National Board itself, the full amount for building is granted by Government, and theschool is also kept in repair, while in vestedschools repairs have to be made by the manager. Both in vested and non-vestedschools the National Board regulates the programme, selects theschool books, and provides for the cost of examination and inspection. The appointment and dismissal of teachers rests with the manager, from whom in theCatholicschools there is an appeal to thebishop. All these are exempted from taxation.Clergymen of alldenominations get loans from Government on easy terms to build residences. These houses, however, are not exempt from taxation, and belong to theclergyman and his successors, not to himself personally.

Public institutions

Prisons are under government management, and always have aCatholicchaplain, when there areCatholic inmates. So also have workhouses, asylums, and countyhospital, which are under the local authority. Reformatories and industrialschools in the great majority of cases are underCatholic management, but they must be certified as suitable by a government official and are subject to government inspection from time to time. In 1900 there were in Ireland six reformatories and seventy industrialschools; the number of both sexes in the former being 624 and in the latter 8221. Both reformatories and industrialschools are maintained partly by a government grant and partly by the local rates.

Legal status of the clergy

Theclergy have, with some few exceptions, the usualrights of citizens. They can receive and dispose ofproperty by will as all others, and they can vote at elections. But they are excluded by law from the House of Commons, though not from the House of Lords; and they are excluded from the County and District Councils, though not from the various committees appointed by these bodies. They are exempt from military service and from serving on juries. Public worship is free; butpriests may not celebrate the Mass outside the churches or private houses, nor appear publicly in their vestments, nor have religious processions through the streets; nor many theregularclergy go abroad in the distinctive dress of their order. Theselaws however, are not enforced and not infrequently processions do take place through the streets, and theregularclergy do go abroad in their distinctive dress. Similarly, it is illegal forreligious orders of men to admit new members; but this provision of theCatholic Relief Act of 1829 has never been enforced.

Laws relating to charitable bequests, marriage, divorce

Generally speaking, all bequests for the advancement of public worship are valid; but bequests forsuperstitious uses are void. A bequest, for instance, to maintain a light before an image for the good of one'ssoul is void; but the bequests for Masses are good, unless left to a member of areligious order as such, the reason being thatreligious orders are still technically illegal. For the validity of a will nothing is required but that the testator be of sound mind at the time, and free from undue influence, and that the document be signed by two witnesses. As to marriage, it isnecessary that the contracting parties should be free, and that the mutual consent be given in the presence of two witnesses and aclergyman, or registrar duly appointed for the purpose. In the Irish courts no marriage can be dissolved; only a judicial separation can be obtained. When such a separation is obtained there is no difficulty in having a Bill passed through Parliament dissolving the marriage.

The press

There is no purelyCatholic newspaper acting as the mouthpiece either of an individual diocese or of the Irish Church. There are, however, in most of the provincial towns weekly newspapers, often owned byCatholics, and always ready to voiceCatholic opinion. InCork and Belfast there are daily papers animated with the same spirit, and in Dublin the "Freeman's Journal" and the "Daily Independent". In Dublin also is the "Irish Catholic", which is a powerful champion ofCatholicity; and there is the "Leader", not professedlyCatholic, but with a vigorous and manlyCatholic tone. These two are weeklies. Published monthly are the "Irish Monthly" under theJesuits, the "Irish Rosary" under theDominicans, the "Irish Educational Review", dealing withCatholiceducational matters, and the "Irish Ecclesiastical Record", edited by Dr. Hogan of Maynooth, under episcopal supervision. There is also the "Irish Theological Quarterly", which, as its name implies, is published quarterly, and conducted by the professors ofMaynooth College with an ability, an extent ofknowledge, a grasp of the subjects treated, and a vigour and freshness of style worthy ofMaynooth College in its palmiest days.

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