Ireland.

Hume begins his great work—his "History of England"—with these words: "The curiosity, entertained by all civilized nations, of enquiring into the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly exercise a regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction. Ingenious men, possessed of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the period in which literary monuments are framed or preserved, without reflecting that the history of past events is immediately lost or disfigured when entrusted to memory and oral tradition, and that the adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more civilized age." "It is rather fortunate for letters," Hume observes, "that these adventures," as he calls them, "are buried in silence and oblivion." The "fables" regarding prehistoric things, Hume adds: "which are commonly employed to supply the place of true history, ought entirely to be disregarded."^*

So writes Hume, and for the century in which he lived, and in the case of a mind constituted as his was, it could hardly have been expected that he would have written otherwise. Happily, in our day another spirit than that of Hume's prevails in relation to such questions as he refers to in the passage from his history, which I have quoted. The matters which he says ought entirely to be disregarded, are, in our day, the very matters which, perhaps, of all others, are paid the most attention to, and which are found to be possessed of an interest second to no others. The greatest philosophers that the world now possesses have occupied themselves with enquiries about our prehistoric ancestors, and have traced them back, not merely to the times alluded to by Hume, but even to the times when they existed, as it is often now represented, in the form of anthropoid apes; aye, even to the times when the germs of them existed in the nebulæ or fire mist of eternity.

The old Celtic historians, in giving us an account of prehistoric Ireland, do not go so far back as the fire mist, but they go for enough. We have all heard of the Grant, who, when some other Highlander was boasting about his ancestors having been in the ark with Noah, was not to be outdone, and who declared that at that time the Grants had a boat of their ain. The Irish outstrip the Highlander, for some of them say that Ireland was first peopled by three daughters or granddaughters of Adam, who, with their husbands, wherever they picked them up, came

^* Cæsar tells us that it took twenty years to complete the education of a Druid, and that during all that long course of training he was principally occupied in committing to memory. Now Druidism flourished in Ireland, probably to a greater extent than anywhere else. This is evident, for example, from the Round Towers of Ireland—the grand old monuments that Druidism has left behind it. When we know then that Ireland was a grand centre of Druidism, and when we recollect what Cæsar tells us about the scholastic exercise of the Druidical memory, it must be manifest that what the Druids handed down orally from generation to generation cannot be undeserving of attention. Much of this is still in existence.

page break and settled down in that country. This is a part of Irish history, however, that I will not vouch for; and although a patriotic Irishman personally, I have no objection to letting it, as Hume says, be "buried in silence and oblivion."

The first reliable accounts—or, perhaps I should say, semi-reliable accounts—that we have of the peopling of Ireland, are that Ireland was first peopled by the Firbolgs, who came from somewhere in the East, and who are said to have embarked for Ireland in the Euxine. In process of time, the Firbolgs were expelled by a people, who also came from the East, namely, the Tuath de Danaan. These) though an Eastern race, are believed to have come to Ireland by the way of Scandinavia, as the name Tuath de Danaan itself signifies, which simply means the Northern people, or, as the word came afterwards to be used, the Norsemen. The Tuath de Danaan were themselves, in process of time, conquered by another Eastern race, who are said, this time, to have come to Ireland by the way of Spain. They were called Milesians, from Milesius, the King of Spain, and they were sometimes also called Scots, which means the wanderers, from their migratory propensities—propensities which, we all know, are, to this day, inherent in their descendants, and especially in those descendants of them who still bear the original appellation.

Ireland was inhabited before ever the Firbolgs, the Tuath de Danaan, or the Milesians made their appearance, and some relics of this ancient people are now being discovered in burial mounds, and other things; but the Firbolgs, the Tuath de Danaan, and Milesians or Scots are the only people about whose early introduction into Ireland we can ever know much. Indeed, the light that history can throw upon them even is considerably dim. We know that they were of the old Aryan stock, whose original rooftree was somewhere in Central Asia; and that their language was Erse or Gaelic. Their language was one which was, at one time, spoken over the whole of Europe. There are traces of it in all European tongues; it has left its mark in the names of hills and rivers, and in other places and things in all European countries; and it is still spoken in Wales, in the Highlands of Scotland, and in Ireland; and it is preserved in the Sanscrit of India—the language in which the sacred writings of the Hindus are preserved. The language of the Gael or Celt is thus seen to be manifestly a most interesting tongue. However, I shall have time, at present, to say nothing more about it, but that it is, in our day, beginning to receive the attention that its merits warrant—of which the erection of the chair in Edinburgh is an example—and that, now that scholars in Ireland, in Scotland, in England, and in Germany are engaged in its study, we may expect results to arise that will be of the highest consequence, results that will throw light upon the origin of speech, and even upon the origin of humanity itself.

The Tuath de Danaan were either Norsemen themselves, or they acquired, in their Scandinavian sojourn, Norse habits. If they were conquered themselves, they were no doubt not exterminated, and they possessed themselves, and imparted to the surrounding tribes, the old Norse love of fighting, which, indeed, their descendants preserve to the present day. The result of this was that great warriors arose in Ireland, whose achievements the old Irish chroniclers and bards delight in singing. Such was Conn, of the hundred battles; and Fingal, as they page 5 call him in Scotland, or Finn MacCumhaill, as he is called in his own country. There was one of these warriors, however, that, above all others, was the terror of Europe. He is said to have carried his victorious arms as far as the Alps, and he was called Niall of the Nine Hostages, from the number of hostages belonging to conquered kingdoms that he kept in captivity. In one of his raids, he took captive a youth called Succoth, who remained in Ireland for many years, in a servile condition. At length he escaped, but was recaptured, and ultimately came to Ireland of his own free will, as a Christian missionary. Succoth's name came afterwards to be changed, and he is now known by the name which he has rendered glorious and immortal—the name of St. Patrick.^*

There are many curious and interesting things in the history of St. Patrick. One curious and interesting thing is that people of so many denominations claim him as their own. Roman Catholics assure us that he was a Roman Catholic, Episcopalians of the Anglican Communion assure us that he was an Episcopalian, and Presbyterians most positively affirm that he was a Presbyterian. I would like to push my claim to him, and demonstrate to you that the good old saint belonged to my church.^† But I have not time to do it at present, and I feel that if I had, to-night is not exactly a suitable occasion. All I will say about the matter just now is, that this desire, manifested by all the denominations, to claim St. Patrick, is the highest testimony that could be borne to his worth.

St. Patrick has been called the Apostle of Ireland, and he deserves the title. He was not the first to preach the gospel in Ireland. Christianity appears to have reached Ireland in the end of the second, or the beginning of the third century, and St. Patrick's labours were carried on in it in the fifth century. But, although St. Patrick was not the first to introduce Christianity into Ireland, he was the first whose labours were crowned with any great measure of success. Patrick was a most indefatigable worker. The field in which he first worked was the kingdom of the Dalridians, in the North of Ireland; but he went everywhere, and everywhere he went he triumphed. God was with him, and the powers of darkness quailed before him, and Druidism, the ancient religion of the land, became in St. Patrick's day almost extinct.

It is said by some that St. Patrick was successful in accomplishing the conversion of Laoghaire, the son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, and the chief monarch of Ireland. The ancient hymn^* is still extant that Patrick is said to have chanted as he went up to Tara to attempt his conversion; but it is more than doubtful whether Laoghaire ever became a Christian. At all events this is certain, that if he lived at all the life of a Christian, he died the death of a Pagan. His last words were that he should be buried on the ramparts of Tara, standing on his feet erect, clad in complete armour, with his sword drawn, and his face towards his enemies, the men of Leinster; and the wish of the grim, old warrier was, we are told, complied with to the letter.

Whether Patrick was successful or not in converting the chief monarch of Ireland, one thing, however, is certain, that his success as a missionary was, perhaps, unparalleled in the history of Christianity. On this point Moore, the Irish historian and poet, says: "While in other countries Christianity has been the slow work of time .... in Ireland, on the contrary, by the influence of one humble, but zealous missionary, and with little previous preparation of the soil by other hands, Christianity burst forth at the first ray of apostolic light; and, with the sudden ripeness of a northern summer, at once covered the whole land. Kings and princes, when not themselves in the ranks of the converted, saw their sons and daughters joining in the train. Chiefs, at variance in all else, agreed in meeting beneath the Christian banner, and the proud Druid and bard laid their superstitions meekly at the foot of the cross."

I believe, myself, that, if there is anyhow connected with Ireland's history "a glorious, pious, and immortal memory," that all Irishmen are bound to cherish, it is the memory of St. Patrick. He gave to Ireland the greatest boon she ever got, the blessings of Christianity; and such was the spirit that he, under God, succeeded in infusing into our holy religion, that, for centuries after his death, the Irish Church became the most missionary Church in Christendom. Ardens sed Virens, the motto, in our day, of one Irish Church, might have been, in those days, the motto of Irish Catholic Christianity. There was no corner of Europe, however barbarous or however remote, in which the Irish, or, as they were then called, the Scottish missionaries—men highly educated, and glowing with Christian ardour—were not to be found. The Irish

^* This hymn is very interesting. A translation of it, from the original Irish, may be seen in Dr. Todds' admirable "Life of St. Patrick," page 426. Dr. Petrie speaks of it as "the oldest undoubted monument of the Irish language remaining."

page 7 Church, in those days, gave Columba—a royal prince, and a man of like spirit with St. Patrick himself—to Scotland. She gave Columbanus to Gaul; and, not to particularise further, she carried the Gospel even to Iceland. We have the authority of Zeuss, as quoted and confirmed by Matthew Arnold, for saying that, "in the year 870, when the Norwegians came to Iceland, there were Christians there, who departed, and left behind them Irish books, bells, and other things; from whence it may be inferred that these Christians were Irish."

Ireland, it may be safely asserted, became, about the period I am referring to, distinguished, above all the nations of Europe, for its religion and enlightenment. It was called the Isle of Saints, and no seat of learning throughout Europe was considered to be thoroughly equipped until it numbered among its teachers one or more Irishmen. Most European noblemen and monarchs had Irishmen as tutors in their families, and many European princes—among others, Alfred the Great—resorted to Ireland for the completion of their education. Englishmen of all ranks flocked to Ireland, with this end in view; and, as the Venerable Bede tells us: "The Scots willingly received them all, and took care to supply them with food, as also to furnish them with books to read, and tuition, and all gratuitously."^*

Mosheim, the great ecclesiastical historian, in speaking about this period of Irish history, says: "Irishmen, who, in that age, were called Scots,"—he is speaking of the eighth and ninth centuries—"Irishmen, in that age, cultivated and amassed learning, beyond the other nations of Europe. They travelled over various countries of Europe, for the purpose of learning, but still more for that of teaching. They were to be met with everywhere—in France, Germany, and Italy—discharging the functions of teachers, with applause." "None," he says, again, "but Irish scholars, in that age, employed philosophy (which others detested) in the explanation of religious doctrines." Mosheim winds up his eulogistic account of Ireland by adding that "there were none but Irishmen who, in that age, deserved the name of Philosophers." Indeed, I may add, that there were Irishmen even then, dark as the age was, who, were they living even now, would not be considered undeserving of that appellation. Such was Marianus Scotus, the author of the celebrated "Chronicon"; such was Fergal, abbot of Saltzburgh, surnamed the Geometer, who, in the eighth century, taught the sphericity of the earth and the existence of the antipodes; and such, above all, was Johanes Scotus Erigina, one of the very greatest of the school-men—a man who might contest the palm with the angelic doctor himself, Thomas Acquinas.

There is, I might state here, a story told about Johannes Scotus Erigina, which shows that he was an Irishmen in other respects, as well as by reason of his learning and philosophy. He was a friend of

^* About this time 7,000 students were in one year in attendance at the colleges in Armagh, and 5,000 at Cashel. Dr. Killen, in his "Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," says:—"This resort of students to Ireland did not fail to excite jealousy on the part of Anglican Churchmen. Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmsbury, writing about the end of the seventh century, can scarcely express himself with calmness, when adverting to their continued migration. "Why," said he, "should Ireland—whither troops of students are carried in fleets from this country—enjoy any such ineffable distinction; as if here, in the rich soil of England, Greek masters or Roman chiefs cannot be found?" Vet Adhelm was himself educated in Ireland,

page 8 Charles the Bald, of France, and was often a guest at the royal table. One day, as Scotus sat after dinner, opposite the monarch, and, as they both sipped their wine, Charles said to him: "Come now, Scotus, tell me, what is the difference between a Scot and a sot?" "Nothing at all but the table, please your majesty," was the reply of the Irishman—a reply which shows, as many a similar thing has done since, in the case of his countrymen, that an Irishman's wits, when the occasion presents itself, are seldom found wool-gathering.

We need not go to legends, however, for the confirmation of what I am now speaking of. There are plenty of facts, in addition to what I have already referred to, that attest the greatness and prosperity of ancient Ireland. For one thing, I may mention that there is more wrought gold in the British Museum, procured from Ireland, and that belonged to the period of Ireland's ancient history, than there is from England or Scotland, or from any other European country; and, for another thing, I may mention that, at a time when the Scandinavian hordes had conquered a considerable portion of France, and were all but dominant in England, Brian Boru, the chief monarch of Ireland, encountered the Norseman in full force, at Clontarf, overthrew them, and gained such a complete victory over them that they never afterwards presumed to disturb the peace of Ireland.

I have presented you with the bright side of the picture.^* It has a dark side, however, as you all know, and it I must now proceed to present you with. In the twelfth century, a dark cloud gathered over Ireland, which hung over it for centuries, and which, in our day—if even in our day—is only beginning to be uplifted.

Ireland's decline and fall date from the day when Adrian IV, the only Englishman that ever occupied the Papal chair, in his famous Bull, handed over Ireland to Henry II. But I must hasten on, and not forget that I am only giving a lecture upon Ireland, and not writing the history of the country.

Well, I need not go into all this. You all know what the Normans did. They conquered England, and ground beneath their feet the old English race, and went so far as to attempt even to stamp out of existence our grand old Saxon tongue. They all but conquered Scotland, and would have done so but that Providence raised up for her

^* This picture it is necessary to have before us when we try to understand Ireland's present condition. The Celtic memory is tenaceous of the past, and it causes the Irishman to bear worse his present miseries, when he remembers, as he always does most vividly, the happiness and prosperity his country once possessed.

page 9 deliverance William Wallace and Robert Bruce. There was, alas! no Bruce and no Wallace in Ireland when Henry II came, and there was no deliverance for the Scots of Ireland, as there was for their kindred, the Scots of Scotland. It is true that, after the battle of Bannockburn, which liberated Scotland, the Irish appealed for assistance to Robert Bruce, and that he sent to their aid his brother Edward, with an army of six thousand men. Edward, who was closely related to the Royal family of Ireland, was crowned king of that country. The native princes all flocked around his standard, and, for a time, they carried all before them. But fate was against Ireland. Edward, with all his forces, was defeated in a great battle fought near Dandalk, in October, 1328. He was himself killed in the same battle, and the Scottish enterprise came to an end.^*

It would have been well for Ireland had Edward Bruce succeeded in liberating her. When he did not, it would have been well for her even that the Normans had conquered her outright. But they did not. They contented themselves at first with only obtaining a footing in the country, and planting in it a small semi-military colony. Not until four hundred years after their first attacking it could they be said to have subjugated the country. Had the Normans subjugated Ireland at once, as they did England, by a single battle, the Irish would have seen the uselessness of further struggle, and would have settled down in peace, and both races would have joined together, and become, as the Normans and Saxons did in England, a united and contented people.

The conquest of Ireland, as I have said, was long protracted, and hence centuries of struggle and turmoil. Hence centuries of continuous outbreak on the part of the native race, and centuries of continuous effort to put down these outbreaks on the part of the invaders. There was one thing, I may remark, that invariably characterised these efforts of the English to put down these outbreaks of the native race, and that was the most barbarous cruelty. Regarding some of these outbreaks, and the way in which they were attempted to be put down, Mr. Lecky—a most impartial historian,—in his late book, says: "The suppression of the native race, in the wars against Shane O'Neil, Desmond, and Tyrone, were carried on with a ferocity which surpassed that of Alva, in the Netherlands."

That of Mr. Lecky's is a strong statement; for Alva, to my mind, as nearly resembled the devil as almost any man I ever read about; but I do not think, nevertheless, that the statement is too strong. The facts of the case too terribly warrant it, and it is confirmed by another distinguished historian of our own day. Mr. Froude says: "The English nation were shuddering over the atrocities of the Duke of Alva. The children in the nurseries were being inflamed to patriotic rage and madness by tales of Spanish tyranny. Yet Alva's bloody sword never touched the young, the defenceless, or those whose sex even dogs can recognise."

It was a common practice on the part of the English, in suppressing the outbreaks to which I am referring, and especially that of Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, in the time of Elizabeth—it was, I say, a common practice with them to take up little children on the points of their spears, and to twirl them aloft in their death agony. Women with child were ripped up, and many others were hung on trees, with the infants who were at their breasts strangled in their hair. That the native race might be utterly exterminated, their harvests were, year after year, systematically burned. The utter extermination of the Gael in Ireland well nigh resulted. Here is Spencer's account of what the country was brought to—a man who, though one of the noblest of our poets, hated the Irish with a savage hatred. He lived in one of the confiscated castles of the land, and was an eye-witness of what he describes, and, strange as it may seem, rejoiced at it:—"Out of every comer of the woods and glynnes they (the Irish) came, creeping forth upon their hands, for their legges could not beare them: they looked like anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy when they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and, if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked, as to a feast, for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left voyde of man and beast."^*

I could present you with many more pictures to the like effect as Spencer's, but I must not sicken you too much. The reading of Irish history about this period is like entering a charnel-house or a chamber of horrors.

You have all heard of Glencoe. Have you not? Of course you have,—the Glencoe of Scotland. But many of you, I believe, have never heard of the Glencoes of Ireland; and yet they existed, and existed in no solitary instances. Here is one of them, and I shall tell you of it in the words of an unimpassioned historian, Mr. Lecky: "Essex accepted the hospitality of Sir Brian O'Neil. After a banquet, when the Irish chief had retired unsuspiciously to sleep, the English general surrounded the house with soldiers, captured his host, with his wife and his brother, sent them all to Dublin for execution, and massacred the whole body of his friends and retainers."

The Irish people, I need not tell you, were sorely persecuted on account of their religion. Some, who have not looked into these matters, fancy that this persecution only commenced with the Protestant Reformation. This, however, is a mistake. The Irish were persecuted on account of their religion from the very day that the Norman invaders

^* This is a picture that it might be supposed could hardly be paralleled, but what in regard to horror could not be paralleled in Ireland's history? This, for example, comes up to it. "A party, in the time of Cromwell, hunting for Tories on a dark night, discovered a light. They thought it was a fire, which the Tories usually made in those waste countries to dress their food and warm themselves. Drawing near, they found a ruined cabin, and, besetting it round, some alighted and peeped in at the window. There they saw a great fire of wood, and, sitting round about it a great company of miserable old women and children, and betwixt them and the fire a dead corpse lay broiling, which, as the fire roasted, they cut off collops and ate."—Pendergast's "Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland," page 150.

page 11 set their feet upon the shores of Ireland; and the clergy, whom these invaders brought with them, were as little disposed as the laity were to show mercy to the native race. English monks were known to declare that it was no more harm to kill an Irishman than to kill a dog, and that, if they themselves killed one, they would not, on account of this, refrain, even for a day, from the celebration of mass.

But if the persecution of the Irish did not commence with the introduction of Protestantism, Protestantism, I am sorry to have to acknowledge, did nothing for more than a century after its introduction to mitigate the rigours of that persecution. On the other hand, I am obliged to confess that it aggravated them. The period I am referring to was, as we all know, an era of intolerance in regard to religious opinion, and the Protestantism of Ireland was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the age.

"Take care," said Queen Mary, in writing to William III., "of the Church in Ireland. Everybody agrees that it is the worst in Christendom." And everybody agrees now in believing that the vox populi was, in this case, the vox Dei. Dean Swift, himself a dignitary of the Irish Church, had his own way of putting it, as to how the hierarchy of that Church came to be what they were. He says that men, in every way qualified for the hierarchical offices, were appointed to them in England; but, as they set out from London for their fields of labour, they were one and all murdered on Hounslow Heath, and that the highwaymen took possession of their papers, assumed their names, went on to Ireland and occupied their places.^* Yet, because the Irish would not conform to such a Church as this, they suffered a persecution that well nigh equalled the persecution of Nero. A Penal Code was enacted of a most extraordinary nature, in order to oblige the Roman Catholics to apostatise. Regarding this Code, the great Protestant statesman, Edmund Burke, says:—"It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degredation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."

I shall mention to you a few things of what the Roman Catholics in Ireland in those days suffered, and suffered principally on account of their non-conformity to the Protestant religion. First of all, the most extraordinary restrictions were placed upon them as to the holding of property. For example, no Roman Catholic could own a horse worth more than £5; and any Protestant, by tendering to a Roman Catholic five guineas, could take his horse, no matter what its real value. Priests were expelled the country, and severe penalties were

^* Such as this Church was in the days of William III and of Swift, such was it in the time of Spenser. He says, "The most part of such English ministers as come over thither, were either unlearned, or men of some bad note, for which they have forsaken England." He knew them well, and he accused them among other things of "grosse simony, greedy coveteousness, fleshly incontinency, carelesse sloath, and generally all disordered life." These were men that were well fitted to work a reformation in religion ! See a full account of them in Spenser's "View of the State of Ireland (Routledge's Edition," page 530.

There were, however, in this church, even from the very outset, some remarkably good men, such as the Apostolic Usher, the sainted Bedell, and the heavenly-minded Jeremy Taylor. The heavenly-mindedness of Taylor, though, did not keep him from being an ardent disciple of Laud, and from persecuting the Presbyterians relentlessly.

page 12 inflicted upon the people for giving them shelter. At one time as much as £20 was offered to any informer who would make known to the authorities the whereabouts of a single priest, and death was the penalty denounced against anyone who was found guilty of the crime of harbouring one. A priest caught at Carickmacross was "cut into pieces as small as for a pot." Patrick O'Hely, Bishop of Mayo, and Cornelius O'Rorke, a Roman Catholic priest, were tortured with the rack; their hands and feet were broken with hammers, needles were thrust under their nails, and after being thus tortured they were hanged. I shall only tell you of another case, and, lest you should suspect exaggeration in the account of it, I shall relate it to you, not in the words of any Roman Catholic historian, but in those of Mr. Lecky. He says: "A Catholic archbishop, named Hurly, fell into the hands of the English authorities, and, before they sent him to the gallows, they tortured him, to extort confession of treason, by one of the most horrible tortures human nature can endure—by roasting his feet."^*

One does not wonder much, after reading horrors like these, that the Irish should have risen up as they did in 1641, and massacred multitudes who were engaged in their oppression, or who were even only of the race of their oppressors. As Mr. Lecky again puts it, "The pent up fury of a people, brutalised by long oppression, broke out at last. They fought as men will fight, who had been despoiled of their property, whose religion was under the ban of the law, who expected no quarter from their adversaries, and whose parents had been hunted down like wild beasts."^†

Remember, too, that all the time that the Irish were suffering, in the way that I have shown—suffering for their non-conformity to the religion that was being imposed upon them, the very language that they spoke was under a ban. The Bible was not allowed to be translated into Irish, and Elizabeth enacted that the services of the Church, which the Irish were being compelled to join, should, in no case, and under no circumstances, be conducted in the only tongue which the great bulk of the native race understood. Do you wonder that the Irish remained attached to the Romish communion? I do not. The marvel would have been if they had deserted it.

From what I have put before you, you will see that Mr. Froude speaks correctly, when he speaks as he does in the following passage. He is usually no friend of the Celt, but he says: "The Irish were not to be blamed if they looked to the Pope, to Spain, to France; to any friend in earth or heaven to deliver them from a power which discharged no single duty that rulers owe to subjects."^‡

The Presbyterians, also, of Ireland, were persecuted for their religion, and persecuted with great severity, although with nothing like the severity of their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. One result of it all was that multitudes fled from the country—the Roman Catholics principally to the Continent of Europe (40,000 of them were, at one time, in the service of Spain), and the Presbyterians principally to America. In the lands to which they fled, they showed that the memory of what they endured in their fatherland did not soon die out. The Roman Catholics showed that it did not, as the English learned to their cost in the bloody field of Fontenoy;^* and the Presbyterians showed that it did not, by their action in the revolutionary war in America. "America has been lost to England," said Lord Mountjoy, "through the Irish emigrants," and in bringing about that loss none of the Irish, as is well known, contributed so much as the Presbyterians. Several of them sat in the first Parliament of the United States, and some of them had the honour of signing the Declaration of Independence.

But I must pass on to other matters. I remember Sir Hercules Robinson, our late Governor, in a speech he made in New Zealand, referred to some Irish lady, a relative of his, who once visited England, and who returned to her own land fancying that she had found a remedy for the ills of Ireland. Her remedy was this: That the British Government should establish all over Ireland manufactories, such as she had seen in England. Well, I shall tell you something of what the British Government did for Irish manufactures, and I shall tell it to you in the words of Lord Dufferin, the late Governor of Canada, and now British Ambassador in St. Petersburg. Lord Dufferin, in his book on "The State of Ireland," published in 1866, says: "From Queen Elizabeth's reign until a few years of the Union (the Parliamentary Union of Ireland with Great Britain), the various commercial confraternities of Great Britain never for a moment relaxed their relentless grip on the trades of Ireland. One by one, each of our nascent industries was strangled in its birth, until, at last, every fountain of wealth was hermetically sealed, and even the traditions of commercial enterprise have perished through desuetude.

"The owners of England's pastures opened the campaign. As early as the commencement of the sixteenth century the beeves of Ros-common, Tipperary, and Queen's County undersold the produce of the English grass counties, in their own market. By an Act of the 20th of Elizabeth, Irish cattle were declared a 'nuisance,' and their

^* It was after Fontenoy that George II said, in reference to the penal laws against the Irish Catholics: "Cursed be the laws that deprive me of such subjects."

page 14 importatation was prohibited. Forbidden to send our beasts alive across the Channel, we killed them at home, and began to supply the sister country with cured provisions. A second Act of Parliament imposed prohibitory duties on salted meats. The hides of the animals still remained, but the same influence soon put a stop to the importation of leather. Our cattle trade abolished, we tried sheep farming. Irish wool was declared contraband by a Parliament of Charles II. Headed in this direction, we tried to work up the raw material at home; but this created the greatest outcry of all. Every maker of fustian, flannel, and broadcloth in the country rose up in arms, and by an Act of William III, the woollen industry of Ireland was extinguished, and 20,000 manufacturers left the Island. The easiness of the Irish labour market and the cheapness of provisions still giving us an advantage, even though we had to import our materials, we next made a dash at the silk business; but the silk manufacturer proved as pitiless as the wool staplers. The cotton manufacturer, the sugar refiner, the soap and candle manufacturer, and any other trade or interest that thought it worth while to petition, was received by Parliament with the same partial cordiality, until the most searching scrutiny failed to detect a single vent through which it was possible for the hated industry of Ireland to respire. But, although excluded from the markets of Great Britain, a hundred harbours gave her access to the universal sea. Alas ! a rival commerce on her own element was still less welcome to England, and, as early as the reign of Charles II, the Levant, the ports of Europe, and the oceans beyond the Cape were forbidden to the flag of Ireland. What has been the consequence of such a system, pursued with relentless pertinacity for 250 years? This: that, debarred from every other trade and industry, the entire nation flung itself back upon the land, with as fatal an impulse as when a river, whose course is impeded, rolls back and drowns the valley it once fertilized."^*

What a picture, and a picture drawn with a cool, unimpassioned hand ! It is a picture, however, that might easily be darkened, and darkened at no expense of truth. One does not wonder, on reading of all these prohibitions, that Spenser, in his day, should have gone the length, as he did, of expressing a desire for prohibiting the Irish from wearing their hair after a certain fashion, and from clothing themselves in certain garments. He declared that an Act of Parliament should be passed, enjoining the Irish to wear their hair in a way different from what they were accustomed to, and that they should be bound likewise to abandon the use of the ancient Celtic cloak or plaid. Neither does one wonder that a law was actually passed by England against the extravagant amount of material used by the Irish ladies in the construction of a certain garment, which, I suppose, I ought not to name, and which I would not name, did not the requirements of history

^* The present excellent Lord Mayor of London, the Right Hon. William McArthur, is the only Irishman who ever was Lord Mayor of that city. When he was in New Zealand, two years ago, he was a London Alderman, and he told myself he was the only Irishman who had ever occupied that position. Ireland has no reason to be ashamed of the position she has occupied in the armies of Britain, in the ranks of British statesmanship, and in the field of British literature. That her sons have not attained to the highest civic dignities of the Empire is, in some measure, the result of accident; wherein it is not, is, I believe, explicable on the grounds stated in the above extract from Lord Dufferin.

page 15 demand it,—I mean the chemise. Fearful penalties, according to this law, were to be inflicted on any Irish lady who was caught clad as to her inner garment in the least amount of linen beyond the prescribed number of yards and of inches.^*

From the "North British Review," for 1868, I quote the following passage:—"We alienated the hearts of our fellow citizens, by iniquity and oppression, generations ago, and now it is too late for either repentance or reform to win them back. The mischief is done, and we are forced, like so many other offenders, to sit down in the midst of our new-born virtue, and our sincere aspirations after a better life, and mourn over the irreparable." There is much truth in that, but I do not believe that it is too late to amend, or that things, in this case, are irreparable. The condition into which Ireland, through ages of misgovernment, has been brought, is bad; but I do not believe that there is no remedy for it.

But what is the remedy? Here the doctors, in countless numbers, rush forward, and each has his own diagnosis of the case, and each prescribes his own nostrum.^† A great many Irish doctors are of opinion that there is no remedy for Ireland but amputation—entire separation from England. It is not to be wondered at, looking, as we have done to-night, at the past history of Ireland and her connection with England, that many should be of this opinion. But it is an opinion, nevertheless, that I, for my part, do not entertain. England, in her day, used Ireland horribly ill, but I believe that the destinies of Ireland are now inseparably connected with Great Britain; and I believe, moreover, that British statesmen are now just as much disposed to do justice to Ireland as to any other portion of the Empire.^‡

Bishop Selwyn, in his speech in the House of Lords, on the Irish Church Bill, said: "The real difficulty in Ireland is the land and anyone, who knows anything about the subject, knows that this is the case. The great remedy that Ireland needs she needs to have applied to her in this direction.

It is somewhat difficult for anyone but an Irishman to understand the Irish land question. First of all—in regard to it, there is this to be borne in mind—that an ancient Celtic landlord was not a landlord

^* It was actually made one of the conditions upon which a peace was patched up between Hugh O'Neill and Queen Elizabeth, that O'Neill should oblige his people to abandon the use of the cloak or plaid, and cause them to cut their hair in the new fashion. For an account of the laws passed in the reign of Henry VIII, regarding the ladies' garment—the most extraordinary sumptuary law, I believe, ever passed—see "Encyclopaedia Britannica," second edition—article, Ireland.

^† This is the remedy prescribed by the Toronto Weekly Mail of October last: "Perhaps the only cure for the ills which afflict this unhappy land is in emigration. Let the tenant follow the landlord's example, and become an absentee. In this country Irishmen, no matter what their creed, prosper—which is pretty good proof that their failure at home is not altogether their own fault." This is a remedy, but it is obviously only a partial one. The whole Irish nation cannot emigrate.

^‡ The following sentence, taken from Mr. Matthew Arnold's work upon "The Study of Celtic Literature," bears upon what is stated above, and is, I make no doubt, quite correct: "The sense of antipathy to the Irish people, of radical estrangement from them, has visibly abated among all the better part of us (Englishmen); the remorse for past ill treatment of them, the wish to make amends, to do them justice, to fairly unite, if possible, in one people with them, has visibly increased; hardly a book on Ireland is now published, hardly a debate on Ireland now passes in Parliament without this appearing."

page 16 in the modern sense of the term. He was not the absolute owner of the land; he only had what the Maories call a mana over it. The absolute ownership of the land among the ancient Celts—as, indeed, I believe, among all primitive people—was vested in the tribe and in the occupier of the soil, as much as in the chieftain. The feudal system of land tenure, which is the modern English system, was introduced into Ireland by its conquerers; but, as the conquest of Ireland took centuries to be completed, and, as the fuedal system, during all these centuries, was never univerally established in Ireland, the consequence was that the old Celtic idea of land tenure kept, and still keeps fast hold upon the popular mind.

Then again, the land in the North of Ireland is nearly all land that, in the reign of Elizabeth and her immediate successors, was confiscated. The confiscated land was given to scions of noble English and Scottish families, and other needy adventurers; but the ownership of it was not vested in them absolutely. They were bound by the charters, by which they held their estates, to exact from their tenants only a certain amount of dues or rent, usually to the value of a penny or twopence an acre. The confiscated properties are held still on these conditions, and, though these conditions are now disregarded by the landlords, it is the opinion of many, even of those who are best qualified to give an opinion, that the principle of them could still be enforced.^* All trace of the rights of the people to the land in the confiscated estates is, however, not altogether obliterated. It exists in what is called the Ulster Custom—the custom of the occupier when he gives up his farm, selling often at as much as £10 an acre, and sometimes at as much as £20 or more even, his tenant right or goodwill of it.

Then, still further, we are to remember that, while in England and Scotland the permanent improvements upon the land and upon the farm buildings are effected by the landlord, these are, in Ireland, invariably effected by the tenant. The landlord in that unhappy country simply receives his rents, and, with the receipt of them, his duties towards the land, and towards the occupiers of it, terminate.

Then there is another peculiarity of land tenure which exists in Ireland, and which Spenser tells us existed in his day. Spenser says:—"There is one general inconvenience which reigneth almost throughout all Ireland: that is, the lords of land and freeholders, doe not there use to set out their land in farme, or for terme of years, to their tenants, but onely from yeare to yeare, and some during pleasure." This custom still prevails in Ireland, and in my day in it—a quarter of a century ago—the great bulk of the tenants were annually served with notices of ejectment. This, of course, gave the landlords the power over their wretched tenantry of almost instantaneous eviction, and was altogether supposed to keep them in a wholesome state of subjection and terrorism. Spenser makes a remark in regard to this, which is still deserving of attention. He says:—"This inconvenience (of tenancy at will) may be reason enough to ground any ordinance for the good of the common-wealth, against the private

^* This was the opinion of the late Dr. McKnight, editor of the Londonderry Standard, the ablest advocate of Tenant Right that Ireland ever produced. For his book upon this subject he received the degree of L.L.D. from one of the Scottish Universities.

page 17 behoofe or will of any landlord that shall refuse to graunt any such terme or estate, unto his tenant, as may tend to the good of the whole realme."^* This, then, is how the country, in regard to landlord and tenant, is situated, and this is how the relations that exist between them have come about. The relations, I need not tell you, are not happy. No doubt it would have been different had the landlords been different; but the landlords of Ireland, I have no hesitation in saying, are, as a class, the worst in Europe. The great bulk of them are absentees, ^† and, as a rule, they have no regard for their tenantry. As they were in the days of Dean Swift, so are they still. Swift said of them:—"Another cause of Ireland's misery is, that Egyptian bondage of cruel, oppressing, and covetous landlords, expecting all who live under them should make bricks without straw; who grieve and envy when they see a tenant of their own in a whole coat, or able to afford one comfortable meal in a month, by which the spirits of the people are broken and made fit for slavery. These cruel landlords are every day unpeopling the Kingdom.'"

Looking at this subject then, as I have thus briefly explained it to you, is it, I ask, to be wondered at that agrarian disturbances exist in Ireland? Is it to be wondered at that the too-impassioned Celt, ground down and oppressed, and having no legal redress for the ills that he endures, and with the recollection of his ancient wrongs still fresh in his memory, and kept green there by what he still suffers,—is it to be wondered at, I say, that he sometimes takes the law into his own hands, and, by the commission of a crime—which, however, I need not tell you I have no desire to excuse—occasionally checks, even by the shedding of blood, a career of tyranny?^‡ His cooler Saxon brethren, in their

^* The above statement of Spenser's is not unlike that lately made by Mr. Foster, Chief Secretary for Ireland. He said "There are some circumstances in Ireland, as affecting landlords and tenants, which put them in such difficulty that the rules of political economy, as between buyer and seller, do not apply."

^† Sir George Grey, in his pamphlet upon the "Irish Land Question," gives an account of one particular case of absentee landlordism. The case he speaks of is that of the descendants of the Earl of Essex, who, although Ireland has hardly ever been visited by any of them, receive from that county an enormous rental. Perhaps, however, the most extraordinary instance of this absenteeism exists in connection with the London companies. When the lands of the North of Ireland were confiscated, great estates were handed over to these companies—the Mercers, Drapers, Goldsmiths, Fishmongers, Ironmongers, Vintners, Clothworkers, Merchant Tailors, Haberdashers, Skinners, and Salters. The revenues from these vast estates, as MacNevin, in his book on "The Confiscation of Ulster," remarks, are taken from the poorest country in Europe to be spent in its richest city: and they are spent in the most extraordinary manner, very much in great feasts, and in tours to Ireland, and in other ways after this fashion. Yet, when a friend of mine, the late Professor Smith, moved, in the House of Commons, for an enquiry into the way in which these estates are managed—they are supposed to be managed simply for the benefit of the occupiers of the soil—that enquiry was refused ! When one of these Merchant Tailors, or Fishmongers, or Skinners fails to get on in business in London, he is sometimes sent over to Ireland, to manage an estate, and I must say, from my own knowledge of them, that these "beggars on horseback" are about the most arbitrary landlords in Ireland.

Why could not these estates be taken from the London companies—who have so abused their trust—and be handed over to some local Irish body, and their revenues devoted to some object for the advancement of the welfare of the Irish people—education, for example?

^‡ It is not through any peculiar inherent depravity in the Irish people that the murders that are now taking place in Ireland are committed. The Irish possess no such inherent depravity beyond what other nations possess. For one thing, as statistics show, and as Mr. Froude declares, in regard to morals, "Ireland, in proportion to its population, is the purest country in the world;" and, for another thing, no people possess such affection for their kindred as the Irish possess. We have a wonderful example of this in what poor Irish emigrants do for their poorer kindred at home. As Sir George Grey says, in the pamphlet already referred to, "To enable poor relations to escape from their wretchedness, the amount known to have been remitted (from the United States) from 1848 to 1868, not including the large amounts which cannot be traced, is about £14,000,000 sterling," which shows, as Sir George adds, "an affection and faithfulness, which would ennoble any race."

It is, of course, the peculiarity of the murders that are committed in Ireland that causes them to attract so much attention. They are nearly all of an agrarian character. Murders of any other kind are extremely rare in Ireland, and, indeed, murders of all kinds are much rarer in Ireland than in England, or in most European countries.

In fact, as is well known, these agrarian murders are not—by those who commit them, and by the great bulk of the Irish people—accounted murders at all. They take place in this way: When a landlord is supposed to be guilty of what is considered a capital crime, he is tried by a secret tribunal, and if he is found guilty, one or more men are appointed to execute him. This is what gives to these murders their extraordinary peculiarity, and renders them so difficult to be detected and dealt with by the authorities.

page 18 time, did the same. In Prussia, previous to the establishment of its present land laws, the murder of landlords was not uncommon, and the same thing was done even by the English tenantry, as Giraldus Cambrensis, and other old historians, tell us, when the Roman barons first took possession of the country. Regarding this, Macaulay, in his history, says:—"Assassination was an event of daily occurrence. Many Normans suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace. The corpses of many were found, bearing the marks of violence. Death by torture was denounced against the murderers, and strict search was made for them, but generally in vain, for the whole nation was in a conspiracy to screen them."^*

Ireland can never have peace, then, and can never be prosperous until her land laws are regulated by wise legislative enactment. The power of arbitrary eviction, without compensation for improvements, must be done away with, and fixity of tenure, somehow or other, secured to the people. We may be told, and are told, that this will be interfering with the rights of property. But the principle of interference, in the direction I am speaking of, has already been established by the Irish Land Bill, passed by Mr. Gladstone in a former Parliament;^† and I suppose that it is an axiom of political economy that all property, and especially all landed property, can only be held by individuals subject to the necessities of the State and the well being of the community.

There never will, then, I say, be peace in Ireland till this question is settled, and I may add, before concluding this lecture, that that peace never will be perfected till the secret societies of the Irish, Protestant and ante-Protestant, and their party hatreds and party processions are terminated. This latter, however, is a reform that I fear is not likely to be very soon effected. It is not, if we may judge, for example by what we see in New Zealand. It is sad to see this old, senseless party business introduced into this land, and fostered, as it often is, by men who ought to know better. I could say much upon this subject, but I shall say nothing more about it at present but this,—that if this party ism goes on, we in New Zealand shall reap the bitter fruits of it, as people have reaped them in all lands where it has prevailed.

Shall anything like Irish landlordism ever arise in New Zealand? God forbid; and yet, perhaps, it may. At all events, this is certain, that the people of this country, who have still the matter, in a great measure, in their own hands, are giving facilities to those, who wish them, for the development of something of this kind such as are possessed by no other colony of the British Empire. Perhaps, and I hope before it is too late, Sir George Grey's warnings about this may be more heeded by the people of New Zealand, than they appear to be at present.