The Book of Erin, or, Ireland's story told to the new democracy

Front matter

syraas&Si^Æsssi xvi^30f the sky ; but can ye not dZe7a ih° THE BOOK OF ERIN OR IRELAND'S STORY TOLD TO THE NEW DEMOCRACY. p.'. J. MORRISON DAVIDSON, (OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE) BARRISTER-AT-LAW, Author of "Eminent Radicals," "The New Book of Kings," "The Booh of Lords," &-c, &-c. " In the Twentieth Century War will be dead ; Royalty will be dead ; Dogmas will be dead ; but Man will live. For all there will be but one Country— that Cou ntry the whole Earth ; for all there will be but one Hope — the whole Heaven. All hail then to the noble Twentieth Century which shall own our children and which our children shall inherit. Victor Hugo lonbon : WILLIAM REEVES, 185, Fleet Street, E.C. AUTHOR'S NOTE. In the preparation of this volume two literary friends, Mr. George Stirling Hume (of the Middle Temple and Melbourne, Australia) and Mr. James S. Rose (North British Daily Mail, Glasgow), have rendered very valuable assistance — assistance for which I take this opportunity of expressing my sincere gratitude. J. M. D. N.B. — For Contents, Authorities, &c, see end of book. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY.

Chapter I

Primitive Ireland. Situation, Size and Configuration — Race — Ancient Irish Consti tution and Customs — The Brehons — Money — Saer Stock and Daer Stock— Habits of the Pagan Irish.

Chapter II

St. Patrick and Early Irish Christianity. Christ and Odin— The Vikings and the Field of Contarf— Brian of the Tributes.

Chapter III

The Bull Laudabiliter and the Anglo-Norman Invasion. Effects of Contarf— The Norsemen— The Bull Laudabiliter— The Pretext for Invasion— Tanistry and Gavelkind — No Estate of Inheritance — Partitions of Tribal Land — Effects of Frequent Partition — Position of Daughters and of Bastard Sons — Strong-bow and the Normans — Henry II. in Ireland.

Chapter IV

Plantagenet Rule in Ireland. Synod of Cashel — Treaty of Windsor — Deaths of Dermod, Strongbow, and Henry II. — King John in Ireland — Subsidies Levied on the Pale — Bannockburn and its Effects on Ireland — The Hiberno-Scottish Alliance — Effects of the Scottish Expedition.

Chapter VIII

The First English King of Ireland. Civil Policy and Government of Henry VI II. — The Cost of the Pale to England — St. Leger's Parliament of 1541 — Indentures of O'Neil and O'Donnell — Irish Revenues — Statute of Absentees.

Chapter IX

Reformation, Counter Reformation, and Plantation. Reign of Edward VI. — The Reign of Queen Mary — Reign of Queen Elizabeth — Shane O'Neil — Queen F.lizabeth and the Pope — Sir James Fitzmaurice.

Chapter X

Massacres and Plantations by the " Virgin Queen " and the "British Solomon." The Desmond Rebellion — Battle of Glenmalure — English Atrocities — Sharing the Spoil — Tyrone's Rebellion and the Plan tation of Ulster — Battle of Beal-an-athy-buy — The Essex Campaign — More English Atrocities.

Chapter XI

Rule of " Thorough." Plantation of Ulster— Ulster Tenant Right— The Plantation of Leinster— Agrarian Outrages— James's Irish Parliament Summoned (1613)— Martyrdom — Catholic Education Prohibited — " Squeezing" Connaught—" The Graces"—" Black Tom."

Chapter XII

The " Curse of (Protector) Cromwell." 'Forty-one (1641) — Erin in Exile — The Rising — Sir Phelim O'Nei — Owen Roe O'Neil — Massacres and Marvels — The Catholic Confederacy — Nuncio Rinucini — Battle of Benburb — Rounhead Jones — Rout at Rathmines — Oliver and his Ironsides — Carte's Account of the "Great Mercy " — Clarendon's Account.

Chapter XIII

The Act of Settlement and the " Blessed Restoration. Sack of Wexford — Deputy Ireton — Effects of the War — Deporta tion of Rebels — Religious Persecution — Protestant Atrocities — Division of the Plunder — The " Blessed Restoration " — The Bill of Settlement.

Chapter XIV

The Jacobite Campaign in Ireland. Restraints on Irish Trade — The Titus Oates' Imposture — Perse cution of the Presbyterians — Accession of James II. — The Irish Parliament of 1689 — The Campaigns of 1689 and 1690 — William of Orange in Ireland — Defence of Limerick — The Campaign of 1691 — The Treaty of Limerick.

Chapter XV

The Penal Code. The Exiles — Confiscations — The Broken Treaty of Limerick — Priest-Huriting — War on Education — War on Marriage — War on Commerce — Swift's " Modest Proposal " — The Penal Laws — The Famine of 1740 — Whiteboys, Oakboys, Steelboys, Peep-o'-day Boys — The Squire of the Period— The Patriots— Wood's Halfpence.

Chapter XVI

" Eighty-Two " and " Ninety-Eight." Corruption— Constitution of the Irish Parliament— Henry Flood —Ireland and the American Revolution— Home Rule— The Con vention of Dungannon— The Effects of the Convention of Dun gannon—The Act of Renunciation— Parliamentary Reform— The United Irishmen— The Insurrection of " Ninety-eight "—" Scotch Beasts "—The Spy System— The Rising of '98— Deathof Wolfe Tone.

Chapter XVII

How they passed the Union and After. Lord Cornwallis's Viceroyalty— Pitt the Bottomless— Testimony of Sir Jonah Barrington — Corruption of the Irish Legislature — The Price of the Union — Purchased Votes — Corruption of the Irish Bar — Testimony of Lord Grey in the British House of Commons — Last Session of the Irish Parliament — Grattan to the Rescue — Articles of Union — Grattan's Anti-Unionist Climax — Grattan's Duel with Corry — The Closing Scene — Financial Effects of the Union — Economic Effects of the Union.

Chapter XVIII

Rebellion and Emancipation. Robert Emmet's Insurrection — Maynooth — The Regium Donum — Emancipated but not Relieved — O'Connell and Emancipation — The Liberator and the "First Gentleman in Europe " — Disfranchise ment of the Freeholders— The Poor Law — The Tithe Law — Muni cipal Law — Father Matthew and the Temperance Crusade.

Chapter XIX

Repeal, Famine, and "Forty-Eight.'' Repeal — The Famine — Fifty Years of National Progress — How they Died— Salus Populi Suprema Lex — The Encumbered Estates Act— The Tenant League — The Famine of 1877-79 — The Land League— Young Ireland— James Fintan Lalor—Transporta tion of Mitchel— The " Irish Brigade " alias the " Pope's Brass Band "—Fenianism— "The Manchester Martyrs "—The Clerken well Outrage— God save Ireland !

Chapter XX

Uprooting the Upas Tree. Church Disestablishment — Education— Origin of Home Rule " The Best of the Cut-throats "— " The Three F's "—Solution of the Land Problem— Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule and Land Purchase Bills— Solution of the Usury Problem— Solution of the Home Rule Problem. TO "THE MASSES" OF ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND AND WALES, FOUR NATIONS-ONE PEOPLE, FREELY FEDERATED— NOT FORCIBLY INCORPORATED, "THE BOOK OF ERIN" IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. " Mother Earth ! Are the heroes dead ? Do they thrill the soul of the years no morep Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red All that is left of the brave of yore ? Are there none to fight as Theseus fought Far in the young world's misty dawn ? Or to teach as the grey-haired Nestor taught, Mother Earth ? Are the heroes gone ? Gone ?

In a grander form they rise ; Dead ? We may clasp their hands in ours ; And catch the light of their clearer eyes, And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers. Whenever a noble deed is done, 'Tis the pulse of a hero's heart is stirred ; Wherever right has a triumph won, There are the heroes' voices heard. Their armour rings on a fairer field Than the Greek and the Trojan fiercely trod For freedom's sword is the blade they wield j And the light above is the smile of God. So in his isle of calm delight Jason may sleep the years away ; For the heroes live, and the sky is bright, And the world is a braver world to-day." INTRODUCTORY. " If I were an Irishman I would be a rebel." — Sib John Moore. " I divide you into four sections. The first is the ordinary mass, rushing from mere enthusiasm to battle.

Behind that mass stands another, whose only idea in this controversy is Sovereignty and the flag. Next to it stands the third element, the People — the broad surface of the People, who have no time for technicalities, who never studied law, who never had time to read further into the Constitution than the first two lines, ' Establish Justice and secure Liberty.' They have waited long enough ; and now they have got their hand on the neck of a rebellious aristocracy, and in the name of the People mean to strangle it. Side by side with them stands a fourth class — small, but active— the Abolitionists, who thank God that He has let them see His salvation before they die.'' — Wendell Phillips. These sentences define my feelings with regard to our ceaseless Irish troubles with great exactness. Sir John Moore, the stainless coldier, who fell at Corunna, was a Scotsman, who saw a great deal of service in Ireland — a service which filled his sensitive soul with shame and the bitterest indignation.

About twelve years ago, before affairs assumed their present acute form, I had occasion to travel over a con siderable portion of Ireland, and when I left the Green Isle the one overmastering sentiment in my heart was, If I were an Irishman I would be a rebel — a rebel at all hazards and at any cost. Since then the tragical course of events in Ireland, the spread of historical and economic knowledge in England and Scotland, and the parliamentary death-bed repentance of Mr. Gladstone, have quickened the conscience of the British people, and I am now inspired with the hope that war — the ultima ratio oi peoples as of kings — may no longer be necessary. Yet much will depend on the conduct of " the Classes.' It is not their habit to yield aught to justice which they can retain by the unscrupulous exercise of power, and that they are still possessed of " the resources of civilization" in great abundance is undeniable.

Theirs is the foul fetish of Royalty ; theirs is the House of Landlords ; theirs is the Squirearchy ; theirs is the Magis tracy ; theirs is the State Church ; theirs are the Universities ; and theirs " the Services," civil, military and naval. Theirs, moreover", are the strong forces of superstition and ignorance in which large sections of " the masses " are still, unhappily, through no fault of their own, steeped to the lips. But if there is to be an appeal to blood and iron, the responsibility will not rest with " the masses." The blood will be on the heads of the privileged classes, led on to red ruin by such cold-blooded patrician Coriolanuses as Salisbury and Balfour. The " four sections " into which the illustrious American orator, Wendell Phillips, divided his countrymen at the out break of the great Civil War are well represented among us Britons to-day.

"The ordinary mass, rushing from mere enthusiasm to battle," is the thick and thin partisans of both sides, more particularly the men of the Liberal Caucuses, who are one day charmed with the Gladstonian "resources of civilization," and the next, at the word of command, stand horrified at the somewhat milder Salisburian attempt at "resolute government." This "section" like Hamlet's "groundlings," "are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise." The second " section," the " Sovereignity and flag " devotees, are persons like Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain, whose minds are haunted by spectres of " conspiracy," "separation," and such like fantasies. True, there is a conspiracy in Ireland— a conspiracy of seven hundred years' standing— a diabolical conspiracy of alien landlords to torment, harry, and exterminate an interesting, industrious, brave, and gifted race ; but other conspiracy there is none.

That conspiracy against humanity has got to be put down, and put down, if need be, with an iron hand. The real "conspirators" are the Brights and the Chamberlains, who

Introduction

. 5 shamelessly desert the cause of the oppressed in the hour of their direst necessity, and give aid and comfort to their relentless, hereditary foes. As for " separation," such an event is an utter chimera and bogey. Irishmen are anything but fools, and they would obviously lose ten times more by dismemberment of the mighty commonwealth — which they have so largely helped, in camp and senate, to build up — than would England and Scotland. The third "section" — the People — "the Masses" who " have apologized for bankrupt statesmen, ' Liberal and Conservative, far too long, their day of authority and power has at last dawned. The Giant of Democracy is slowly awaking from the stupor of long centuries. As yet he is merely rubbing his eyes, and does but see men as trees walking. Presently, however, he will stand erect on his feet, and then woe betide " the rebellious aristocracy."

The stern fiat will go forth to all whom it may concern, " Establish Justice and secure Liberty " in Ireland and elsewhere, should the heavens fall ! None of your technicalities ! None of your pretended statecraft ! Strike off the fetters from Ireland once and for all, and frame a federal constitution for these Islands on the lines of the American Union, but with improvements in favorem libertatis. The fourth " section," the Abolitionists, the Root and Branch party, the Levellers, the Socialists, the John Browns, the Lloyd Garrisons, the Wendell Phillipses — cail them what you will, to them belongs the future. In the Irish question this Sacred Band of Humanity discern a profounder meaning than all the others. "When you see a people," said Lamennais, "loaded with irons and delivered to the executioner, be not hasty to say this people is an unruly people that would trouble the earth, for, peradventure, it is a martyred people which suffers for the salvation of humanity."

Ireland, the Niobe of the Nations, has suffered and is suffering for the salvation of all mankind from two scourges, more terrible in their combined effects than slavery itself — land lordism and usury. The landlord and the usurer (mortgagee) between them silently ate out the very heart of the Roman world. Latifundia (great estates), and cent, per cent, were the true Goths and Vandals that destroyed ancient Rome. For centuries they silently sapped and mined within her gates, and when their work culminated, her ruin was complete. And cognate barbarians are within the gates of every so called civilized Power to-day, not excepting those of the Great Republic of the West, ceaselessly producing starvation, home lessness, overcrowding, ignorance, dissipation, immorality, brutality, theft, and murder.

It is the inevitable tendency of Rent and Usury to debase human nature itself by teaching and enabling one man to live in idle luxury on the toil and wretchedness of his fellow-man. The visible rack-renter, with his " crowbars," and the invisible mortgagee with his " bonds," have long had their most strongly entrenched camp in Ireland, and it is the unsurpassed merit of the Irish that they have, with invincible fortitude and rare skill, withstood the assaults of these two fell enemies of humanity, and exposed to the reflecting world the infamies of their operations. Already " fair rents " have been " fixed," and " fair interest " on bonds has been mooted, to be followed, doubtless, by "fair profits," "fair wages," and fair everything. In point of fact, Ireland has fairly raised the greatest of all possible questions ; viz., whether the three vaunted pillars of modern society — Rent, Interest, and Profit — ought not rather to be regarded as inevitable engines of social destruction.

For my own part, I have no doubt that they are, and Ireland has abundantly proved them to be so in her own sad experience. Fair rent, fair interest, fair profits, fair wages — suppose them all decreed to-morrow by competent tribunals — would, after all, be mere legislative palliatives, at the best only approximations to justice. They tolerate the existence of instruments of robbery and oppression which ought to be hurled bodily into a Gehenna where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. There should be nought ieft of the cement or mechanism of modern society but "fair wages;" that is to say, the worker should receive the whole of that which he produces. " The produce of labour," said Adam Smith, " is the natural reward or wages of labour" — the whole produce and not

INTRODUCTION.

. 7 a mere fraction of it, rescued from the rapacious maws of Rent-monger, Interest-monger, and Profit-monger. This signifies the close of this epoch of brutal competition, and the commencement of that of fraternal co-operation. We must look to Irishmen to save humanity by showing the world how to establish the Co-operative Commonwealth, the true Civitas Dei of the future. It is a function worthy of a martyr people, and I believe, with an unshackled legislature of her own, Ireland will be found equal to the task. " My service," said Christ, " is perfect Freedom." Ireland imparted to Scotland and, in a great measure, to England and Northern and Central Europe, the elements of Christian civilisation. May she again have the high, nay, highest, honour of bestowing on us and the whole world that service of perfect freedom which, in my opinion, can have no probable, or, indeed, possible, existence outside of organised Christian Socialism.

Chapter I. Primitive Ireland

"The case of historical writers is hard, for if they will tell the truth they offend man; if they write what is false, they offend God."—' Matthew Paris. " History is the torch of truth, the witness of the ages, and the oracle of life." — Cicero. " The politics are base The letters do not cheer, And 'tis far in the deeps of history The voice that speaketh clear." — Emerson. Situation, Size, and Configuration. — Ireland lies to the west of Britain, in the North Atlantic. It is less than one half the larger adjacent island. It has been aptly compared to a heraldic shield, with the provinces of Ulster, Connaught, Leinster and Munster for quarterings. Its mountain ranges for the most part fringe the coast line, while the interior generally presents a flat, low-lying surface. According to the highest testimony, past and present, its natural fertility is very great.

Lord Bacon declared that its " dowries of nature " and its " race and generation of men " are so superior, that it would be hard to find anywhere " such confluence of commodities, if the hand of Man did join with the hand of Nature." An important State Paper of the reign of Henry VIII. sets forth " that if this lande were put once in order, it would be none other but a paradise, delicious of all pleasaunce, to respect of any other lande in this world." Speaking of Limerick and Tipperary, Arthur Young observes : — " It is the richest soil I ever saw." " In elements of fertility, says Mr. McCombie, the renowned agriculturist, late M.P. for Aberdeenshire, " only the richer parts of England, and very exceptional parts of Scotland, approach to it." Sir Robert Kane (" Industrial Resources of Ireland ")■ held that, under proper cultivation, Ireland could maintain in comfort a population of 20,000,000 ; M. De Beaumont says 25,000,000, and Arthur Young ("Tour in Ireland") 100,000,000 !

How it comes to pass that this magnificent island can at present barely support 5,000,000 souls in a condition of semi-starvation, it is the object of this historical retrospect to show. Race. — We are often told by hasty and prejudiced generalizers that race is at the root of Irish woes. What is race ? According to Holy Writ, " God hath made of one blood all the nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth." And for once science, ethnological and physiological, is in all but complete agreement with revelation. Pritchard, pursuing purely scientific methods of investigation, never doubted the entire unity of the human family, whether the first couple were man or ' monkey. Even Letourneau, in the introduction to his " Sociology," while diffidently suggesting a multiple origin of mankind, has to content himself with the obviously superficial classification, both anatomically and sociologically, of (1) black mm ; (2) yellow mexi ; (3) white men.

Well, Irishmen at all events, like Englishmen and Scotsmen, are white men. Moreover, as Celts they are on all hands admitted to belong to an important branch of the Aryan race, to which that very " superior person," the noble " Anglo-Saxon," is so proud to belong. Truth to tell, the Englishman is somewhat of a purse-proud upstart, who, like upstarts in general, is apt to look down with contemptuous pity on his poor and less lucky relations. Mr. E. A. Freeman notwithstanding, it is certain the English people are at least one-third Celtic. It is not the habit of pirates, like the Saxons, to bring their wives and sweethearts with them. And that these freebooters, in largfr numbers, became united to Celtic or Romanized-Celtic wives wherever they settled in Britain is proved by the fact that most of the names of domestic utensils and things in common use are not of Saxon but of Celtic origin.

Ask Dr. Latham — ask Dr. Charles Mackay. Besides, there is every reason to believe that most of the Roman municipia and coloniæ, by some means or other, contrived to weather the hurricane of war, and to conciliate ■or even absorb their barbarian conquerors. England, in point of fact, is not Anglo-Saxon, but Celto-Saxon. As for Scotland, which Englishmen can scarcely venture, for many reasons, to scorn, its population is racially about as Celtic as that of Ireland. The Picts, who made up the great mass of the people at the departure of the Romans from North Britain, it is now agreed by all the most competent authorities, were neither more nor less than non- Romanized Cymric, or Welsh Celts, while the Scots (the modern Highlanders) were Gaelic or Irish Celts. These latter gave Christianity and Letters to their Pictish kinsmen, and though comparatively few in number, contrived, in consequence, to call Pictavia after their own name.

Scotsmen are Anglo-Celtic, and Irishmen are much the ■same. There were Picts in Ireland (Cruithne) as there were in Scotland, though we hear less of them than of the Scots. As for the Scots or Gaels, whether in Ireland or Scotland, their late appearance on the historic scene is a well-nigh insoluble puzzle. The name was not known outside of Ireland till the third century, and Ptolemy, who in his geography gives a very tolerable account of Ireland and its various tribes, as matters stood at the beginning of the second century, evidently never heard of the Scoti, yet that was unquestionably the title by which the Irish were commonly known in the fourth century. Ireland was called Scotia, and the little colony of Dalriadic Scots in Argyleshire Scotia Minor. This is all the more surprising, as we know from Tacitus and other authorities that the ports of the country were frequently visited by merchants, and that the approaches to the coast were well known.

Indeed, there is every reason to believe that though no foot of Roman invader ever sullied the Irish shore, Hibernia -was better known in very early days to the Mediterranean traders than Britain. About 500 years before Christ, it is believed, took place the voyages of the two famous Cartha ginian navigators, Hanno and Hamilco, beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Hanno bore to the south, along the African coast ; while Hamilco skirted the Spanish shore, and reached Ireland, "the Sacred Island." On his return to Carthage, he deposited a journal of his expedition in one of the temples, and this Punic record, or a copy of it, was perused by Festus Avienus in the fourth century. Avienus was a poet, and he turned Hamilco's information to account in a geographical poem, in which he describes the Island, called by the ancients "Sacred," as "two suns" (two days' sail) from the Æstrumnides (Scilly Isles), and lying near the " Island of the Albiones."

He does not, like our Gallic neighbours, add the epithet "perfidious" Albiones; but his knowledge of us was limited. By " the ancients ' (prisci) he presumably meant the Phœnician merchants, who, it is not improbable, visited Ireland when Solomon the Wise was in long clothes. But these are small matters to which I should not refer but for the fact that every Irishman, and everyone who, as I do, loves Ireland, seems irresistibly drawn to escape from her miserable present by taking refuge in her auroral golden tinted past. We may not fathom how Ireland came to be called Scotia in the fourth century, a.d. ; but it is some con solation to know that Hibernia was Insula Sacra long before B.C. 500. Ancient Irish Constitution and Customs. — At the dawn of authentic, or partially authentic, history, we find the Irish in the tribal stage of political development, a stage through which every people, uninfluenced by strong external pres sure, almost certainly passes on its way to true nationhood.

A wide survey of human affairs shows — if it shows anything — that at all times, in all places, and among all races the order of religious, social, and political evolution is singularly uniform. What we call race is nothing more than human nature retarded or accelerated in its development by causes which it is, in a great measure, within the power of true philosophy to ascertain and control. The history of Ireland is one long record of blunders, diversified by sanguinarj crimes. " I have often heard him " (Agricola), says Tacitus, "remark that Ireland could be con quered and occupied by a single legion and a few auxiliaries, and that the work in Britain would be easier if the Roman arms could be made visible on all sides." If he had made the attempt, I have no doubt that, like all the other invaders of Ireland, he would have found out his mistake when it was too late.

Foreign intervention has, from first to last, been the ruin of Ireland and the torment of those who have essayed it. All the more need, therefore, that we should understand the actual Home Rule which she did enjoy before Dane or Norman rudely crossed her onward and upward path. The Tuath (tribe) was the enlarged patriarchal family of the Abraham and Lot type. A common descent was always assumed by every tribesman. The office of Chief was not hereditary, but elective. The choice, however, was restricted to the family of the Chief, his sons, legitimate, or illegitimate, brothers, cousins, or, if need were, more distant kindred, even to the ninth degree. The selection was made in the lifetime of the Ri, Righ, or Chieftain, and the chosen was designated the Tanist, or Heir-Elect. His qualifications are thus quaintly set forth in the Senchus Mor or " Brehon Laws," a code of very high antiquity and great historical value: — "The body of every Head (Chief) is his tribe, for there is no body without a head* The head of every tribe should be the man of the tribe who is the most experienced, the most noble, the most wealthy, the wisest, the most learned, the most truly popular, the most powerful to oppose, the most steadfast to sue for profits and to be sued for losses."

In addition to the Chief and the Chief-elect, or Tanist , there were the Bard, the Physician, and the Brehon, who were all, like the Tanist, similarly eligible from given families. Besides this tribal organisation, there was the M'or Tuath, or tribal confederacy, formed by treaty or by subjec tion, with its Ri M'or Tuatha, or Great Chief. Over all stood — always in theory, but seldom in practice — the A rd-Ri or Lord Paramount of the whole island, chosen from the Hy-Nial family, who were supposed to be descended from tho Grand Ancestor of all the tribes of Erin. The land of each tribe belonged to the whole tribe, and not to the chief, who was in no sense a landlord, but an elected executive officer, as was the Ard-Ri himself. There was no absolute private ownership, though for the convenience of cultivation allotments might be made.

Each tribesman was allowed private possession of his house and curtilage ; but both his pasture land and his tillage land were held in common. Reserved tribal land was set apart for the suitable maintenance of the Chief, the Tanist, the Bard, the Doctor, and the Brehon, like the Crown Lands of England in former times. Similarly, the nation set apart the small principality of Meath and the royal residence at Tara to support the dignity of the Ard-Ri and the Roy damna, or Royal Tanist. Between the Irish or Scotic institutions of this period and those of Saxon England there was a very striking analogy. The one was a Pentarchy and the other a Heptarchy. The Irish claim was the Saxon maegth, with most of its consequences and peculiarities. The Brehons. — These jurisprudents enjoyed high consideration in the tribal community, but they were not judges in the modern sense.

Rather they were official arbitrators. They could not compel attendance of civil litigants or even of criminals. Indeed, the true State being as yet unborn, the distinction between "torts" and "crimes" did not exist. Murder itself could be atoned for by an eric or fine, after the manner of the Saxon wiregild or the Swedish kinbote. It was the business of the avenger of blood to vindicate justice. But the law, or rather custom, of distress afforded a pretty effective instrument for bringing culprits to book. Wealth consisted almost exclusively in cattle, sheep, and pigs, and these could generally be driven off and impounded. In the case of very hardened or powerful offenders recourse was had to other means. The plaintiff proceeded to starve himself for days at the defendant's door — to "sit dthma" as it was called and from time immorial practised in India.