subdued. Such, however, was the extraordinary fact. The Irish who had been conquered in the field revenged their defeat on the minds and hearts of their conquerors; and in yielding, yielded only to fling over their new masters the subtle spell of the Celtic disposition. In vain the Government attempted to stem the evil. Statute was passed after statute forbidding the 'Englishry' of Ireland to use the Irish language, or inter-marry with Irish families, or copy Irish habits.[1] Penalties were multiplied on penalties; fines, forfeitures, and at last death itself, were threatened for such offences. But all in vain. The stealthy evil crept on irresistibly.[2] Fresh colonists were sent over to restore the system, but only for themselves or their children to be swept into the stream; and from the century which succeeded the Conquest till the reign of the eighth Henry, the strange phenomenon repeated itself, generation after generation, baffling the wisdom of statesmen, and paralyzing every effort at a remedy.
Here was a difficulty which no skill could contend
- ↑ Statutes of Kilkenny. Printed by the Irish Antiquarian Society. Finglas's Breviate.
- ↑ The phenomenon must have been observed, and the inevitable consequence of it foreseen, very close upon the Conquest, when the observation digested itself into a prophecy. No story less than three hundred years old could easily have been reported to Baron Finglas as having originated with St Patrick and St Columb. The Baron says—'The four Saints, St Patrick, St Columb, St Braghan, and St Moling, many hundred years agone, made prophecy that Englishmen should conquer Ireland; and said that the said Englishmen should keep the land in prosperity as long as they should keep their own laws; and as soon as they should leave and fall to Irish order, then they should decay.'—Harris, p. 88.
