Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/259

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HISTORY.] IRELAND 243 assigned to the evidence Riven before the Devon Commission, a Digest of which by J. P. Kennedy was published at Dublin in two parts, 1847-48, and the Report of the BessborouRh Commission, 1881, and of the Commission on the Agriculture of the United Kingdom, 1S81. Among other works are Thornton, J lea for Peasant Proprietors, 1S4S- Duval, Histoire deV Emigration. Paris, 1862; Dufferin, Irish Emigration and the Tenure of Land in Ireland, 18(57 ; P. Lavelle, Jriih Lindlords since the Revolution, 1870; II. S. Tliompson, Ireland in 1839 and 18(50, 1870. The agricultural condition of the country has been described by such competent observers as M Combie, Maclagan, and James Caird ; and for minute details regarding; it see the " Review of Irish Agriculture," by R. 0. Pringle, in vol. viii., second series, of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng land, 1872, and " Illustrations of Irish Farming," by the same writer, in vol. is., 1873. Manufactures and Commerce. Lawrence, Tlie Interest of Ireland in her Trade and Wealth, Dublin, 1(582; Discourse on the Woollen Manufacture of Ireland, 1698 ; An Inquiry into the, State and Progress of the Linen Manufacture in Ire land, Dublin, 1757 ; G. E. Howard, Treatise on the Revenue of Ireland, 1776 ; Ilely Hutchinson, Commercial Restraints of Ireland, 1779 ; Lord Sheffield, Observations on the Manufactures, Trade, and Present State of Ireland, 1785 ; R. li. Clarendon, A Sketch of the Revenue and Finances of Ireland, 1791 ; Wallace, ssay on the Trade and Manufactures of England, Dublin, 1798. Antiquities, O Donovan s edition of the Annals of the Four Masters; Weevcr, Ancient Funeral Monuments, 1767; Bush, Ilibernia Curiosa, 1709; Grose, Anti quities of Ireland, 2 vols., 1791-95; Ed. Ledwich, Antiquities of Ireland, 1804 ; O Brien, Round Towers of Ireland. 1834; G. S. Petrie, Ecclesiastical Antiquities in Ireland, 1845 ; Godkin, Saxons in Ireland, 1851 ; Id., Ireland and her Churches, itc.. 1857; Keane, Toicers and Temples of Ancient Ireland, 1867 ; Smiddy, Essay on the Druids, Ancient Churches, and Round Towers, 1873 ; Brash, Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, 1874; Joyce, Irish Names of Places, 2d ed., 1870, 2d series, 1875; Lord Dunraven, Notes on Irish Architecture, 1877; H. Gaidoz, Notice sur les Inscriptions Latincs de I lrlande, Paris, 1878. Miscellaneous. An account of the condition of the country in the time of Henry II. is given by Giraldus Cambrensis in Topographia Hiberniie and Expugnatio Jlibernix, 1187 ; and in the time of Elizabeth, by Robert Payne, in A Brief Description of Ireland," 1590, published in vol. I. of the Tracts r>j the Archmo- logical Association of Ireland, 1841, and by Ed. Hogan in Description of Ireland and the State thereof in 1598, first published in 1878. The following works, which are included in A Collection of Tracts and Treatises on Ireland, published at Dublin, 18(51, arc invaluable for the information they afford in regard to the social and industrial history of the country : A View of the State of Ireland, by Edmund Spenser, 1633; A Discoverie of the State of Ireland, by Sir John Davies, 1613; The J olitical Anatomy of Ireland, by Sir William Petty, l(i91;7 Ae Querist, by Bishop Berkeley, 1735-37 ; A Word to the Wise, by the same, 1752; Prior s List of Absentees, 2d edition, with Appendix, 1729; An Essay on the Trade of Ireland, by Arthur Dobbs, Esq., 1729; An Abstract of the Number of Protestant and Popish Families in Ireland, 1726. The writings of Swift, especially his Short Vimo, cast a variety of cross lights on different aspects of the subjoct. Among later works a first place must of course be given to the Tour in Ireland, by Arthur Young, London, 1780. The Statistical and Political Account of Ireland, by Edward Wakcfield, London, 1812, is painstaking and accurate; and of similar value are Thomas Newenham s View of the Circumstances of Ireland, 1809 ; the same author s Inquiry into the Population of Ireland, 1805; and Mason s Statistical Account, 1814-19. The laborious work of M. Ce"snr Moreau, Past and Present State of Ireland examined in a Series of Tables, published in lithograph, London, 1827, gives a comprehensive statistical history of the country for twenty years before and twenty years after the Union. Among more modern works are On Local Disturbances in Ireland, by Sir G. C. Lewis, 1836; Sir Robert Kane, The Industrial Resources of Ireland, 2d edition, Dublin, 1845; George Lewis Smith, Ireland, Historical and Statistical, London, 1844-49 ; Jonathan Pirn, Condition and Prospects of Ireland, 1849; Gustavo de Beaumont, L liiande, Sociale, Polilique, et Religieuse, 1839 (English translation in the same year, and a 7th French edition in 1863) ; Hancock, Report on tht Supposea Pro gressive Decline of Irish Prosperity, Dublin, 1863; J. II. Murphy, Ireland: Industrial, Political, and Social, 1870; Burke s Letters, Speeches, and Tracts on Ireland, edited by Matthew Arnold, 1881. Thorn s Irish Almanac contains admir able digests of the parliamentary returns of the current years, as well as other statistical tables compiled from original sources. (T. F. H.) PART II. HISTORY. Legendary History of Early Races. Circumstances were favourable in Ireland to the growth and preserva tion of ethnic legends. Among these favourable circum stances were the long continuance of tribal government, and the existence of a special class whose duty it was to preserve the genealogies of the ruling families, and keep iu memory the deeds of their ancestors. Long pedigrees and stories of forays and battles were pre served, but under the necessary condition of undergoing gradaal phonetic change according as the popular language altered. During many centuries there had been no con quest by foreign races to destroy these traditions ; internal conquests and displacements of tribes confuse but do not eradicate traditions and pedigrees. When the Irish were converted to Christianity and became acquainted with the story of the deluge, the confusion of tongues, and the unity of the human race, the siiide (sages) naturally endeavoured to fill up the gap between their eponyms and Noah. The pedigrees now began to be committed to writing, and, as they could for the first time be compared with one another, a wide field was opened to the inventive faculties of the scribes. The result has been the construction of a most extraordinary legendary history, which under the constant care of official siiide acquired a completeness, fulness, and a certain degree of consistency which is wonderful. In the llth and 12th centuries this legendary history was fitted with a chronology, and synchronized with the annals of historical nations. We may assume with confidence that a history of a group of tribes admittedly of diverse origins, consisting mainly of names of persons and battles transmitted by memory, must necessarily lack all proportion, not alone as regards absolute, but even as regards relative time ; that personages and events may appear in the back ground that should be in the foreground, and the converse ; nay, even that the same personages and events may figure at times and places far apart. Keeping these things in view, the Lebar Gabhala, or " Book of Invasions," a curious compilation, or rather compilations, for there are several editions of it, of the ethnic legends of Ireland, will help us to give the main facts of the early peopling of Ireland. Our guide records the coming of five principal peoples, namely, the followers of Partholan or Bartholomew, those of Nemed, the Firbolgs, the Tuatha D6 Danann, and the Scots or Milesians. Partholan and his people came from Middle Greece, and landed at Inber Sceine, believed to nave been the estuary of Kenmare. After occupying Ireland for three hundred years, they died of a plague, and were buried at Tamlecht Muintire Partholain, the plague Lecht or grave of Par- tholan s people, now Tallaght near Dublin. This race divided the coast into four parts, their leader having had four sons. Thirty years after the destruction of Partho- lan s people, a race arrived from Scythia under a leader called Nemed, in thirty ships, each containing thirty warriors. We are not told where he landed, but like Partholan s people Nemed died of a plague at the hill upon which Queenstown in Cork Harbour is situated, and which has on that account been called Ard Nemeid. At this time another people appear on the- scene, the Fomo- rians. It is probable, however, that Fomorian was merely a name for all sea-coming enemies, and that they were not always the same race. The descendants of Nemed a people suffered much hardship from them, we are told, but at length succeeded in destroying the fortress of their leader Conan at Tor Inis, now Tory Island, off the coast of Donegal, and killing himself and his children ; but More, another leader, having arrived soon after from Africa with sixty ships, a second battle was fought, in which both parties were nearly exterminated. More, how ever, escaped, and took possession of the country, while of the Nemedians only the crew of one ship, having the usual number of thirty warriors among whom were three descen dants of Nemed himself escaped. Each of the three descendants of Nemed went to a different country, and became the eponym of an important race. The five chiefs of the Firbolgs, the next colonizing race, appear to have landed at different places : one party, that of the Fir Galeons, landed at Inber Slangi, so called from their leader Slangi, whose name is still preserved in the river Slaney ; another tribe, the Firbolgs, who gave their name to the collective tribes, arrived at what is now Erris in Mayo ; and a third section, the Fir Domnand, landed at Tracht Kudraide in Ulster, so called from their leader Rudraide, or rather Rud. All these tribes seem to have been British, a view which is confirmed by their chief fort being Dind Rig, j the dun or fort of the kings on the Barrow in Carlow, afterwards the seat of the kings of Leinster, a province which appears to have always had a close relationship with Britain. The Firbolgs had only effected settlements in the country, but had not brought the whole of it into subjec tion before the arrival of a new tribe called the Tuatha D6 Danann. According to the Nemedian legend, this new