The Land-War in Ireland. James Godkin
Froude, following the Irish MSS. in the Rolls House, has presented graphic pictures of the disorders of the Irishry in the reign of Queen Mary. 'The English garrison,' he says, 'harassed and pillaged the farmers of Meath and Dublin; the chiefs made forays upon each other, killing, robbing, and burning. When the war broke out between England and France, there were the usual conspiracies and uprisings of nationality; the young Earl of Kildare, in reward to the Queen who had restored him to his rank, appearing as the natural leader of the patriots. Ireland was thus happy in the gratification of all its natural tendencies. The Brehon law readvanced upon the narrow limits to which, by the exertions of Henry VIII., the circuits of the judges had been extended. And with the Brehon law came anarchy as its inseparable attendant.'
The correctness of this view is too well attested by the records which the learned historian brings to light, adopting the quaint and expressive phraseology of the old writers whom he quotes. For example:—
'The lords and gentiles of the Irish Pale that were not governed under the Queen's laws were compelled to keep and maintain a great number of idle men of war to rule their people at home, and exact from their neighbours abroad—working everyone his own wilful will for a law—to the spoil of his country, and decay and waste of the common weal of the same. The idle men of war ate up altogether; the lord and his men took what they pleased, destroying their tenants, and themselves never the better. The common people, having nothing left to lose, became as idle and careless in their behaviour as the rest, stealing by day and robbing by night. Yet it was a state of things which they seemed all equally to enjoy, and high and low alike were always ready to bury their own quarrels, to join against the Queen and the English.'
At the time when the crown passed to Elizabeth the qualities of the people were thus described by a correspondent of the council, who presents the English view of the Irishry at that time:—
'The appearance and outward behaviour of the Irish showeth them to be fruits of no good tree, for they exercise no virtue and refrain and forbear from no vice, but think it lawful to do every man what him listeth. They neither love nor dread God, nor yet hate the devil. They are worshippers of images and open idolaters. Their common oath they swear is by books, bells, and other ornaments which they do use as holy religion. Their chief and solemnest oath is by their lord or master's hand, which whoso forsweareth is sure to pay a fine or sustain a worse turn. The Sabbath-day they rest from all honest exercises, and the week days they are not idle, but worse occupied. They do not honour their father and mother as much as they do reverence strangers. For every murder that they commit they do not so soon repent, for whose blood they once shed, they lightly never cease killing all that name. They do not so commonly commit adultery; not for that they profess or keep chastity, but for that they seldom or never marry, and therefore few of them are lawful heirs, by the law of the realm, to the lands they possess. They steal but from the strong, and take by violence from the poor and weak. They know not so well who is their neighbour as who they favour; with him they will witness in right and wrong. They covet not their neighbours' good, but command all that is their neighbours' as their own. Thus they live and die, and there is none to teach them better. There are no ministers. Ministers will not take pains where there is no living to be had, neither church nor parish, but all decayed. People will not come to inhabit where there is no defence of law.'
After six years of discipline and improvement Sir Henry Sidney, in 1566, described the state of the four shires, the Irish inhabitants, and the English garrison, in the following terms:—'The English Pale is overwhelmed with vagabonds—stealth and spoil daily carried out of it—the people miserable—not two gentlemen in the whole of it able to lend 20l. They have neither horse nor armour, nor apparel, nor victual. The soldiers be so beggerlike as it would abhor a general to look on them; yet so insolent as to be intolerable to the people, so rooted in idleness as there is no hope by correction to amend them, yet so allied with the Irish, I dare not trust them in a forte, or in any dangerous service.'
A sort of 'special correspondent' or 'commissioner,' as we should call him now, furnished to Cecil a detailed account of the social condition of the people, which of course he viewed with English eyes. He found existing among them a general organisation wherever the Irish language was spoken—the remnants of a civilisation very ancient, but now fast tending to ruin. Next to the chiefs were the priesthood, and after them came a kind of intellectual hierarchy, consisting of four classes of spiritual leaders and teachers, which were thus described. The first was called the Brehon, or the judge. These judges took 'pawns' of both the parties, and then judged according to their own discretion. Their property was neutral, and the Irishmen would not prey upon them. They had great plenty of cattle, and they harboured many vagabonds and idle persons. They were the chief maintainers of rebels, but when the English army came to their neighbourhood they fled to the mountains and woods 'because they would not succour them with victuals and other necessaries.' The next sort was called Shankee, who had also great plenty of cattle wherewith they succoured the rebels. They made the ignorant men of the country believe that they were descended from Alexander the Great, or Darius, or Cæsar, 'or some other notable prince, which made the ignorant people run mad, and care not what they did.' This, the correspondent remarked, 'was very hurtful to the realm.' Not less hurtful were the third sort called Denisdan, who not only maintained the rebels, but caused those that would be true to become rebellious—'thieves, extortioners, murderers, raveners, yea, and worse if it was possible.' These seem to have been the historians or chroniclers of the tribe. If they saw a young man, the descendant of an O' or a Mac, with half a dozen followers, they forthwith made a rhyme about his father and his ancestors, numbering how many heads they had cut off, how many towns they had burned, how many virgins they had deflowered, how many notable murders they had done, comparing them to Hannibal, or Scipio, or Hercules, or some other famous person—'wherewithal the poor fool runs mad, and thinks indeed it is so.' Then he will gather a lot of rascals about him, and get a fortune-teller to prophesy how he is to speed. After these preliminaries he betakes himself with his followers at night to the side of a wood, where they lurk till morning. And when it is daylight, then will they go to the poor villages, not sparing to destroy young infants and aged people; and if a woman be ever so great with child, her will they kill, burning the houses and corn, and ransacking the poor cots; then will they drive away all the kine and plough-horses, with all the other cattle. Then must they have a bagpipe blowing before them, and if any of the cattle fortune to wax weary or faint they will kill them rather than it should do the owner good; and if they go by any house of friars, or religious house, they will give them two or three beeves, and they will take them and pray for them, yea, and praise their doings, and say, 'His father was accustomed so to do, wherein he will rejoice.' The fourth class consisted of 'poets.' These men had great store of cattle, and 'used all the trade of the others with an addition of prophecies. They were maintainers of witches and other vile matters, to the blasphemy of God, and to the impoverishing of the commonwealth.'
These four septs were divided in all places of the four quarters of Ireland, and some of the islands beyond Ireland, as Aran, the land of the Saints, Innisbuffen, Innisturk, Innismain, and Innisclare. These islands, he added, were under the rule of O'Neill, and they were 'very pleasant and fertile, plenty of wood, water, and arable ground, pastures, and fish, and a very temperate air.' On this description Mr. Froude remarks in a note—'At present they are barren heaps of treeless moors and mountains. They yield nothing but scanty oat crops and potatoes, and though the seas are full of fish as ever, there are no hands to catch them. The change is a singular commentary upon modern improvements.' There were many branches belonging to the four septs, continues the credulous reporter, who was evidently imposed upon, like many of his countrymen in modern times with better means of information. For example, 'there was the branch of Gogath, the glutton, of which one man would eat half a sheep at a sitting. There was another called the Carrow, a gambler, who generally went about naked, carrying dice and cards, and he would play the hair off his head. Then there was a set of women called Goyng women, blasphemers of God, who ran from country to country, sowing sedition among the people.'2
Mr. Froude says that this 'picture of Ireland' was given by some half Anglicised, half Protestantised Celt, who wrote what he had seen around him, careless of political