to shew, what false ideas of the Papal power had prevailed in Ireland in the days of Keating; and consequently what Stuff the Court of Rome had to work upon in the 17th century; and what calamities resulted from the ambitious views of those who, under colour of religion, sacrificed our prosperity to foreign designs,

Whether the ideas which the Irish Gentry entertained of the Pope's power, were true or false, is not the question; I am engaged only in shewing what the popular notions were, and to what purposes of ambition, or private interest they were rendered subservient; and these questions cannot be disposed of by a cry of Religion. In vain do we endeavour to fence them off, by asserting that the thinking portion of our Gentry, always rejected the temporal pretensions of the Roman Court, A Statesman will look also to the opinions of the Mass of the people; he will calculate their formidable influence on the Catholic Gentry; and endeavour, in the best possible way, to avert the danger which may result from ultramontanism, with regard to the interests of society at large,

5. Shall we pretend that no such notions operate now, whilst every one sees their influence in the appointment of our Bishops ?* Shall we say that they never pervaded the mass of the Irish people? Never did any writer give the popular traditions of his time more faithfully than Keating-Nor is it only in his days that these notions existed, as we shall soon see; O'Halloran deemed it not quite foreign from his purpose, to combat them so lately as in 1778, in his history of Ireland, vol. 2, p. 280, where the Index directs to a Section intitled, "The Pretences of Rome to the command of "Ireland, inquired into and refuted!"

I repeat then, that it is of no importance to my argument, whether the Pope had or had not a right to the Crown of Ireland.—I am one of the last persons in the world, who would admit of so silly a pretension.-But the question

* The following pages will shew, that the Pope's Temporal power is still strong enough, by means of exclusive Synods, to wield the popular fury against the Catholic Gentry of Ireland; as it did in 1645, when the Nuncio imprisoned Lord Mountgarret; deposed, and imprisoned the supreme Council, and rendered the Pope absolute Monarch of Ireland!

before us turns upon these facts, whether, right or wrong, such a pretension existed? whether the Pope's Nuncios, and the Bishops, who were sworn adherents to the Regalia of Rome, and maintainers of the Ultramontain Principles of that Court, did not, after the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth, frequently give countenance to those temporal notions, so as to embody a powerful Irish faction, against the loyal principles of the Irish Nobility and Gentry, from that period down to our own times? and, whether, admitting, as I do, the loyalty of our Bishops to be sincère, it is enough for them to be personally loyal, unless, in their public capacity as Bishops, they come forward, fairly and unequivocally, to combat those Ultramontain principles, by which such foreign opinions are cherished, so that, whenever an occasion offers, they may be embodied into action against ourselves, as they were in 1645 ?Let us not mince matters.-This inquiry is important and necessary, in the present state of our affairs.

§ XII. Keating's account of the Pope's pretensions to the Crown of Ireland not fabulous.

1. And now, having fairly stated the jet of my argument, and shewn that its force does not depend on the truth or falsehood of Keating, let me ask in the second place, is his account of the Pope's temporal pretension to the Crown of Ireland really fabulous? Does it follow that because his early history of Ireland is fabulous, therefore his whole history of the 11th and 12th centuries is a fairy tale?—I wish with all my heart and soul it were.-But there is hardly a circumstance in Keating's narrative, that is not fully confirmed by coeval authors, and by our own Irish Annals; as far at least as those Authors or Annals touch upon any one of the circumstances he relates!-Donchad O'Brian's Pilgrimage to Rome is mentioned by Tigernach, who died in 1088; by the Annals of Inisfallen, written in 1215; by the Annals of Ulster, and by those of Donnegal.

I do not mean to say, that Keating maintained

the Pope's Sovereignty over Ireland as his own opinion. On the contrary, Lynch commends him, in his Cambrensis Eversus, p. 171, for boldly upholding the contrary doctrine against Sanders, and the Papal Court-writers of his day, "certe Sandero summam Hiberniæ potestatem ad Pontificem deferenti, Keatingus "multis obsistit 1. 2, initio."

What I state is, that Keating gives the tradition, and the opinion of the great Mass of the Common Irish of his time.-That he does so faithfully, is evident from the Irish Remonstrance of 1315, in which that doctrine is maintained, as a fundamental article of historical faith, common to the English and Irish nations, and from original authorities of the 17th and 18th centuries, to which I shall presently refer.

2. Pope Gregory VII, whose Pontificate lasted from 1073 to 1086, addressed to Tordelbach O'Brian, a Letter, which I have transcribed from a MS. in the Cotton Library, which is directed not only to Tordelbach, but also to all the Grandees and Bishops of Ireland, wherein he plainly informs them, that he claims by divine