CHAPTER 1. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT TO 1782. Irish history. THE Irish people are undoubtedly a very ancient race, Early but when we attempt to trace their early history, we are at once lost in the mazes of legend and romance. Certain Irish writers have professed to trace the Milesian records to a period almost coeval with the Deluge, but in a work which endeavours to ascertain the solid facts of Irish government we may be reasonably excused for beginning our researches long after that period. A theory now generally accepted is that the Irish are descended from one of the Celtic tribes which occupied Gaul and Britain some centuries before the Christian era; and many antiquaries affirm that the Irish were the parent tribe that planted the Celtic colony in Scotland at a date considerably later than the original settlement in Ireland. With the life and career of St. Patrick in the fifth St. Patrick. century of the Christian era the authentic history of Ireland may be assumed to commence. Born in Scotland, St. Patrick was carried as a slave to Ireland, whence he escaped to Rome, where he rose high in the service of the Church. Returning to Ireland, he succeeded in converting the whole island to Christianity. Ireland was at this Septs time divided into septs or clans, each sept bearing the name of the head of the family. All the septs owed allegiance to the chief king. The chieftainships were The Irish Parliament. CHAP. I. elective, and during the lifetime of each chief his successor was chosen from the same family, and was called the Tanist. All the land was held by the septs for the benefit of the people, and there was no feudal condition and no system of primogeniture. The What are known as the Brehon laws formed the system of jurisprudence which prevailed among the native Irish from a very early period till towards the middle of the seventeenth century. These laws received their name from the breitheamhuin (pronounced brei-hoo-in or brehon), who were supposed to have been hereditary judges, and who administered justice upon the members of their tribe seated in the open air upon the hillside. As was the custom in many other states in the early stages of civilisation, the Irish laws admitted a fine or composition for murder instead of capital punishment, and this was divided between the kindred of the slain and the judge. Portions of manuscript collections of the Brehon laws are preserved in the libraries of the Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College, Dublin, the Bodleian, Oxford, and the British Museum. These manuscripts date from the fourteenth to the end of the sixteenth century, but the laws themselves have a much higher antiquity. The redaction of them in their existing form has been attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the learned Cormac MacCuilleanain, King and Archbishop of Cashel, who was slain in 903 A.D. The recension of the code known as the Seanchus Mor is traditionally ascribed to St. Patrick, who is said to have expunged from the laws all institutions savouring of heathenism. The laws were written in ancient Irish. The basis of society as existing in Ireland from the earliest historic times was the tribe, and the principal occupations the pasturage of cattle and tillage of the soil. The community embraced monarchs, provincial kings, chiefs, proprietors, clansmen, and serfs of an alien race. The land was divided into two parts; one was common pasture-ground, and the other was portioned out among the chiefs and other tribal dignitaries, with the poorer clansmen and serfs holding as tenants under a The laws proprietor. Money was unknown, fines and valuations CHAP. I. The Irish Parliament. cial Ireland was divided into five provincial kingdoms- Provin Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Connaught, and Meath-one kingdoms. of whose sovereigns was chosen King of Ireland in some general meeting, probably of the nobility or smaller chieftains and of the prelates. The character of this national assembly cannot be accurately defined, though it is said to have been held triennially. The supreme monarch received tributes from the inferior kings, and was their head in the defence of the country against invasion; but the Constitution was federal, and each king was an independent ruler.2 invasion of Ireland. Civilisation had made but little progress in Ireland Norman by the beginning of the twelfth century. Slavery was universal, and the people, while superstitiously impressed by religion, retained many of the attributes of a barbarous nation. The clergy were numerous and influential, and independent of Rome, and the government of the country was almost exclusively aristocratic. The Norman invasion of Ireland began in 1169, with the landing of Robert FitzStephen and Maurice Fitzgerald; the famous "Strongbow," Richard de Clare, followed in 1170, and Henry II. completed the conquest in 1172. Pope Adrian IV. had issued a bull authorising Henry to assume authority over Ireland, in order that she might be made more submissive to the ecclesiastical direction 1 Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland, Irish Rolls Series; Manners of the Ancient Irish, by Eugene O'Curry; Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters; and articles "Ireland" and "Brehon Laws," Chambers's Encyclopædia, 1888-90. 2 Antiquities of Ireland, by Sir James Ware; Hallam's Constitutional History, chapter "On the Constitution of Ireland." CHAP. I. of Rome. Henry introduced his own system of governThe Irish ment, divided the island into counties, and set up Parlia- Policy of Irish and The Pale. courts of justice in Dublin. He made large grants of land to the Norman barons, but allowed the native Irish to keep to their Brehon laws. The English, however, ignored the rights of the tribes; and from this time dates the feud between the two races. Henry gave charters of privilege to the chief towns, and probably assembled Parliaments. His policy was continued by his successors; John sent over the Great Charter to Ireland; and the whole common law became the birthright of the Anglo-Irish colonists. In course of time powerful palatine counties sprang up, which formed by far the greater portion of the English territories; and in these the King's writ could only run within the lands belonging to the Church.1 As time went on the Irish were regarded by the English as aliens and beyond the pale of English justice. They appealed to the representatives of the English Government in Dublin, who were disposed to assist them, but obstruction arose from the Anglo-Irish Parliament, whose concurrence was necessary to every general measure. In 1278 a number of septs, calling themselves "the Community of Ireland," offered eight thousand marks for the privilege of living by the English law. Edward I. authorised the justiciary of Ireland to grant the request, if it could be done with the general consent of the prelates and nobles of Ireland; but the aristocracy withheld their assent. The Irish suppliants renewed their applications both to Edward I. and Edward III., but the oligarchy were obdurate. Many Irishmen, however, it must be stated, adhered to the old elective Brehon laws of tanistry, which they preferred to the English custom of hereditary succession. The English and Irish races were for centuries very distinct; and that part of Ireland which was de facto subject to English law began to be called the Pale in the fifteenth century. 1 1 A Discoverie of the State of Ireland, by Sir John Davies (1613). |