We liked for awhile bounding from tussuck to tussuck, or resting on a green esker in the domain of the old academicians of Grattan's time; but 'tis pleasanter, after all, to tread the firm ground of our own archaeologists.

———————————————————————————————- [35] The reader who wishes to know what modern archaeology has to say of this great tumulus may be referred to Mr. George Coffey's "Newgrange," published by Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1912. It dates from about 1,000 years earlier than Davis supposed.



THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND.[36]

Accustomed from boyhood to regard these towers as revelations of a gorgeous but otherwise undefined antiquity—dazzled by oriental analogies—finding a refuge in their primeval greatness from the meanness or the misfortunes of our middle ages, we clung to the belief of their Pagan origin.

In fancy we had seen the white-robed Druid tend the holy fire in their lower chambers—had measured with the Tyrian-taught astronomer the length of their shadows—and had almost knelt to the elemental worship with nobles whose robes had the dye of the Levant, and sailors whose cheeks were brown with an Egyptian sun, and soldiers whose bronze arms clashed as the trumpets from the tower-top said that the sun had risen. What wonder that we had resented the attempt to cure us of so sweet a frenzy?

We plead guilty to having opened Mr. Petrie's work strongly bigoted against his conclusion.

On the other hand, we could not forget the authority of the book. Its author we knew was familiar beyond almost any other with the country—had not left one glen unsearched, not one island untrod; had brought with him the information of a life of antiquarian study, a graceful and exact pencil, and feelings equally national and lofty. We knew also that he had the aid of the best Celtic scholars alive in the progress of his work. The long time taken in its preparation ensured maturity; and the honest men who had criticised it, and the adventurers who had stolen from it enough to make false reputations, equally testified to its merits.

Yet, we repeat, we jealously watched for flaws in Mr. Petrie's reasoning; exulted as he set down the extracts from his opponents, in the hope that he would fail in answering them, and at last surrendered with a sullen despair.

Looking now more calmly at the discussion, we are grateful to Mr. Petrie for having driven away an idle fancy. In its stead he has given us new and unlooked-for trophies, and more solid information on Irish antiquities than any of his predecessors. We may be well content to hand over the Round Towers to Christians of the sixth or the tenth century, when we find that these Christians were really eminent in knowledge as well as piety, had arched churches by the side of these campanilia, gave an alphabet to the Saxons, and hospitality and learning to the students of all western Europe—and the more readily, as we got in exchange proofs of a Pagan race having a Pelasgic architecture, and the arms and ornaments of a powerful and cultivated people.

The volume before us contains two parts of Mr. Petrie's essay. The first part is an examination of the false theories of the origin of these towers. The second is an account not only of what he thinks their real origin, but of every kind of early ecclesiastical structure in Ireland. The third part will contain a historical and descriptive account of every ecclesiastical building in Ireland of a date prior to the Anglo-Norman invasion of which remains now exist. The work is crowded with illustrations drawn with wonderful accuracy, and engraved in a style which proves that Mr. O'Hanlon, the engraver, has become so proficient as hardly to have a superior in wood-cutting.

We shall for the present limit ourselves to the first part of the work on the

"ERRONEOUS THEORIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE ROUND TOWERS."

The first refutation is of the

"THEORY OF THE DANISH ORIGIN OF THE TOWERS."

John Lynch, in his Cambrensis Eversus, says that the Danes are reported (dicuntur) to have first erected the Round Towers as watch-towers, but that the Christian Irish changed them into clock or bell-towers. Peter Walsh[37] repeated and exaggerated the statement; and Ledwich, the West British antiquary of last century, combined it with lies enough to settle his character, though not that of the towers. The only person, at once explicit and honest, who supported this Danish theory was Dr. Molyneux. His arguments are that all stone buildings, and, indeed, all evidences of mechanical civilisation, in Ireland were Danish; that some traditions attributed the Round Towers to them; that they had fit models in the monuments of their own country; and that the word by which he says the native Irish call them, viz., "Clogachd," comes from the Teutonic root, clugga, a bell. These arguments are easily answered.

The Danes, so far from introducing stone architecture, found it flourishing in Ireland, and burned and ruined our finest buildings, and destroyed mechanical and every kind of civilisation wherever their ravages extended—doing thus in Ireland precisely as they did in France and England, as all annals (their own included) testify. Tradition does not describe the towers as Danish watch-towers, but as Christian belfries. The upright stones and the little barrows, not twelve feet high, of Denmark, could neither give models nor skill to the Danes. They had much ampler possession of England and Scotland, and permanent possession of Normandy, but never a Round Tower did they erect there; and, finally, the native Irish name for a Round Tower is cloic-theach, from teach, a house, and cloc, the Irish word used for a bell in Irish works before "the Germans or Saxons had churches or bells," and before the Danes had ever sent a war-ship into our seas.

We pass readily from this ridiculous hypothesis with the remark that the gossip which attributes to the Danes our lofty monumental pyramids and cairns, our Druid altars, our dry stone caisils or keeps, and our raths or fortified enclosures for the homes or cattle of our chiefs, is equally and utterly unfounded; and is partly to be accounted for from the name of power and terror which these barbarians left behind, and partly from ignorant persons confounding them with the most illustrous and civilised of the Irish races—the Danaans.

———————————————————————————————- [36] The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xx. Dublin: Hodges & Smith, Grafton Street.

[37] A turbulent and learned Franciscan friar who figured in the Confederation of Kilkenny.—C.P.M.

THEORY OF THE EASTERN ORIGIN OF THE ROUND TOWERS.

Among the middle and upper classes in Ireland the Round Towers are regarded as one of the results of an intimate connection between Ireland and the East, and are spoken of as either—1, Fire Temples; 2, Stations from whence Druid festivals were announced; 3, Sun-dials (gnomons) and astronomical observatories; 4, Buddhist or Phallic temples, or two or more of these uses are attributed to them at the same time.

Mr. Petrie states that the theory of the Phoenician or Indo-Scythic origin of these towers was stated for the first time so recently as 1772 by General Vallancey, in his "Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language," and was re-asserted by him in many different and contradictory forms in his Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, published at intervals in the following years.

It may be well to premise who

GENERAL CHARLES VALLANCEY

was. His family were from Berry, in France; their name Le Brun, called De Valencia, from their estate of that name. General Vallancey was born in Flanders, but was educated at Eton College. When a captain in the 12th Royal Infantry he was attached to the engineer department in Ireland, published a book on Field Engineering in 1756, and commenced a survey of Ireland. During this he picked up something of the Irish language, and is said to have studied it under Morris O'Gorman, clerk of Mary's Lane Chapel. He died in his house, Lower Mount Street, 18th August, 1812, aged 82 years.

His Collectanea, and his discourses in the Royal Irish Academy, of which he was an original member, spread far and wide his oriental theories. He was an amiable and plausible man, but of little learning, little industry, great boldness, and no scruples; and while he certainly stimulated men's feelings towards Irish antiquities, he has left us a reproducing swarm of falsehood, of which Mr. Petrie has happily begun the destruction. Perhaps nothing gave Vallancey's follies more popularity than the opposition of the Rev. Edward Ledwich, whose Antiquities of Ireland is a mass of falsehoods, disparaging to the people and the country.

FIRE TEMPLES.

Vallancey's first analogy is plausible. The Irish Druids honoured the elements and kept up sacred fires, and at a particular day in the year all the fires in the kingdom were put out, and had to be re-lighted from the Arch-Druid's fire. A similar creed and custom existed among the Parsees or Guebres of Persia, and he takes the resemblance to prove connection and identity of creed and civilisation. From this he immediately concludes the Round Towers to be Fire Temples. Now there is no evidence that the Irish Pagans had sacred fires, except in open spaces (on the hilltops), and, therefore, none of course that they had them in towers round or square; but Vallancey falls back on the alleged existence of Round Towers in the East similar to ours, and on etymology.

Here is a specimen of his etymologies. The Hebrew word gadul signifies great, and thence a tower; the Irish name for a round tower, cloghad, is from this gadul or gad, and clogh, a stone: and the Druids called every place of worship cloghad. To which it is answered—gadul is not gad—clogh, a stone, is not cloch, a bell. The Irish word for a Round Tower is cloich-theach, or bell-house, and there is no proof that the Druids called any place of worship cloghad.

Vallancey's guesses are numerous, and nearly all childish, and we shall quote some finishing specimens, with Mr. Petrie's answers:—

"This is another characteristic example of Vallancey's mode of quoting authorities: he first makes O'Brien say that Cuilceach becomes corruptly Claiceach, and then that the word seems to be corrupted Clogtheach. But O'Brien does not say that Cuilceach is corruptly Claiceach, nor has he the word Culkak or Claiceach in his book; neither does he say that Cuilceach seems to be a corruption of Clog-theach, but states positively that it is so. The following are the passages which Vallancey has so misquoted and garbled—

"'CUILCEACH, a steeple, cuilceach Cluan-umba, Cloyne steeple—this word is a corruption of Clog-theach.

"'CLOIG-THEACH, a steeple, a belfry; corrupte Cuilg-theach.'

"Our author next tells us that another name for the Round Towers is Sibheit, Sithbeit, and Sithbein, and for this he refers us to O'Brien's and Shaw's Lexicons; but this quotation is equally false with those I have already exposed, for the words Sibheit and Sithbeit are not to be found in either of the works referred to. The word Sithbhe is indeed given in both Lexicons, but explained a city, not a round tower. The word Sithbhein is also given in both, but explained a fort, a turret, and the real meaning of the word as still understood in many parts of Ireland is a fairy-hill, or hill of the fairies, and is applied to a green round hill crowned by a small sepulchral mound.

"He next tells us that Caiceach, the last name he finds for the Round Towers, is supposed by the Glossarists to be compounded of cai, a house, and teach, a house, an explanation which, he playfully adds, is tautology with a witness. But where did he find authority for the word Caiceach? I answer, nowhere; and the tautology he speaks of was either a creation or a blunder of his own. It is evident to me that the Glossarist to whom he refers is no other than his favourite Cormac; but the latter makes no such blunder, as will appear from the passage which our author obviously refers to—

"'Cai i. teach unde dicitur ceard cha i. teach cearda; creas cha i. teach cumang.'

"'Cai, i.e., a house; unde dicitur ceard-cha, i.e., the house of the artificer; creas-cha, i.e., a narrow house.'"

The reader has probably now had enough of Vallancey's etymology, but it is right to add that Mr. Petrie goes through every hint of such proof given by the General, and disposes of them with greater facility.

The next person disposed of is Mr. Beauford, who derives the name of our Round Towers from Tlacht—earth; asserts that the foundations of temples for Vestal fire exist in Rath-na-Emhain, and other places (poor devil!)—that the Persian Magi overran the world in the time of the great Constantine, introducing Round Towers in place of the Vestal mounds into Ireland, combining their fire-worship with our Druidism—and that the present towers were built in imitation of the Magian Towers. This is all, as Mr. Petrie says, pure fallacy, without a particle of authority; but we should think "twelfth" is a misprint for "seventh" in the early part of Beauford's passage, and, therefore, that the last clause of Mr. Petrie's censure is undeserved.

This Beauford is not to be confounded with Miss Beaufort. She, too, paganises the towers by aggravating some misstatements of Mason's Parochial Survey; but her errors are not worth notice, except the assertion that the Psalters of Tara and Cashel allege that the towers were for keeping the sacred fire. These Psalters are believed to have perished, and any mention of sacred fires in the glossary of Cormac M'Cullenan, the supposed compiler of the Psalter of Cashel, is adverse to their being in towers. He says:—

"Belltane, i.e., bil tene, i.e., tene bil, i.e., the goodly fire, i.e., two goodly fires, which the Druids were used to make, with great incantations on them, and they used to bring the cattle between them against the diseases of each year."

Another MS. says:—

"Beltaine, i.e., Bel-dine; Bel was the name of an idol; it was on it (i.e., the festival) that a couple of the young of every cattle were exhibited as in the possession of Bel; unde Beldine. Or, Beltine, i.e., Bil-tine, i.e., the goodly fire, i.e., two goodly fires, which the Druids were used to make with great incantations, and they were used to drive the cattle between them against the diseases of each year."

Mr. Petrie continues:—

"It may be remarked that remnants of this ancient custom, in perhaps a modified form, still exist in the May-fires lighted in the streets and suburbs of Dublin, and also in the fires lighted on St. John's Eve in all other parts of Ireland. The Tinne Eigin of the Highlands, of which Dr. Martin gives the following account, is probably a remnant of it also, but there is no instance of such fires being lighted in towers or houses of any description:—

"'The inhabitants here (Isle of Skye) did also make use of a fire called Tin Egin (i.e.), a forced Fire, or Fire of necessity, which they used as an Antidote against the Plague or Murrain in cattle; and it was performed thus: All the fires in the Parish were extinguish'd, and eighty-one marry'd men, being thought the necessary number for effecting this Design, took two great Planks of Wood, and nine of 'em were employed by turns, who by their repeated Efforts rubb'd one of the Planks against the other until the Heat thereof produced Fire; and from this forc'd Fire each Family is supplied with new Fire, which is no sooner kindled than a pot full of water is quickly set on it, and afterwards sprinkled upon the people infected with the Plague, or upon cattle that have the Murrain. And this, they all say, they find successful by experience.'—Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (second edition), p. 113.

"As authority for Miss Beaufort's second assertion, relative to the Tower of Thlachtga, etc., we are referred to the Psalter of Tara, by Comerford (p. 41), cited in the Parochial Survey (vol. iii., p. 320); and certainly in the latter work we do find a passage in nearly the same words which Miss Beaufort uses. But if the lady had herself referred to Comerford's little work, she would have discovered that the author of the article in the Parochial Survey had in reality no authority for his assertions, and had attempted a gross imposition on the credulity of his readers."

Mr. D'Alton relies much on a passage in Cambrensis, wherein he says that the fishermen on Lough Neagh (a lake certainly formed by an inundation in the first century, A.D. 62) point to such towers under the lake; but this only shows they were considered old in Cambrensis's time (King John's), for Cambrensis calls them turres ecclesiasticas (a Christian appellation); and the fishermen of every lake have such idle traditions from the tall objects they are familiar with; and the steeples of Antrim, etc., were handy to the Loch n-Eathac men.

One of the authorities quoted by all the Paganists is from the Ulster Annals at the year 448. It is—"Kl. Jenair. Anno Domini cccc.xl.viii. ingenti terrae motu per loca varia imminente, plurimi urbis auguste muri recenti adhuc reaedificatione constructi, cum l.vii. turribus conruerunt." This was made to mean that part of the wall of Armagh, with fifty-seven Round Towers, fell in an earthquake in 448, whereas the passage turns out to be a quotation from "Marcellinus"[38] of the fall of part of the defences of Constantinople—"Urbis Augustae!"

References to towers in Irish annals are quoted by Mr. D'Alton; but they turn out to be written about the Cyclopean Forts, or low stone raths, such as we find at Aileach, etc.

———————————————————————————————- [38] Author of the Life of Thucydides.—C.P.M.

CELESTIAL INDEXES.

Dr. Charles O'Connor, of Stowe, is the chief supporter of the astronomical theory. One of his arguments is founded on the mistaken reading of the word "turaghun" (which he derives from tur, a tower, and aghan, or adhan, the kindling of flame), instead of "truaghan," an ascetic. The only other authority of his which we have not noticed is the passage in the Ulster Annals, at the year 995, in which it is said that certain Fidhnemead were burned by lightning at Armagh. He translates the word celestial indexes, and paraphrases it Round Towers, and all because fiadh means witness, and neimhedh, heavenly or sacred, the real meaning being holy wood, or wood of the sanctuary, from fidh, a wood, and neimhedh, holy, as is proved by a pile of exact authorities.

Dr. Lanigan, in his ecclesiastical history, and Moore, in his general history, repeat the arguments which we have mentioned. They also bring objections against the alleged Christian origin, which we hold over; but it is plain that nothing prevailed more with them than the alleged resemblance of these towers to certain oriental buildings. Assuredly if there were a close likeness between the Irish Round Towers and oriental fire temples of proved antiquity, it would be an argument for identity of use; and though direct testimony from our annals would come in and show that the present towers were built as Christian belfries from the sixth to the tenth centuries, the resemblance would at least indicate that the belfries had been built after the model of Pagan fire towers previously existing here. But "rotundos of above thirty feet in diameter" in Persia, Turkish minarets of the tenth or fourteenth centuries, and undated turrets in India, which Lord Valentia thought like our Round Towers, give no such resemblance. We shall look anxiously for exact measurements and datas of oriental buildings resembling Round Towers, and weigh the evidence which may be offered to show that there were any Pagan models for the latter in Ireland or in Asia.

Mr. Windele, of Cork, besides using all the previously-mentioned arguments for the Paganism of these towers, finds another in the supposed resemblance to THE NURRAGGIS OF SARDINIA, which are tombs or temples formed in that island, and attributed to the Phoenicians. But, alas, for the theory, they have turned out to be "as broad as they're long." A square building, 57 feet in each side, with bee-hive towers at each angle, and a centre bee-hive tower reaching to 45 or 65 feet high, with stone stairs, is sadly unlike a Round Tower!

The most recent theory is that the Round Towers are

HERO-MONUMENTS.

Mr. Windele and the South Munster Antiquarian Society started this, Sir William Betham sanctioned it, and several rash gentlemen dug under towers to prove it. At Cashel, Kinsale, etc., they satisfied themselves that there were no sepulchres or bones ever under the towers, but in some other places they took the rubbish bones casually thrown into the towers, and in two cases the chance underlying of ancient burying-grounds, as proofs of this notion. But Mr. Petrie settles for this idea by showing that there is no such use of the Round Towers mentioned in our annals, and also by the following most interesting account of the cemeteries and monuments of all the races of Pagan Irish:—

HISTORY OF THE CEMETERIES.

"A great king of great judgments assumed the sovereignty of Erin, i.e., Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles. Erin was prosperous in his time, because just judgments were distributed throughout it by him; so that no one durst attempt to wound a man in Erin during the short jubilee of seven years; for Cormac had the faith of the one true God, according to the law; for he said that he would not adore stones, or trees, but that he would adore Him who had made them, and who had power over all the elements, i.e., the one powerful God who created the elements; in Him he would believe. And he was the third person who had believed in Erin before the arrival of St. Patrick. Conchobor MacNessa, to whom Altus had told concerning the crucifixion of Christ, was the first; Morann, the son of Cairbre Cinncait (who was surnamed Mac Main), was the second person; and Cormac was the third; and it is probable that others followed on their track in this belief.

"Where Cormac held his court was at Tara, in imitation of the kings who preceded him, until his eye was destroyed by Engus Gaibhuaiphnech, the son of Eochaidh Finn Futhairt: but afterwards he resided at Acaill (the hill on which Serin Colaim Cille is at this day), and at Cenannas (Kells), and at the house of Cletech; for it was not lawful that a king with a personal blemish should reside at Tara. In the second year after the injuring of his eye he came by his death at the house of Cletech, the bone of a salmon having stuck in his throat. And he (Cormac) told his people not to bury him at Brugh (because it was a cemetery of Idolaters), for he did not worship the same God as any of those interred at Brugh; but to bury him at Ros-na-righ, with his face to the east. He afterwards died, and his servants of trust held a council, and came to the resolution of burying him at Brugh, the place where the kings of Tara, his predecessors, were buried. The body of the king was afterwards thrice raised to be carried to Brugh, but the Boyne swelled up thrice, so that they could not come; so that they observed that it was 'violating the judgment of a prince' to break through this testament of the king, and they afterwards dug his grave at Ros-na-righ, as he himself had ordered.

"These were the chief cemeteries of Erin before the Faith (i.e., before the introduction of Christianity), viz., Cruachu, Brugh, Tailltin, Luachair, Ailbe, Oenach Ailbe, Oenach Culi, Oenach Colmain, Temhair Erann.

"Oenach Cruachan, in the first place, it was there the race of Heremon (i.e., the kings of Tara) were used to bury until the time of Cremhthann, the son of Lughaidh Riabh-n-derg (who was the first king of them that was interred at Brugh), viz., Cobhlhach Coelbregh, and Labhraidh Loingsech, and Eocho Fedhlech with his three sons (i.e., the three Fidhemhna—i.e., Bres, Nar, and Lothoe), and Eocho Airemh, Lughaidh Riabh-n-derg, the six daughters of Eocho Fedhlech (i.e., Medhbh, and Clothru, Muresc, and Drebrin, Mugain, and Ele), and Adill Mac Mada with his seven brothers (i.e., Cet, Anlon, Doche, et ceteri), and all the kings down to Cremhthann (these were all buried at Cruachan). Why was it not at Brugh that the kings (of the race of Cobhthach down to Crimthann) were interred? Not difficult; because the two provinces which the race of Heremon possessed were the province of Gailian (i.e., the province of Leinster), and the province of Olnecmacht (i.e., the province of Connaught). In the first place, the province of Gailian was occupied by the race of Labhraidh Loingsech, and the province of Connaught was the peculiar inheritance of the race of Cobhtach Coelbregh; wherefore it (i.e., the province of Connaught) was given to Medhbh before every other province. (The reason that the government of this land was given to Medhbh is because there was none of the race of Eochaidh fit to receive it but herself, for Lughaidh was not fit for action at the time.) And whenever, therefore, the monarchy of Erin was enjoyed by any of the descendants of Cobhthach Coelbregh, the province of Connaught was his ruidles (i.e., his native principality). And for this reason they were interred at Oenach na Cruachna. But they were interred at Brugh from the time of Crimthann (Niadh-nar) to the time of Loeghaire, the son of Niall, except three persons, namely, Art, the son of Conn, and Cormac, the son of Art, and Niall of the Nine Hostages.

"We have already mentioned the cause for which Cormac was not interred there. The reason why Art was not interred there is because he 'believed,' the day before the battle of Muccramma was fought, and he predicted the Faith (i.e., that Christianity would prevail in Erin), and he said that his own grave would be at Dumha Dergluachra, where Treoit [Trevet] is at this day, as he mentioned in a poem which he composed—viz., Cain do denna den (i.e., a poem which Art composed, the beginning of which is Cain do denna den, etc.). When his (Art's) body was afterwards carried eastwards to Dumha Dergluachra, if all the men of Erin were drawing it thence, they could not, so that he was interred in that place because there was a Catholic church to be afterwards at the place where he was interred (i.e., Treoit hodie). because the truth and the Faith had been revealed to him through his regal righteousness.

"Where Niall was interred was at Ochain, whence the hill was called Ochain, i.e., Och Caine, i.e., from the sighing and lamentation which the men of Erin made in lamenting Niall.

"Conaire More was interred at Magh Feci in Bregia (i.e., at Fert Conaire); however, some say that it was Conaire Carpraige was interred there, and not Conaire Mor, and that Conaire Mor was the third king who was interred at Tara—viz., Conaire, Loeghaire, and * * *

"At Tailltin the kings of Ulster were used to bury—viz., Ollamh Fodhla, with his descendants down to Conchobhar, who wished that he should be carried to a place between Slea and the sea, with his face to the east, on account of the Faith which he had embraced.

"The nobles of the Tuatha De Danann were used to bury at Brugh (i.e., the Dagda with his three sons; also Lughaidh and Oe, and Ollam, and Ogma, and Etan, the Poetess, and Corpre, the son of Etan), and Cremhthann followed them because his wife Nar was of the Tuatha Dea, and it was she solicited him that he should adopt Brugh as a burial-place for himself and his descendants, and this was the cause that they did not bury at Cruachan.

"The Lagenians (i.e., Cathair with his race and the kings who were before them) were buried at Oenach Ailbhe. The Clann Dedad (i.e., the race of Conaire and Erna) at Temhair Erann; the men of Munster (i.e., the Dergthene) at Oenach Culi, and Oenach Colmain; and the Connacians at Cruachan."

ANCHORITE TOWERS.

Because Simon Stylites lived in a domicile, sized "scarce two cubits," on a pillar sixty feet high, and because other anchorites lived on pillars and in cells, Dean Richardson suggested that the Irish Round Towers were for hermits; and was supported by Walter Harris, Dr. Milner, Dr. King, etc. The cloch angcoire, or hermit's stone, quoted in aid of this fancy, turns out to be a narrow cell; and so much for the hermits!

The confusion of

TOURS AND TOWERS

is a stupid pun or a vulgar pronunciation in English; but in Irish gave rise to the antiquarian theory of Dr. Smith, who, in his History of Cork, concludes that the Round Towers were penitential prisons, because the Irish word for a penitential round or journey is turas!

THE PHALLIC THEORY

never had any support but poor Henry O'Brien's enthusiastic ignorance and the caricaturing pen of his illustrator.

We have now done with the theories of these towers, which Mr. Petrie has shown, past doubt, to be either positively false or quite unproved. His own opinion is that they were used—1, as belfries; 2, as keeps, or houses of shelter for the clergy and their treasures; and 3, as watch-towers and beacons; and into his evidence for this opinion we shall go at a future day, thanking him at present for having displaced a heap of incongruous, though agreeable, fancies, and given us the learned, the most exact, and the most important work ever published on the antiquities of the Ancient Irish Nation.



THE IRISH BRIGADE.

When valour becomes a reproach, when patriotism is thought a prejudice, and when a soldier's sword is a sign of shame, the Irish Brigade will be forgotten or despised.

The Irish are a military people—strong, nimble, and hardy, fond of adventure, irascible, brotherly, and generous—they have all the qualities that tempt men to war and make them good soldiers. Dazzled by their great fame on the Continent, and hearing of their insular wars chiefly through the interested lies of England, Voltaire expressed his wonder that a nation which had behaved so gallantly abroad had "always fought badly at home." It would have been most wonderful.

It may be conceded that the Irish performed more illustrious actions on the Continent. They fought with the advantages of French discipline and equipment; they fought as soldiers, with the rights of war, not "rebels, with halters round their necks"; they fought by the side of great rivals and amid the gaze of Europe.

In the most of their domestic wars they appeared as divided clans or abrupt insurgents; they were exposed to the treachery of a more instructed, of an unscrupulous and a compact enemy; they had neither discipline, nor generalship, nor arms; their victories were those of a mob; their defeats were followed by extermination.

We speak of their ordinary contests with England from the time of Roderick O'Connor to that of '98. Occasionally they had more opportunities, and their great qualities for war appeared. In Hugh (or, rather Aodh) O'Neill they found a leader who only wanted material resources to have made them an independent nation. Cautious, as became the heir of so long a strife, he spent years in acquiring military knowledge and nursing up his clan into the kernel for a nation; crafty as Bacon and Cecil, and every other man of his time, he learned war in Elizabeth's armies, and got help from her store-houses. When the discontent of the Pale, religious tyranny, and the intrigues and hostility of Spain and Rome against England gave him an opening, he put his ordered clan into action, stormed the neighbouring garrisons, struck terror into his hereditary foes, and gave hope to all patriots; but finding that his ranks were too few for battle, he negotiated successfully for peace, but unavailingly for freedom; his grievances and designs remained, and he retired to repeat the same policy, till, after repeated guerillas and truces, he was strong enough to proclaim alliance with Spain and war with England, and to defeat and slay every deputy that assailed him, till at last he marched from the triumph of Beal-an-ath Buidhe[39] (where Marshal Bagenal and his army perished) to hold an almost royal court at Munster, and to reduce the Pale to the limits it had formed in the Wars of the Roses; and even when the neglect of Spain, the genius of Mountjoy, the resources and intrigues of England, and the exhaustion and divisions of Ireland had rendered success hopeless, the Irish under O'Ruarc, O'Sullivan, and O'Doherty vindicated their military character.

From that period they, whose foreign services, since Dathi's time, had been limited to supplying feudatories to the English kings, began to fight under the flags of England's enemies in every corner of Europe. The artifices of the Stuarts regained them, and in the reign of Charles the First they were extensively enlisted for the English allies and for the crown; but it was under the guidance of another O'Neill, and for Ireland,[40] they again exhibited the qualities which had sustained Tyrone. The battle of Benburb affords as great a proof of Irish soldiership as Fontenoy.

But it was when, with a formal government and in a regular war, they encountered the Dutch invader, they showed the full prowess of the Irish; and at the Boyne, Limerick, Athlone, and Aughrim, in victory or defeat, and always against immensely superior numbers and armaments, proved that they fought well at home.

Since the day when Sarsfield sailed the Irish have never had an opportunity of refuting the calumny of England which Voltaire accepted. In '98 they met enormous forces resting on all the magazines of England; they had no officers; their leaders, however brave, neither knew how to organise, provision, station, or manoeuvre troops—their arms were casual—their ignorance profound—their intemperance unrestrainable. If they put English supremacy in peril (and had Arklow or Ballinahinch been attacked with skill, that supremacy was gone), they did so by mere valour.

It is, therefore, on the Continent that one must chiefly look for Irish trophies. It is a pious and noble search; but he who pursues it had need to guard against the error we have noticed in Voltaire, of disparaging Irish soldiership at home.

The materials for the history of the Irish Brigade are fast accumulating. We have before us the Military History of the Irish Nation, by the late Matthew O'Conor. He was a barrister, but studied military subjects (as became a gentleman and a citizen), peculiarly interested himself in the achievements of his countrymen, and prepared materials for a history of them. He died, leaving his work unfinished, yet, happily sufficiently advanced to offer a continuous narrative of Irish internal wars, from Hugh O'Neill to Sarsfield, and of their foreign services up to the Peace of Utrecht, in 1711. The style of the work is earnest and glowing, full of patriotism and liberality; but Mr. O'Conor was no blind partisan, and he neither hides the occasional excesses of the Irish, nor disparages their opponents. His descriptions of battles are very superior to what one ordinarily meets in the works of civilians, and any one reading them with a military atlas will be gratified and instructed.

The value of the work is vastly augmented by the appendix, which is a memoir of the Brigade, written in French, in 1749, and including the War Office orders, and all the changes in organisation, numbers, and pay of the Brigade to that date. This memoir is authenticated thus:—

"His Excellency, the Duke of Feltre, Minister of War, was so kind as to communicate to me the original memoir above cited, of which this is a perfect copy, which I attest.

"DE MONTMORENCY MORRES (Herve), "Adjutant-Commandant, Colonel.

"Paris, 1st September, 1813."

To give any account of the details of Mr. O'Conor's book we should abridge it, and an abridgment of a military history is a catalogue of names. It contains accounts of Hugh O'Neill's campaigns and of the wars of William and James in Ireland. It describes (certainly a new chapter in our knowledge) the services of the Irish in the Low Countries and France during the religious wars in Henri Quatre's time, and the hitherto equally unknown actions abroad during Charles the Second's exile and reign.

The wars of Mountcashel's (the old) Brigade in 1690-91, under St. Ruth in Savoy, occupy many interesting pages, and the first campaigns of the New Brigade, with the death of Sarsfield and Mountcashel, are carefully narrated. The largest part of the work is occupied with the wars of the Spanish succession, and contains minute narratives of the battles and sieges of Cremona, Spire, Luzzaca, Blenheim, Cassano, Ramilies, Almanza, Alcira, Malplaquet, and Denain, with the actions of the Irish in them.

Here are great materials for our future History of Ireland.

———————————————————————————————- [39] See Mitchel's Life of Hugh O'Neill, and Meehan's Flight of the Earls. Dublin: Duffy & Sons.

[40] Owen Roe, who defeated Monro, 1646.



THE SPEECHES OF GRATTAN.[41]

Of the long line of Protestant patriots Grattan is the first in genius, and first in services. He had a more fervid and more Irish nature than Swift or Flood, and he accomplished what Swift hardly dreamed, and Flood failed in—an Irish constitution. He had immeasurably more imagination than Tone; and though he was far behind the great Founder of the United Irishmen in organising power, he surpassed him in inspiration. The statues of all shall be in our forums, and examples of all in our hearts, but that of Grattan shall be pre-eminent. The stubborn and advancing energy of Swift and Flood may teach us to bear up against wrong; the principles of Tone may end in liberation; but the splendid nationality of Grattan shall glorify us in every condition.

The speeches of Grattan were collected and his memoirs written by his son. The latter is an accessible and an invaluable account of his life; but the speeches were out of print, not purchasable under five or six guineas, and then were unmanageably numerous for any but a professed politician. Mr. Madden's volume gives for a trifle all Grattan's most valuable speeches, with a memoir sufficient to explain the man and the orator.

On the speeches of Grattan here published we have little to say. They are the finest specimens of imaginative eloquence in the English, or in any, language. There is not much pathos, and no humour in them, and in these respects Grattan is far less of an Irishman, and of an orator too, than Curran; but a philosophy, penetrating constitutions for their warnings, and human nature for its guides—a statesman's (as distinguished from an antiquarian's) use of history—a passionate scorn and invective for the base, tyrannical, and unjust—a fiery and copious zeal for liberty and for Ireland, and a diction and cadence almost lyrical, made Grattan the sudden achiever of a Revolution, and will make him for ever one of the very elements of Ireland.

No other orator is so uniformly animated. No other orator has brightened the depths of political philosophy with such vivid and lasting light. No writer in the language except Shakespeare has so sublime and suggestive a diction. His force and vehemence are amazing—far beyond Chatham, far beyond Fox, far beyond any orator we can recall.

To the student of oratory Grattan's speeches are dangerously suggestive, overpowering spirits that will not leave when bid. Yet, with all this terrible potency, who would not bask in his genius, even at the hazard of having his light for ever in your eyes. The brave student will rather exult in his effulgence—not to rob, not to mimic it—but to catch its inspiration, and then go on his way resolved to create a glory of his own which, however small, being genuine, shall not pale within its sphere.

To give a just idea of Grattan's rush and splendour to anyone not familiar with his speeches is impossible; but some glimmer may be got by one reading the extracts we shall add here. We shall take them at random, as we open the pages in the book, and leave the reader, untaught in our great orator, to judge, if chance is certain of finding such gems, what would not judicious care discover! Let him use that care again and again.

"Sir, we may hope to dazzle with illumination, and we may sicken with addresses, but the public imagination will never rest, nor will her heart be well at ease; never! so long as the parliament of England exercises or claims a legislation over this country: so long as this shall be the case, that very free trade, otherwise a perpetual attachment, will be the cause of new discontent; it will create a pride to feel the indignity of bondage; it will furnish a strength to bite your chain, and the liberty withheld will poison the good communicated.

"The British minister mistakes the Irish character; had he intended to make Ireland a slave he should have kept her a beggar; there is no middle policy; win her heart by the restoration of her right, or cut off the nation's right hand; greatly emancipate, or fundamentally destroy. We may talk plausibly to England, but so long as she exercises a power to bind this country, so long are the nations in a state of war; the claims of the one go against the liberty of the other, and the sentiments of the latter go to oppose those claims to the last drop of her blood. The English opposition, therefore, are right; mere trade will not satisfy Ireland—they judge of us by other great nations, by the nation whose political life has been a struggle for liberty; they judge of us with a true knowledge and just deference for our character: that a country enlightened as Ireland, chartered as Ireland, armed as Ireland and injured as Ireland, will be satisfied with nothing less than liberty.

"Impracticable! impracticable! impracticable! a zealous divine will say; any alteration is beyond the power and wisdom of parliament; above the faculties of man to make adequate provision for 900 clergymen who despise riches. Were it to raise a new tax for their provision, or for that of a body less holy, how easy the task! how various the means! but when the proposal is to diminish a tax already established, an impossibility glares us in the face, of a measure so contrary to our practices both in church and state."

We were wrong in saying there was no humour in Grattan. Here is a passage humorous enough, but it is scornful, rhetorical humour:—

"It does not affect the doctrine of our religion; it does not alter the church establishment; it does not affect the constitution of episcopacy. The modus does not even alter the mode of their provision, it only limits the quantum, and limits it on principles much less severe than that charity which they preach, or that abstinence which they inculcate. Is this innovation?—as if the Protestant religion was to be propagated in Ireland, like the influence of a minister, by bribery; or like the influence of a county candidate, by money; or like the cause of a potwalloping canvasser, by the weight of the purse; as if Christ could not prevail over the earth unless Mammon took him by the hand. Am I to understand that if you give the parson 12s. in the acre for potatoes and 10s. for wheat, the Protestant religion is safe on its rock? But if you reduce him to 6s. the acre for potatoes and wheat, then Jupiter shakes the heavens with his thunder, Neptune rakes up the deep with his trident, and Pluto leaps from his throne! See the curate—he rises at six to morning prayers; he leaves company at six for evening prayer; he baptises, he marries, he churches, he buries, he follows with pious offices his fellow creature from the cradle to the grave; for what immense income! what riches to reward these inestimable services? (Do not depend on the penury of the laity, let his own order value his deserts.) L50 a year! L50! for praying, for christening, for marrying, for churching, for burying, for following with Christian offices his fellow-creature from cradle to grave; so frugal a thing is devotion, so cheap religion, so easy the terms on which man may worship his Maker, and so small the income, in the opinion of ecclesiastics, sufficient for the duties of a clergyman, as far as he is connected at all with the Christian religion.

* * * * *

"By this trade of parliament the King is absolute; his will is signified by both houses of parliament, who are now as much an instrument in his hand as a bayonet in the hands of a regiment. Like a regiment we have our adjutant, who sends to the infirmary for the old and to the brothel for the young, and men thus carted, as it were, into this house, to vote for the minister, are called the representatives of the people! Suppose General Washington to ring his bell, and order his servants out of livery to take their seats in Congress—you can apply this instance.

"It is not life but the condition of living—the slave is not so likely to complain of the want of property as the proprietor of the want of privilege. The human mind is progressive—the child does not look back to the parent that gave him being, nor the proprietor to the people that gave him the power of acquisition, but both look forward—the one to provide for the comforts of life, and the other to obtain all the privileges of property."

But we have fallen on one of his most marvellous passages, and we give it entire:—

"I will put this question to my country; I will suppose her at the bar, and I will ask her, Will you fight for a Union as you would for a constitution? Will you fight for that Lords and that Commons who, in the last century, took away your trade, and, in the present, your constitution, as for that King, Lords, and Commons who have restored both? Well, the minister has destroyed this constitution; to destroy is easy. The edifices of the mind, like the fabrics of marble, require an age to build, but ask only minutes to precipitate; and as the fall of both is an effort of no time, so neither is it a business of any strength—a pick-axe and a common labourer will do the one—a little lawyer, a little pimp, a wicked minister the other.

"The Constitution, which, with more or less violence, has been the inheritance of this country for six hundred years—that modus tenendi parliamentum, which lasted and outlasted of Plantagenet the wars, of Tudor the violence, and of Stuart the systematic falsehood—the condition of our connection—yes, the constitution he destroys is one of the pillars of the British Empire. He may walk round it and round it, and the more he contemplates the more must he admire it—such a one as had cost England of money millions and of blood a deluge, cheaply and nobly expended—whose restoration had cost Ireland her noblest efforts, and was the habitation of her loyalty—we are accustomed to behold the kings of these countries in the keeping of parliament—I say of her loyalty as well as of her liberty, where she had hung up the sword of the Volunteer—her temple of fame as well as of freedom—where she had seated herself, as she vainly thought, in modest security and in a long repose.

"I have done with the pile which the minister batters, I come to the Babel which he builds; and as he throws down without a principle, so does he construct without a foundation. This fabric he calls a Union, and to this, his fabric, there are two striking objections—first it is no Union; it is not an identification of people, for it excludes the Catholics; secondly, it is a consolidation of the Irish legislatures—that is to say, a merger of the Irish parliament, and incurs every objection to a Union, without obtaining the only object which a Union professes; it is an extinction of the constitution, and an exclusion of the people. Well! he has overlooked the people as he has overlooked the sea. I say he excludes the Catholics, and he destroys their best chance of admission—the relative consequence. Thus he reasons, that hereafter, in course of time (he does not say when), if they behave themselves (he does not say how), they may see their subjects submitted to a course of discussion (he does not say with what result or determination); and as the ground for this inane period, in which he promises nothing, and in which, if he did promise much, at so remote a period he could perform nothing, unless he, like the evil he has accomplished, be immortal. For this inane sentence, in which he can scarcely be said to deceive the Catholic, or suffer the Catholic to deceive himself, he exhibits no other ground than the physical inanity of the Catholic body accomplished by a Union, which, as it destroys the relative importance of Ireland, so it destroys the relative proportion of the Catholic inhabitants, and thus they become admissible, because they cease to be anything. Hence, according to him, their brilliant expectation: 'You were,' say his advocates, and so imports his argument, 'before the Union as three to one, you will be by the Union as one to four.' Thus he founds their hopes of political power on the extinction of physical consequence, and makes the inanity of their body and the nonentity of their country the pillars of their future ambition."

We now return to the memoir by Mr. Madden. It is not the details of a life meagre for want of space, and confused for want of principles, as most little biographies are; it is an estimate—a profound one—of Grattan's original nature, of the influences which acted on him from youth to manhood, of his purposes, his principles, and his influence on Ireland.

Henry Grattan was twenty-nine years of age when he entered on politics, and in seven years he was the triumphant leader of a people free and victorious after hereditary bondage. He entered parliament educated in the meta-physical and political philosophy of the time, injured by its cold and epigrammatic verse and its artificial tastes—familiar with every form of aristocratic life from Kilkenny to London—familiar, too, with Chatham's oratory and principles, and with Flood's views and example. He came when there were great forces rushing through the land—eloquence, love of liberty, thirst for commerce, hatred of English oppression, impatience, glory, and, above all, a military array. He combined these elements and used them to achieve the Revolution of '82. Be he for ever honoured!

Mr. Madden defends him against Flood on the question of Simple Repeal. Here is his reasoning:—

"It is an easy thing now to dispose of the idle question of simple repeal. In truth, there was nothing whatever deserving of attention in the point raised by Mr. Flood. The security for the continuance of Irish freedom did not depend upon an English act of parliament. It was by Irish will and not at English pleasure that the new constitution was to be supported. The transaction between the countries was of a high political nature, and it was to be judged by political reason, and by statesmanlike computation, and not by the petty technicalities of the court of law. The revolution of 1782, as carried by Ireland, and assented to by England (in repealing the 6th George the First), was a political compact—proposed by one country, and acknowledged by the other in the face of Europe; it was not (as Mr. Flood and his partisans construed the transaction) of the nature of municipal right, to be enforced or annulled by mere judicial exposition."

This is unanswerable, but Grattan should have gone further. The Revolution was effected mainly by the Volunteers, whom he had inspired; arms could alone have preserved the constitution. Flood was wrong in setting value on one form—Grattan in relying on any; but both before and after '82 Flood seems to have had glimpses that the question was one of might, as well as of right, and that national laws could not last under such an alien army.

Taken as military representatives, the Convention at the Rotunda was even more valuable than as a civic display. Mr. Madden censures Grattan for having been an elaborate neutral during these Reform dissensions; but that the result of such neutrality ruined the Convention proves a comparative want of power in Flood, who could have governed that Convention in spite of the rascally English and the feeble Irish Whigs. Oh, had Tone been in that council!

In describing Grattan's early and enthusiastic and ceaseless advocacy of Catholic liberty, Mr. Madden has a just subject for unmixed eulogy. Let no one imagine that the interest of these Emancipation speeches has died with the achievement of what they pleaded for; they will ever remain divinest protests against the vice and impolicy of religious ascendency, of sectarian bitterness, and of bigot separation.

For this admirable beginning of the design of giving Ireland its most glorious achievement—the speeches of its orators—to contemplate, the country should be grateful; but if there can be anything better for it to hear than can be had in Grattan's speeches, it is such language as this from his eloquent editor:—

"Reader! if you be an Irish Protestant, and entertain harsh prejudices against your Catholic countrymen, study the works and life of Grattan—learn from him—for none can teach you better how to purify your nature from bigotry. Learn from him to look upon all your countrymen with a loving heart—to be tolerant of infirmities caused by their unhappy history—and, like Grattan, earnestly sympathise with all that is brave and generous in their character.

"Reader! if you be an Irish Catholic, and that you confound the Protestant religion with tyranny, learn from Grattan that it is possible to be a Protestant and have a heart for Ireland and its people. Think that the brightest age of Ireland was when Grattan—a steady Protestant—raised it to proud eminence; think also that in the hour of his triumph he did not forget the state of your oppressed fathers, but laboured through his virtuous life that both you and your children should enjoy unshackled liberty of conscience.

"But reader! whether you be Protestant or Catholic, or whatever be your party, you will do well as an Irishman to ponder upon the spirit and principles which governed the public and private life of Grattan. Learn from him how to regard your countrymen of all denominations. Observe, as he did, how very much that is excellent belongs to both the great parties into which Ireland is divided. If (as some do) you entertain dispiriting views of Ireland, recollect that any country containing such elements as those which roused the genius of Grattan never need despair. Sursum corda. Be not disheartened.

"Go—go—my countrymen—and, within your social sphere, carry into practice those moral principles which Grattan so eloquently taught, and which he so remarkably enforced by his well-spent life. He will teach you to avoid hating men on account of their religious professions or hereditary descent. From him you will learn principles which, if carried out, would generate a new state of society in Ireland."

———————————————————————————————- [41] "The Select Speeches of the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. To which is added his Letter on the Union, with a Commentary on his Career and Character." By Daniel Owen Madden, Esq., of the Inner Temple. Dublin: James Duffy, 1845. 8vo, pp. 534.



MEMORIALS OF WEXFORD.

'Twixt Croghan-Kinshela and Hook Head, 'twixt Carnsore and Mount Leinster, there is as good a mass of men as ever sustained a state by honest franchises, by peace, virtue, and intelligent industry; and as stout a mass as ever tramped through a stubborn battle. There is a county where we might seek more of stormy romance, and there is a county where prospers a shrewder economy, but no county in Ireland is fitter for freedom than Wexford.

They are a peculiar people—these Wexford men. Their blood is for the most part English and Welsh, though mixed with the Danish and Gaelic, yet they are Irish in thought and feeling. They are a Catholic people, yet on excellent terms with their Protestant landlords. Outrages are unknown, for though the rents are high enough, they are not unbearable by a people so industrious and skilled in farming.

Go to the fair and you will meet honest dealing, and a look that heeds no lordling's frown—for the Wexford men have neither the base bend nor the baser craft of slaves. Go to the hustings, and you will see open and honest voting; no man shrinking or crying for concealment, or extorting a bribe under the name of "his expenses." Go to their farms and you will see a snug homestead, kept clean, prettily sheltered (much what you'd see in Down); more green crops than even in Ulster; the National School and the Repeal Reading-room well filled, and every religious duty regarded.

Wexford is not all it might be, or all that, with more education and the life-hope of nationality, it will be—there is something to blame and something to lament, here a vice sustained, and there a misfortune lazily borne; yet, take it for all in all, it is the most prosperous, it is the pattern county of the South; and when we see it coming forward in a mass to renew its demand for native government, it is an omen that the spirit of the people outlives quarrels and jealousies, and that it has a rude vitality which will wear out its oppressors.

Nor are we indifferent to the memories of Wexford. It owes much of its peace and prosperity to the war it sustained. It rose in '98 with little organisation against intolerable wrong; and though it was finally beaten by superior forces, it taught its aristocracy and the government a lesson not easily forgotten—a lesson that popular anger could strike hard as well as sigh deeply; and that it was better to conciliate than provoke those who even for an hour had felt their strength. The red rain made Wexford's harvest grow. Theirs was no treacherous assassination—theirs no stupid riot—theirs no pale mutiny. They rose in mass and swept the country by sheer force.

Nor in their sinking fortunes is there anything to blush at. Scullabogue was not burned by the fighting men.

Yet nowhere did the copper sun of that July burn upon a more heart-piercing sight than a rebel camp. Scattered on a hill-top, or screened in a gap, were the grey-coated thousands, their memories mad at burned cabins, and military whips, and hanged friends; their hopes dimmed by partial defeat; their eyes lurid with care; their brows full of gloomy resignation. Some have short guns which the stern of a boat might bear, but which press through the shoulder of a marching man; and others have light fowling-pieces, with dandy locks—troublesome and dangerous toys. Most have pikes, stout weapons, too; and though some swell to hand-spikes, and others thin to knives, yet, for all that, fatal are they to dragoon or musketeer if they can meet him in a rush; but how shall they do so? The gunsmen have only a little powder in scraps of paper or bags, and their balls are few and rarely fit. They have no potatoes ripe, and they have no bread—their food is the worn cattle they have crowded there, and which the first skirmish may rend from them. There are women and children seeking shelter, seeking those they love; and there are leaders busier, feebler, less knowing, less resolved than the women and the children.

Great hearts! how faithful ye are! How ye bristled up when the foe came on, how ye set your teeth to die as his shells and round-shot fell steadily; and with how firm a cheer ye dashed at him, if he gave you any chance at all of a grapple! From the wild burst with which ye triumphed at Oulart Hill, down to the faint gasp wherewith the last of your last column died in the corn-fields of Meath, there is nothing to shame your valour, your faith, or your patriotism. You wanted arms, and you wanted leaders. Had you had them, you would have guarded a green flag in Dublin Castle a week after you beat Walpole. Isolated, unorganised, unofficered, half-armed, girt by a swarm of foes, you ceased to fight, but you neither betrayed nor repented. Your sons need not fear to speak of Ninety-eight.

You, people of Wexford, almost all Repealers, are the sons of the men of '98; prosperous and many, will you only shout for Repeal, and line roads and tie boughs for a holiday? Or will you press your organisation, work at your education, and increase your political power, so that your leaders may know and act on the knowledge that, come what may, there is trust in Wexford?



THE HISTORY OF TO-DAY.

From 1793 to 1829—for thirty-six years—the Irish Catholics struggled for Emancipation. That Emancipation was but admission to the Bench, the Inner Bar, and Parliament. It was won by self-denial, genius, vast and sustained labours, and, lastly, by the sacrifice of the forty-shilling freeholders—the poor veterans of the war—and by submission to insulting oaths; yet it was cheaply bought. Not so cheaply, perchance, as if won by the sword; for on it were expended more treasures, more griefs, more intellect, more passion, more of all which makes life welcome, than had been needed for war; still it was cheaply bought, and Ireland has glorified herself, and will through ages triumph in the victory of '29.

Yet what was Emancipation compared to Repeal?

The one put a silken badge on a few members of one profession; the other would give to all professions and all trades the rank and riches which resident proprietors, domestic legislation, and flourishing commerce infallibly create.

Emancipation made it possible for Catholics to sit on the judgment seat; but it left a foreign administration, which has excluded them, save in two or three cases, where over-topping eminence made the acceptance of a Judgeship no promotion; and it left the local Judges—those with whom the people have to deal—as partial, ignorant, bigoted as ever; while Repeal would give us an Irish code and Irish-hearted Judges in every Court, from the Chancery to the Petty Sessions.

Emancipation dignified a dozen Catholics with a senatorial name in a foreign and hostile Legislature. Repeal would give us a Senate, a Militia, an Administration, all our own.

The Penal Code, as it existed since 1793, insulted the faith of the Catholics, restrained their liberties, and violated the public Treaty of Limerick. The Union has destroyed our manufactures, prohibits our flag, prevents our commerce, drains our rental, crushes our genius, makes our taxation a tribute, our representation a shadow, our name a by-word. It were nobler to strive for Repeal than to get Emancipation.

Four years ago the form of Repeal agitation began—two years ago, its reality. Have we not cause to be proud of the labours of these two years? If life be counted, not by the rising of suns, or the idle turning of machinery, but by the growth of the will, and the progress of thoughts and passions in the soul, we Irishmen have spent an age since we raised our first cry for liberty. Consider what we were then, and what we have done since. We had a People unorganised—disgusted with a Whig alliance—beaten in a dishonourable struggle to sustain a faction—ignorant of each other's will—without books, without song, without leaders (save one), without purposes, without strength, without hope. The Corn Exchange was the faint copy of the Catholic Association, with a few enthusiasts, a few loungers, and a few correspondents. Opposite to us was the great Conservative party, with a majority exceeding our whole representation, united, flushed, led by the craftiest of living statesmen, and the ablest of living generals. Oh, how disheartening it was then, when, day by day, we found prophecy and exhortation, lay and labour, flung idly before a distracted People! May we never pass through that icy ordeal again!

How different now! The People are united under the greatest system of organisation ever attempted in any country. They send in, by their Collectors, Wardens, and Inspectors, to the central office of Ireland, the contributions needed to carry on the Registration of Voters, the public meetings, the publications, the law expenses, and the organisation of the Association; and that in turn carries on registries, holds meetings, opens reading-rooms, sends newspapers, and books, and political instructions, back through the same channel; so that the Central Committee knows the state of every parish, and every parish receives the teaching and obeys the will of the Central Committee.

The Whig Alliance has melted, like ice before the sun, and the strong souls of our people will never again serve the purposes of a faction.

The Conservative party, without union and without principle, is breaking up. Its English section is dividing into the tools of expediency and the pioneers of a New Generation—its Irish section into Castle Hacks and National Conservatives.

Meantime, how much have the Irish people gained and done? They have received and grown rich under torrents of thought. Song and sermon and music, speech and pamphlet, novel and history, essay and map and picture, have made the dull thoughtful and the thoughtful studious, and will make the studious wise and powerful. They have begun a system of self-teaching in their reading-rooms. If they carry it we shall, before two years, have in every parish men able to manufacture, to trade, and to farm—men acquainted with all that Ireland was, is, and should be—men able to serve The Irish Nation in peace and war.

In the teeth, too, of the Government we held our meetings. They are not for this time, but they were right well in their own time. They showed our physical force to the Continent, to ourselves, to America, to our rulers. They showed that the people would come and go rapidly, silently, and at bidding, in numbers enough to recruit a dozen armies. These are literal facts. Any one monster meeting could have offered little resistance in the open country to a regular army, but it contained the materials—the numbers, intelligence, and obedience—of a conquering host. Whenever the impression of their power grows faint we shall revive them again.

The toleration of these meetings was the result of fear; the prosecution of their chiefs sprung from greater fear. That prosecution was begun audaciously, was carried on meanly and with virulence, and ended with a charge and a verdict which disgraced the law. An illegal imprisonment afforded glorious proof that the people could refrain from violence under the worst temptation; that their leaders were firm; and, better than all, that had these leaders been shot, not prisoned, their successors were ready. Such an imprisonment served Ireland more than an acquittal, for it tried her more; and then came the day of triumph, when the reluctant constitution liberated our chiefs and branded our oppressors.

This is a history of two years never surpassed in importance and honour. This is a history which our sons shall pant over and envy. This is a history which pledges us to perseverance. This is a history which guarantees success.

Energy, patience, generosity, skill, tolerance, enthusiasm created and decked the agitation. The world attended us with its thoughts and prayers. The graceful genius of Italy and the profound intellect of Germany paused to wish us well. The fiery heart of France tolerated our unarmed effort, and proffered its aid. America sent us money, thought, love—she made herself a part of Ireland in her passions and her organisation. From London to the wildest settlement which throbs in the tropics or shivers nigh the Pole, the empire of our misruler was shaken by our effort. To all earth we proclaimed our wrongs. To man and God we made oath that we would never cease to strive till an Irish nation stood supreme on this island. The genius which roused and organised us, the energy which laboured, the wisdom that taught, the manhood which rose up, the patience which obeyed, the faith which swore, and the valour that strained for action, are here still, experienced, recruited, resolute.

The future shall realise the promise of the past.



THE RESOURCES OF IRELAND.[42]

Bishop Berkeley put, as a query, could the Irish live and prosper if a brazen wall surrounded their island? The question has been often and vaguely replied to.

Dr. Kane has at length answered it, and proved the affirmative. Confining himself strictly to the land of our island (for he does not enter on the subjects of fisheries and foreign commerce), he has proved that we possess physical elements for every important art. Not that he sat down to prove this. Taste, duty, industry, and genius prompted and enabled him gradually to acquire a knowledge of the physical products and powers of Ireland, and his mastery of chemical and mechanical science enabled him to see how these could be used.

Thus qualified, he tried, in the lecture-room of the Dublin Society, to communicate his knowledge to the public. He was as successful as any man lecturing on subjects requiring accurate details could be; and now he has given, in the volume before us, all his lectures, and much more. He then is no party pamphleteer, pandering to the national vanity; but a philosopher, who garnered up his knowledge soberly and surely, and now gives us the result of his studies. There was undoubtedly a good deal of information on the subjects treated of by Dr. Kane scattered through our topographical works and parliamentary reports, but that information is, for the most part, vague, unapplied, and not tested by science. Dr. Kane's work is full, clear, scientific, exact in stating places, extent, prices, and every other working detail, and is a manual of the whole subject.

In such interlaced subjects as industrial resources we must be content with practical classifications.

Dr. Kane proceeds in the following order:—First, he considers the mechanical powers of the country—viz., its fuel and its water powers. Secondly, its mineral resources—its iron, copper, lead, sulphur, marble, slates, etc. Thirdly, the agriculture of the country in its first function—the raising of food, and the modes of cropping, manuring, draining, and stacking. Fourthly, agriculture in its secondary use, as furnishing staples for the manufacture of woollens, linens, starch, sugar, spirits, etc. Fifthly, the modes of carrying internal trade by roads, canals, and railways. Sixthly, the cost and condition of skilled and unskilled labour in Ireland. Seventhly, our state as to capital. And he closes by some earnest and profound thoughts on the need of industrial education in Ireland.

Now, let us ask the reader what he knows upon any or all of these subjects; and whether he ought, as a citizen, or a man of education, or a man of business, to be ignorant of them? Such ignorance as exists here must be got rid of, or our cry of "Ireland for the Irish" will be a whine or a brag, and will be despised as it deserves. We must know Ireland from its history to its minerals, from its tillage to its antiquities, before we shall be an Irish nation, able to rescue and keep the country. And if we are too idle, too dull, or too capricious to learn the arts of strength, wealth, and liberty, let us not murmur at being slaves.

For the present we shall confine ourselves to the subjects of the mechanical powers and minerals of Ireland, as treated by Dr. Kane.

The first difference between manufactures now and in any former time is the substitution of machines for the hands of man. It may indeed be questioned whether the increased strength over matter thus given to man compensates for the ill effects of forcing people to work in crowds; of destroying small and pampering large capitalists, of lessening the distribution of wealth even by the very means which increases its production.

We sincerely lament, with Lord Wharncliffe, the loss of domestic manufactures; we would prefer one housewife skilled in the distaff and the dairy—home-bred, and home-taught, and home-faithful—to a factory full of creatures who live amid the eternal roll, and clash, and glimmer of spindles and rollers, watching with aching eyes the thousand twirls and capable of but one act—tying the broken threads. We abhor that state; we prefer the life of the old times, or of modern Norway.

But, situated as we are, so near a strong enemy, and in the new highway from Europe to America, it may be doubted whether we can retain our simple domestic life. There is but one chance for it. If the Prussian Tenure Code be introduced, and the people turned into small proprietors, there is much, perhaps every, hope of retaining our homestead habits; and such a population need fear no enemy.

If this do not come to pass, we must make the best of our state, join our chief towns with railways, put quays to our harbours, mills on our rivers, turbines on our coasts, and under restrictions and with guarantees set the steam engine to work at our flax, wool, and minerals.

The two great mechanical powers are fire and water. Ireland is nobly endowed with both.

We do not possess as ample fields of flaming coal as Britain; but even of that we have large quantities, which can be raised at about the same rate at which English coal can be landed on our coast.

The chief seats of flaming coal in Ireland are to the west of Lough Allen, in Connaught, and around Dungannon, in Tyrone. There is a small district of it in Antrim.

The stone coal, or anthracite, which, having little gas, does not blaze, and, having much sulphur, is disagreeable in a room, and has been thought unfit for smelting, is found—first, in the Kilkenny district, between the Nore and Barrow; secondly, from Freshford to Cashel; and thirdly, in the great Munster coal country, cropping up in every barony of Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. By the use of vapour with it, the anthracite appears to be freed from all its defects as a smelting and engine coal, and being a much more pure and powerful fuel than the flaming coal, there seems no reason to doubt that in it we have a manufacturing power that would supply us for generations.

Our bogs have not been done justice to. The use of turf in a damp state turns it into an inferior fuel. Dried under cover, or broken up and dried under pressure, it is more economical, because far more efficient. It is used now in the Shannon steamers, and its use is increasing in mills. For some purposes it is peculiarly good—thus, for the finer ironworks, turf and turf-charcoal are even better than wood, and Dr. Kane shows that the precious Baltic iron, for which from L15 to L35 per ton is given, could be equalled by Irish iron smelted by Irish turf for six guineas per ton.

Dr. Kane proves that the cost of fuel, even if greater in Ireland, by no means precludes us from competing with England; he does so by showing that the cost of fuel in English factories is only from 1 to 1-1/2 per cent., while in Ireland it would be only 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 per cent., a difference greatly overbalanced by our cheaper labour—labour being over 33 per cent. of the whole expense of a factory.

Here is the analysis of the cost of producing cotton in England in 1830:—

Cotton wool L8,244,693 or per cent. 26.27 Wages 10,419,000 " 33.16 Interest on capital 3,400,000 " 10.84 Coals 339,680 " 1.08 Rent, taxes, insurance, other charges, and profit 8,935,320 " 28.65 ————— ——— L31,338,693 100.00

In water-power we are still better off. Dr. Kane calculates the rain which falls on Ireland in a year at over 100 billion cubic yards; and of this he supposes two-thirds to pass off in evaporation, leaving one-third, equal to nearly a million and a half of horse-power, to reach the sea. His calculations of the water-power of the Shannon and other rivers are most interesting. The elements, of course, are the observed fall of rain by the gauge in the district, and the area of the catchment (or drainage) basins of each river and its tributaries. The chief objection to water-power is its irregularity. To remedy this he proposes to do what has increased the water-power on the Bann five-fold, and has made the wealth of Greenock—namely, to make mill-lakes by damming up valleys, and thus controlling and equalising the supply of water, and letting none go waste. His calculations of the relative merits of undershot, overshot, breast, and turbine wheels are most valuable, especially of the last, which is a late and successful French contrivance, acting by pressure. He proposes to use the turbine in coast mills, the tide being the motive-power; and, strange as it sounds, the experiments seem to decide in favour of this plan.

"The turbine was invented by M. Fourneyron. Coals being abundant, the steam engine is invented in England; coals being scarce, the water-pressure engine and the turbine are invented in France. It is thus the physical condition of each country directs its mechanical genius. The turbine is a horizontal wheel furnished with curved float-boards, on which the water presses from a cylinder which is suspended over the wheel, and the base of which is divided by curved partitions, that the water may be directed in issuing, so as to produce upon the curved float-boards of the wheel its greatest effect. The best curvature to be given to the fixed partitions and to the float-boards is a delicate problem, but practically it has been completely solved. The construction of the machine is simple, its parts not liable to go out of order; and as the action of the water is by pressure, the force is under the most favourable circumstances for being utilised.

"The effective economy of the turbine appears to equal that of the overshot wheel. But the economy in the turbine is accompanied by some conditions which render it peculiarly valuable. In a water-wheel you cannot have great economy of power without very slow motion, and hence where high velocity is required at the working point, a train of mechanism is necessary, which causes a material loss of force. Now, in the turbine the greatest economy is accompanied by rapid motion, and hence the connected machinery may be rendered much less complex. In the turbine also a change in the height of the head of water alters only the power of the machine in that proportion, but the whole quantity of water is economised to the same degree. Thus if a turbine be working with a force of ten horses, and that its supply of water be suddenly doubled, it becomes of twenty horse-power; if the supply be reduced to one-half, it still works five horse-power; whilst such sudden and extreme change would altogether disarrange water-wheels, which can only be constructed for the minimum, and allow the overplus to go to waste."

Our own predilection being in favour of water-power—as cheaper, healthier, and more fit for Ireland than steam—gave the following peculiar interest in our eyes:—

"I have noticed at such length the question of the cost of fuel and of steam power, not from my own opinion of its ultimate importance, but that we might at once break down that barrier to all active exertion which indolent ignorance constantly retreats behind. The cry of 'What can we do? consider England's coal-mines,' is answered by showing that we have available fuel enough. The lament that coals are so dear with us and so cheap in England, is, I trust, set at rest by the evidence of how little influential the price of fuel is. However, there are other sources of power besides coals; there are other motive-powers than steam. Of the 83,000 horse-power employed to give motion to mills in England, 21,000, even in the coal districts, are not moved by fire, but by water. The force of gravity in falling water can spin and weave as well as the elasticity of steam; and in this power we are not deficient. It is necessary to study its circumstances in detail, and I shall therefore next proceed to discuss the condition of Ireland with regard to water-power."

Dr. Kane proves that we have at Arigna an inexhaustible supply of the richest iron ore, with coals to smelt it, lime to flux it, and infusible sand-stone and fire-clay to make furnaces of on the spot. Yet not a pig or bar is made there now. He also gives in great detail the extent, analysis, costs of working, and every other leading fact as to the copper mines of Wicklow, Knockmahon, and Allihies; the lead, gold, and sulphur mines of Wicklow; the silver mines of Ballylichey, and details of the building materials and marbles.

He is everywhere precise in his industrial and scientific statements, and beautifully clear in his style and arrangement.

Why, then, are we a poor province? Dr. Kane quotes Forbes, Quetelet, etc., to prove the physical strength of our people. He might have quoted every officer who commanded them to prove their courage and endurance; nor is there much doubt expressed even by their enemies of their being quick and inventive. Their soil is productive—the rivers and harbours good—their fishing opportunities great—so is their means of making internal communications across their great central plains. We have immense water and considerable fire power; and, besides the minerals necessary for the arts of peace, we are better supplied than almost any country with the finer sorts of iron, charcoal, and sulphur, wherewith war is now carried on. Why is it, with these means of amassing and guarding wealth, that we are so poor and paltry? Dr. Kane thinks we are so from want of industrial education. He is partly right. The remote causes were repeated foreign invasion, forfeiture, and tyrannous laws. Ignorance, disunion, self-distrust, quick credulity, and caprice were the weaknesses engendered in us by misfortune and misgovernment; and they were then the allies of oppression; for, had we been willing, we had long ago been rich and free. Knowledge is now within our reach if we work steadily; and strength of character will grow upon us by every month of perseverance and steadiness in politics, trade, and literature.

———————————————————————————————- [42] The Industrial Resources of Ireland, by Robert Kane, M.D., Secretary to the Council of the Royal Irish Academy, Professor of Natural Philosophy to the Royal Dublin Society, and of Chemistry to the Apothecaries' Hall of Ireland. Dublin: Hodges & Smith, 21 College Green.



THE VALUATION OF IRELAND.

The Committee of 1824 was but meagrely supplied with evidence as to foreign surveys. They begin that subject with a notice of the Survey of England, made by order of William the Conqueror, and called the Doomsday Book. That book took six years to execute, and is most admirably analysed by Thierry.

The following is their summary account of some modern surveys:—

"In France the great territorial survey or cadastre has been in progress for many years. It was first suggested in 1763, and after an interval of thirty years, during which no progress was made, it was renewed by the government of that day, and individuals of the highest scientific reputation, MM. Lagrange, Laplace, and Delambre, were consulted with respect to the best mode of carrying into effect the intention of government. Subsequent events suspended any effectual operations in the French cadastre till the year 1802, when a school of topographical engineering was organised. The operations now in progress were fully commenced in 1808. The principle adopted is the formation of a central commission acting in conjunction with the local authorities; the classification of lands, according to an ascertained value, is made by three resident proprietors of land in each district, selected by the municipal council, and by the chief officer of revenue. 'In the course of thirteen years, one-third only of each department had been surveyed, having cost the state L120,000 per annum. At the rate at which it is carried on, it may be computed as likely to require for its completion a total sum of L4,680,000, or an acreable charge of 8-3/4d.' The delay of the work, as well as the increase of expense, seem to have been the result of the minuteness of the survey, which extends to every district field—a minuteness which, for many reasons, your committee consider both unnecessary and inexpedient to be sought for in the proposed Survey of Ireland.

"The survey of Bavaria is of modern date, but of equal minuteness. It is commenced by a primary triangulation, and principal and verification bases; it is carried on to a second triangulation, with very accurate instruments, so as to determine 'all the principal points; the filling up the interior is completed by a peculiar species of plane table; and in order to do away with the inaccuracies of the common chain, the triangulation is carried down on paper to the most minute corners of fields.' The map is laid down on a scale of twelve inches to the mile, or one-five-thousandth part of the real size; and as it contains all that is required in the most precise survey of property, it is used in the purchase and sale of real estates.

"The cadastre of Savoy and Piedmont began in 1729, and is stated to have at once afforded the government the means of apportioning justly all the territorial contributions, and to have put an end to litigations between individuals, by ascertaining, satisfactorily, the bounds of properties.

"The Neapolitan survey under Visconti, and that of the United States under Heslar, are both stated to be in progress; but your committee have not had the means of ascertaining on what principles they are conducted."

The committee adopted a scale for the maps of six inches to a statute mile, believing, apparently with justice, that a six-inch scale map, if perfectly well executed, would be minute enough for buyers and sellers of land, especially as the larger holdings are generally townlands, the bounds of which they meant to include. And, wherever a greater scale was needed, the pentagraph afforded a sufficiently accurate plan of forming maps to it. They, in another point, proposed to differ from the Bavarian Survey, in omitting field boundaries, as requiring too much time and expense; but they stated that barony, parish, and townland boundaries were essential to the utility of the maps. They also seemed to think that for private purposes their utility would much depend on their being accompanied, as the Bavarian maps were, by a memoir of the number of families, houses, size, and description of farms, and a valuation. And for this purpose they printed all the forms. The valuation still goes on of the townlands, and classes of soil in each. The Statistical Memoir has, unfortunately, been stopped, and no survey or valuation of farms, or holdings as such, has been attempted. We would now only recall attention to the design of the Committee of 1824 on the subject.

They proposed to leave the whole Survey to the Board of Ordnance, and the Valuation to Civil Engineers.

The Valuation has been regulated by a series of Acts of Parliament, and we shall speak of it presently.

The Survey commenced in 1826, and has gone on under the superintendence of Colonel Colby, and the local control of Captain Larcom.

The following has been its progress:—First, a base line of about five miles was measured on the flat shore of Lough Foyle, and from thence triangular measurements were made by the theodolite and over the whole country, and all the chief points of mountain, coast, etc., ascertained. How accurately this was done has been proved by an astronomical measurement of the distance from Dublin to Armagh (about seventy miles), which only differed four feet from the distance calculated by the Ordnance triangles.

Having completed these large triangles, a detailed survey of the baronies, parishes, and townlands of each county followed. The field books were sent to the central station at Mountjoy, and sketched, engraved on copper, and printed there. The first county published was Derry, in 1833, and now the townland survey is finished, and all the counties have now been engraved and issued, except Limerick, Kerry, and Cork.

The Survey has also engraved a map of Dublin City on the enormous scale of five feet to a statute mile. This map represents the shape and space occupied by every house, garden, yard, and pump in Dublin. It contains antiquarian lettering. Every house, too, is numbered on the map. One of its sheets, representing the space from Trinity College to the Castle, is on sale, as we trust the rest of it will be.

Two other sets of maps remain to be executed. First—maps of the towns of Ireland, on a scale of five feet to a mile. Whatever may be said in reply to Sir Denham Norrey's demand for a survey of holdings in rural districts does not apply to the case of towns, and we, therefore, trust that the holdings will be marked and separately valued in towns.

The other work is a general shaded map of Ireland, on a scale of one inch to the statute mile. At present, as we elsewhere remarked, the only tolerable shaded map of Ireland is that of the Railway Commission, which is on a scale of one inch to four statute miles. Captain Larcom proposes, and the Commission on the Ordnance Memoir recommend, that contour lines should be the skeleton of the shading. If this plan be adopted the publication cannot be for some years; but the shading will have the accuracy of machine-work instead of mere hand skill. Contours are lines representing series of levels through a country, and are inestimable for draining, road-making, and military movements. But though easily explained to the eye, we doubt our ability to teach their meaning by words only.

To return to the townland or six-inch survey. The names were corrected by Messrs. Petrie, O'Donovan, and Curry, from every source accessible in Ireland. Its maps contain the county, barony, parish, townland, and glebe boundaries, names and acreage; names and representations of all cities, towns, demesnes, farms, ruins, collieries, forges, limekilns, tanneries, bleach-greens, wells, etc., etc.; also of all roads, rivers, canals, bridges, locks, weirs, bogs, ruins, churches, chapels; they have also the number of feet of every little swell of land, and a mark for every cabin.

Of course these maps run to an immense number. Thus, for the county of Galway there are 137 double folio sheets, and for the small county of Dublin, 28. Where less than half the sheet is covered with engraving (as occurs towards the edges of a county) the sheet is sold, uncoloured, for 2s. 6d.; where more than half is covered the price is 5s.

In order to enable you to find any sheet so as to know the bearings of its ground on any other, there is printed for each county an index map, representing the whole county on one sheet. This sheet is on a small scale (from one to three miles to an inch), but contains in smaller type the baronies and parishes, roads, rivers, demesnes, and most of the information of general interest. This index map is divided by lines into as many oblong spaces as there are maps of the six-inch scale, and the spaces are numbered to correspond with the six-inch map. On the sides of the index maps are tables of the acreage of the baronies and parishes; and examples of the sort of marks and type used for each class of subjects in the six-inch maps. Uncoloured, the index map, representing a whole county, is sold for 2s. 6d.

Whenever those maps are re-engraved, the Irish words will, we trust, be spelled in an Irish and civilised orthography, and not barbarously, as at present.

It was proposed to print for each county one or more volumes, containing the history of the district and its antiquities, the numbers, and past and present state and occupations of the people, the state of its agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, and what means of extending these existed in the county, and its natural history, including geology, zoology, etc. All this was done for the town of Derry, much to the service and satisfaction of its people. All this ought to be as fully done for Armagh, Dublin, Cork, and every other part of Ireland.

The commissioners recommend that the geology of Ireland (and we would add natural history generally) should be investigated and published, not by the topographical surveyors nor in counties, but by a special board, and for the whole of Ireland; and they are right, for our plants, rocks, and animals are not within civil or even obvious topographical boundaries, and we have plenty of Irishmen qualified to execute it. They also advise that the statistics should be entrusted to a statistical staff, to be permanently kept up in Ireland. This staff would take the census every ten years, and would in the intervals between the beginning and ending of each census have plenty of statistical business to do for parliament (Irish or Imperial) and for public departments. If we are ever to have a registry of births, deaths (with the circumstances of each case), and marriages, some such staff will be essential to inspect the registry, and work up information from it. But the history, antiquities, and industrial resources, the commissioners recommend to have published in county volumes. They are too solicitous about keeping such volumes to small dimensions; but the rest of their plans are admirable.

The value of this to Ireland, whether she be a nation or a province, cannot be overrated. From the farmer and mechanic to the philosopher, general, and statesman, the benefit will extend, and yet so careless or so hostile are ministers that they have not conceded it, and so feeble by dulness or disunion are Irishmen and Irish members, that they cannot extort even this.

We now come to the last branch of the subject—

THE VALUATION.

The Committee of 1824 recommended only principles of Valuation. They were three, viz.:—

"Sec. 1. A fixed and uniform principle of valuation applicable throughout the whole work, and enabling the valuation not only of townlands, but that of counties to be compared by one common measure. Sec. 2. A central authority, under the appointment of government, for direction and superintendence, and for the generalisation of the returns made in detail. Sec. 3. Local assistance, regularly organised, furnishing information on the spot, and forming a check for the protection of private rights."

Accordingly, on the 5th of July, 1825, an Act was passed requiring, in the first instance, the entry in all the grand jury records of the names and contents of all parishes, manors, townlands, and other divisions, and the proportionate assessments. It then went on to authorise the Lord Lieutenant to appoint surveyors to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund. These surveyors were empowered to require the attendance of cess collectors and other inhabitants, and with their help to examine, and ascertain, and mark the "reputed boundaries of all and every or any barony, half barony, townland parish, or other division or denomination of land," howsoever called. The Act also inflicted penalties on persons removing or injuring any post, stone, or other mark made by the surveyors; but we believe there has been no occasion to enforce these clauses, the good sense and good feeling of the people being ample securities against such wanton crime. Such survey was not to affect the rights of owners; yet from it lay an appeal to the Quarter Sessions.

This, as we see, relates to civil boundaries, not valuations.

In May, 1820, another Act was passed directing the Ordnance officers to send copies of their maps, as fast as finished, to the Lord Lieutenant, who was to appoint "one Commissioner of Valuation for any counties"; and to give notice of such appointment to the grand jury of every such county. Each grand jury was then to appoint an Appeal Committee for each barony, and a Committee of Revision for the whole county. This Commission of Valuation was then to appoint from three to nine fit valuators in the county, who, after trial by the Commissioner, were to go in parties of three and examine all parts of their district, and value such portion of it, and set down such valuation in a parish field book, according to the following average prices:—

"SCALE OF PRICES.

Wheat, at the general average price of 10s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Oats, at the general average price of 6s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Barley, at the general average price of 7s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Potatoes, at the general average price of 1s. 7d. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Butter, at the general average price of 69s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Beef, at the general average price of 33s. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Mutton, at the general average price of 34s. 6d. per cwt., of 112 lbs.

Pork, at the general average price of 25s. 6d. per cwt., of 112 lbs."

That is, having examined each tract—say a hill, a valley, an inch, a reclaimed bit, and by digging and looking at the soil, they were to consider what crop it could best produce, considering its soil, elevation, nearness to markets, and then estimating crops at the foregoing rate, they were to say how much per acre the tract was, in their opinion, worth.

From this Parish Field Book the Commissioner was to make out a table of the parishes and townlands, etc., in each barony, specifying the average and total value of houses in such sub-divisions, and to forward it to the high constable, who was to post copies thereof. A vestry of twenty-pound freeholders and twenty-shilling cesspayers was to be called in each parish to consider the table. If they did not appeal, the table was to stand confirmed; if they did appeal, the grand jury committee of appeal, with the valuation commissioner as chairman, were to decide upon the appeal; but if the assessor were dissatisfied, the appeal was to go to the committee of revision. The same committee were then to revise the proportionate liabilities of baronies, subject to an appeal to the Queen's Bench. The valuation so settled was to be published in the Dublin Gazette, and thenceforward all grand jury and parish rates and cesses were to be levied in the proportions thereby fixed. But no land theretofore exempt from any rate was thereby made liable. The expenses were to be advanced from the consolidated fund, and repaid by presentment from the county.