Literary and Historical Essays (part 2)

These are but some of the ways in which such service can be done by the more for the less educated. They have other duties often pointed out by us. They can sustain and advance the different societies for promoting agriculture, manufactures, art, and literature in Dublin and the country. They can set on foot and guide the establishment of Temperance Bands, and Mechanics' Institutes, and Mutual Instruction Societies. They can give advice and facilities for improvement to young men of promise; and they can make their circles studious, refined, and ambitious, instead of being, like too many in Ireland, ignorant, coarse, and lazy. The cheapness of books is now such that even Irish poverty is no excuse for Irish ignorance—that ignorance which prostrates us before England. We must help ourselves, and therefore we must educate ourselves.

FOREIGN TRAVEL.

We lately strove to induce our wealthier countrymen to explore Ireland before they left her shores in search of the beautiful and curious. We bid the economist search our towns and farms, our decayed manufactures, and improving tillage. Waving our shillelagh, we shouted the cragsman to Glenmalure and Carn Tual, and Achill and Slieve League. Manuscript in hand, we pointed the antiquary to the hundred abbeys of North Munster, the castles of the Pale, the palaces and sepulchres of Dunalin, Aileach, Rath Croghan, and Loughcrew, and we whispered to our countrywomen that the sun rose grandly on Adragool, that the moon was soft on Lough Erne ("The Rural Venice"), and that the Nore and Blackwater ran by castled crags like their sweet voices over old songs.

But there are some who had not waited for our call, but had dutifully grown up amid the sights and sounds of Ireland, and knew the yellow fields of Tipperary, and the crash of Moher's wave, and the basalt barriers of Antrim, and the moan or frown of Wexford over the graves of '98, and there are others not yet sufficiently educated to prize home excellence. To such, then, and to all our brethren and sisters going abroad, we have to say a friendly word.

We shall presume them to have visited London, Woolwich, the factories of Lancashire and Warwick, and to have seen the Cumberland lakes, and therefore to have seen all worth seeing in England, and that they are bound for somewhere else. For a pedestrian not rich there is Wales—the soft vales of the far North and South Clwyd, and the Wye and Llanrwst, and the central mountain groups of Snowdon, and still finer of Cader Idris. But if he go there we pray him not to return without having heard and, so far as he could, noted down a few airs from the harp and cruit, collected specimens of the plants and minerals of Wales for the museum (existing or to be) of his native town, studied the statistics of their great iron works or their little home-weaving; nor, if he has had the sense and spirit to take a Welsh and an Irish vocabulary, without some observations on the disputed analogy of the two languages, and how far it exists in general terms, as it certainly does in names of places. By the way, we warn him that he will know little of the peasantry, and come home in the dark about Rebecca, unless he can speak Welsh. The Welsh have been truer to their language than we were to ours; their clergy ministered in it; their people refused their tongues to the Saxon as if 'twere poison; and even their nobles, though tempted by England, welcomed the bard who lamented the defeat of Rhuddlan, and gloried in the frequent triumphs of Glendower.

But let us rather classify pursuits than countries.

We want the Irish who go abroad to bring something back besides the weary tale of the Louvre and Munich, and the cliffs of the Rhine, and the soft airs of Italy. We have heard of a patriot adventurer who carried a handful of his native soil through the world. We want our friends to carry a purpose for Ireland in their hearts, to study other lands wisely, and to bring back all knowledge for the sustenance and decoration of their dear home.

How pleasantly and profitably for the traveller this can be done. There is no taste but may be interested, no capacity but can be matched, no country but can be made tributary to our own. The historian, the linguist, the farmer, the economist, the musician, the statesman, and the man of science can equally augment their pleasure and make it minister to Ireland.

Is a man curious upon our language? He can (not unread in Neilson, nor unaccompanied by O'Reilly's Dictionary) trace how far the Celtic words mixed in the classical French, or in the patois of Bretagne or Gascony, coincide with the Irish; he can search in the mountains of North Spain, whether in proper names or country words there be any analogy to the Gaelic of the opposite coast of Ireland.

The proper names are the most permanent, and if there be any truth in Sir William Betham's theories, the names of many a hill and stream in Tuscany, North Africa, and Syria ought to be traceable to an Irish root. Nor need this language-search be limited to the south. Beginning at the Isle of Man, up by Cumberland (the kingdom of Strath Clyde), through Scotland, Denmark, Norway, to Ireland, the constant intercourse in trade and war with Ireland, and in many instances the early occupation by a Celtic race, must have left indelible marks in the local names, if not the traditions, of the country. To the tourist in France we particularly recommend a close study of the History of the Gauls, by Amadeus Thierry.

The student of our ecclesiastical history, whether he hold with Dr. Smiles that the Irish Church was independent, or with Dr. Miley, that it paid allegiance to Rome, may delight in following the tracks of the Irish saints, from Iona of the Culdees to Luxieu and Boia (founded by Columbanus), and St. Gall, founded by an Irishman of that name. Rumold can be heard of in Mechlin, Albhuin in Saxony, Kilian in Bavaria, Fursey in Peronne, and in far Tarentum the traveller will find more than one trace of the reformer of that city—the Irishman, St. Cathaldus. We cannot suppose that any man will stray from Stackallen, or Maynooth at least, without keeping this purpose in mind, nor would it misbecome a divine from that Trinity College of which Ussher was a first Fellow.

Our military history could also receive much illustration from Irish travellers going with some previous knowledge and studying the traditions and ground, and using the libraries in the neighbourhood of those places where Irishmen fought. Not to go back to the Irish who (if we believe O'Halloran) stormed the Roman Capital as the allies of Brennus of Gaul, nor insisting upon too minute a search for that Alpine valley where, says MacGeoghegan, they still have a tradition of Dathy's death by lightning, there are plenty of places worth investigating in connection with Irish military history. In Scotland, for example, 'twere worth while tracking the march of Alaster MacDomhnall and his 1,500 Antrim men from their first landing at Ardnamurchan through Tippermiur, Aberdeen, Fivy, Inverlochy, and Aulderne, to Kilsyth—victories, won by Irish soldiers and chiefs, given to them by tradition, as even Scott admits, though he tries to displace its value for Montrose's sake, and given to them by the highest cotemporary authorities—such as the Ormond papers.

Then there is the Irish Brigade. From Almanza to Fontenoy, from Ramillies to Cremona, we have the names of their achievements, but the register of them is in the libraries and war offices and private papers of France, and Spain, and Austria, and Savoy. A set of visits to Irish battle-fields abroad, illustrated from the manuscripts of Paris, Vienna, and Madrid, would be a welcomer book than the reiterated assurances that the Rhone was rapid, the Alps high, and Florence rich in sculpture, wherewith we have been dinned.

We have no lives of our most illustrious Irish generals in foreign services—Marshal Brown, the Lacys, Montgomery of Donegal, the rival of Washington; and yet the materials must exist in the offices and libraries of Austria, Russia, and America.

Talking of libraries, there is one labour in particular we wish our countrymen to undertake. The constant emigration of the princes, nobles, and ecclesiastics of Ireland, from the Reformation downwards, scattered through the Continent many of our choicest collections. The manuscripts from these have been dispersed by gift and sale among hundreds of foreign libraries. The Escurial, Vienna, Rome, Paris, and Copenhagen are said to be particularly rich in them, and it cannot be doubted that in every considerable library (religious, official, or private) on the Continent some MSS. valuable to Ireland would be found. In many cases these could be purchased, in some copied, in all listed. The last is the most practical and essential labour. It would check and guide our inquiries now, and would prepare for the better day, when we can negotiate the restoration of our old muniments from the governments of Europe.

A study of the monuments and museums throughout France, Spain, Italy, and Scandinavia, in reference to the forts, tombs, altars, and weapons of ancient Ireland, would make a summer pleasant and profitable.

But we would not limit men to the study of the past.

Our agriculture is defective, and our tenures are abominable. It were well worth the attention of the travelling members of the Irish Agricultural Society to bring home accurate written accounts of the tenures of land, the breeds of cattle, draining, rotation, crops, manures, and farm-houses, from Belgium or Norway, Tuscany or Prussia.

Our mineral resources and water-power are unused. A collection of models or drawings, or descriptions of the mining, quarrying, and hydraulic works of Germany, England, or France, might be found most useful for the Irish capitalist who made it, and for his country which so needs instruction. Besides, even though many of these things be described already, yet how much more vivid and practical were the knowledge to be got from observation.

Our fine or useful arts are rude or decayed, and our industrial and general education very inferior. The schools and galleries, museums and educational systems of Germany deserve the closest examination with reference to the knowledge and taste required in Ireland, and the means of giving them. One second-rate book of such observations, with special reference to Ireland, were worth many greater performances unapplied to the means and need of our country.

Ireland wants all these things. Before this generation dies, it must have made Ireland's rivers navigable, and its hundred harbours secure with beacon and pier, and thronged with seamen educated in naval schools, and familiar with every rig and every ocean. Arigna must be pierced with shafts, and Bonmahon flaming with smelting-houses. Our bogs must have become turf-factories, where fuel will be husbanded, and prepared for the smelting-house. Our coal must move a thousand engines, our rivers ten thousand wheels.

Our young artisans must be familiar with the arts of design and the natural sciences connected with their trade; and so of our farmers; and both should, beside, have that general information which refines and expands the minds—that knowledge of Irish history and statistics that makes it national, and those accomplishments and sports which make leisure profitable and home joyous.

Our cities must be stately with sculpture, pictures, and buildings, and our fields glorious with peaceful abundance.

But this is an Utopia! Is it? No; but the practicable object of those who know our resources! To seek it is the solemn, unavoidable duty of every Irishman. Whether, then, oh reader, you spend this or any coming season abroad or at home, do not forget for a day how much should be done for Ireland.

"THE LIBRARY OF IRELAND."

While the Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland were restricted to traditional legends, songs, and histories, a library was provided for those who used English by the genius and industry of men whose names have vanished—a fate common to them with the builder of the Pyramids, the inventor of letters, and other benefactors of mankind. Moore has given, in Captain Rock, an imperfect catalogue of this library. The scientific course seems to have been rather limited, as Ovid's Art of (let us rather say essay on) Love was the only abstract work; but it contained biographies of Captain Freney the Robber, and of Redmond O'Hanlon the Rapparee—wherein, we fear, O'Hanlon was made, by a partial pen, rather more like Freney than history warrants; dramas such as the Battle of Aughrim, written apparently by some Alsatian Williamite; lyrics of love, unhoused save by the watch; imperial works, too, as Moll Flanders; and European literature—Don Beliants, and the Seven Champions. Whether they were imported, or originally produced for the grooms of the dissolute gentry, may be discussed; but it seems certain that their benign influence spread, on one side, to the farmers' and shopkeepers' sons, and, on the other, to the cadets of the great families—and were, in short, the classics of tipsy Ireland. The deadly progress of temperance, politics, and democracy has sent them below their original market, and in ten years the collector will pay a guinea apiece for them.

During the Emancipation struggle this indecent trash shrunk up, and a totally different literature circulated. The Orange party regaled themselves chiefly with theology, but the rest of the country (still excepting the classes sheltered by their Gaelic tongue) formed a literature more human, and quite as serious. There occasionally is great vigour in the biographies of Lord Edward, Robert Emmet, and other popular heroes chronicled at that time; but the long interview of Emmet with Sarah Curran, the night before his execution, is a fair specimen of the accuracy of these works. The songs were intense enough, occasionally controversial, commonly polemical, always extravagant; the Granu Wails and Shan-Van-Vochts of the Catholic agitation cannot be too soon obsolete. The famous Waterford song:—

"O'Connell's come to town,

And he'll put the Orange down,
And by the heavenly G—— he'll wear the crown,
Says the Shan Van Vocht!"

is characteristic of the zeal, discretion, and style of these once powerful lyrics. A history of the authorship of these biographies and songs would be interesting, and is perhaps still possible. The reprint in the series of Hugh O'Reilly's Irish history—albeit, a mass of popular untruth was put at the end of it—shows as if some more considerate mind had begun to influence these publications. They, too, are fast vanishing, and will yet be sought to illustrate their times.

In the first class we have described there was nothing to redeem their stupid indecency and ruffianism; in the latter, however one may grieve at their bigotry, and dislike their atrocious style, there were purity, warmth, and a high purpose.

The "Useful Knowledge Society" period arrived in Britain, and flooded that island with cheap tracts on algebra and geometry, chemistry, theology, and physiology. Penny Magazines told every man how his stockings were wove, how many drunkards were taken up per hour in Southwark, how the geese were plucked from which the author got his pens, how many pounds weight of lead (with the analysis thereof, and an account of the Cornish mines by way of parenthesis) were in the types for each page, and the nature of the rags (so many per cent. beggars, so many authors, so many shoe-boys) from which the paper of the all-important, man and money-saving Penny Magazine was made. On its being suggested that man was more than a statistician, or a dabbler in mathematics, a moral series (warranted Benthamite) was issued to teach people how they should converse at meals—how to choose their wives, masters, and servants by phrenological developments, and how to live happily, like "Mr. Hard-and-Comfortable," the Yellow Quaker.

Unluckily for us, there was no great popular passion in Ireland at the time, and our communication with England had been greatly increased by steamers and railways, by the Whig alliance, by democratic sympathy, and by the transference of our political capital to Westminster. Tracts, periodicals, and the whole horde of Benthamy rushed in. Without manufactures, without trade, without comfort to palliate such degradation, we were proclaimed converts to Utilitarianism. The Irish press thought itself imperial, because it reflected that of London—Nationality was called a vulgar superstition, and a general European Trades' Union, to be followed by a universal Republic, became the final aspirations of "all enlightened men." At the same time the National Schools were spreading the elements of science and the means of study through the poorer classes, and their books were merely intellectual.

Between all these influences Ireland promised to become a farm for Lancashire, with the wisdom and moral rank of that district, without its wealth, when there came a deliverer—the Repeal agitation.

Its strain gradually broke the Whig alliance and the Chartist sympathy. Westminster ceased to be the city towards which the Irish bowed and made pilgrimage. An organisation, centring in Dublin, connected the People; and an oratory full of Gaelic passion and popular idiom galvanised them. Thus there has been, from 1842—when the Repeal agitation became serious—an incessant progress in Literature and Nationality. A Press, Irish in subjects, style, and purpose, has been formed—a National Poetry has grown up—the National Schools have prepared their students for the more earnest study of National politics and history—the classes most hostile to the agitation are converts to its passions; and when Lord Heytesbury recently expressed his wonder at finding "Irish prejudices" in the most cultivated body in Ireland, he only bore witness to an aristocratic Nationality of which he could have found countless proofs beside.

Yet the power of British utilitarian literature continues. The wealthy classes are slowly getting an admirable and a costly National Literature from Petrie, and O'Donovan, and Ferguson, and Lefanu, and the University Magazine. The poorer are left to the newspaper and the meeting, and an occasional serial of very moderate merits. That class, now becoming the rulers of Ireland, who have taste for the higher studies, but whose means are small, have only a few scattered works within their reach, and some of them, not content to use these exclusively, are driven to foreign studies and exposed to alien influence.

To give to the country a National Library, exact enough for the wisest, high enough for the purest, and cheap enough for all readers, appears the object of "The Library of Ireland."

Look at the subjects—A History of the Volunteers, Memoirs of Hugh O'Neill, of Tone, of Owen Roe, of Grattan, Collections of Irish Ballads and Songs, and so forth. It would take one a month, with the use of all the libraries of Dublin, to get the history of the Volunteers. In Wilson's so-called history you will get a number of addresses and 300 pages of irrelevant declamation for eight or ten shillings. Try further, and you must penetrate through the manuscript catalogues of Trinity College and the Queen's Inns (the last a wilderness) to find the pamphlets and newspapers containing what you want; yet the history of the Volunteers is one interesting to every class, and equally popular in every province.

Hugh O'Neill—he found himself an English tributary, his clan beaten, his country despairing. He organised his clan into an army, defeated by arms and policy the best generals and statesmen of Elizabeth, and gave Ireland a pride and a hope which never deserted her since. Yet the only written history of him lies in an Irish MS. in the Vatican, unprinted, untranslated, uncopied; and the Irishman who would know his life must grope through Moryson, and Ware, and O'Sullivan in unwilling libraries, and in books whose price would support a student for two winters.

Of Tone and Grattan—the wisest and most sublime of our last generation—there are lives, and valuable ones; but such as the rich only will buy, and the leisurely find time to read.

The rebellion of 1641—a mystery and a lie—is it not time to let every man look it in the face? The Irish Brigade—a marvellous reality to few, a proud phantom to most of us—shall we not all, rich and poor, learn in good truth how the Berserk Irish bore up in the winter streets of Cremona, or the gorgeous Brigade followed Clare's flashing plumes right through the great column of Fontenoy?

Irish Ballads and Songs—why (except that Spirit of the Nation which we so audaciously put together), the popular ballads and songs are the faded finery of the West End, the foul parodies of St. Giles's, the drunken rigmarole of the black Helots—or, as they are touchingly classed in the streets, "sentimental, comic, and nigger songs." Yet Banim, and Griffin, and Furlong, Lover and Ferguson, Drennan and Callanan, have written ballads and songs as true to Ireland as ever MacNeill's or Conyngham's were to Scotland; and firmly do we hope to see with every second lad in Ireland a volume of honest, noble, Irish ballads, as well thumbed as a Lowland Burns or a French Beranger, and sweetly shall yet come to us from every milking-field and harvest-home songs not too proudly joined to the sweetest music in the world.

This country of ours is no sand bank, thrown up by some recent caprice of earth. It is an ancient land, honoured in the archives of civilisation, traceable into antiquity by its piety, its valour, and its sufferings. Every great European race has sent its stream to the river of Irish mind. Long wars, vast organisations, subtle codes, beacon crimes, leading virtues, and self-mighty men were here. If we live influenced by wind and sun and tree, and not by the passions and deeds of the past, we are a thriftless and a hopeless People.

A CHRONOLOGY OF IRELAND.

There is much doubt as to who were the first inhabitants of Ireland; but it is certain that the Phœnicians had a great commerce with it. The Firbolgs, a rude people, held Ireland for a long period. They were subdued by the Tuatha de Danaan, a refined and noble race, which in its turn yielded its supremacy to the arms of the Milesians. The dates during these centuries are not well ascertained.

• B. C.
• 1000. Dr. O'Conor, the Librarian of Stowe, fixes this as the most probable date of the Milesian invasion.
• —— Ollamh Fodhla institutes the Great Feis, or Triennial Convention, at Tara.
• —— Thirty-two monarchs are said to have reigned between this sovereign and Kimbaoth, who built the Palace of Emania.
• A. D.
• 40. Reformation of the Bardic or Literary Order, by Conquovar, King of Ulster.
• 90. The old population successfully revolt against the Milesians, and place one of their own race upon the throne.
• 130. Re-establishment of the Milesian sway.
• 164. King Feidlim, the Legislator, establishes the laws of Eric.
• 258. From Con of the Hundred Battles descended the chieftains who supplied Albany, the modern Scotland, with her first Scottish rulers, by establishing, about the middle of the third century, the kingdom of Dalriada in Argyleshire.
• 333. The Palace of Emania destroyed during a civil war.
• 387. The birth of St. Patrick.
• 396. Nial of the Nine Hostages invades Britain.
• 432. His Mission to Ireland.
• 436. Dathi, the last of the Pagan monarchs of Ireland, succeeded Nial, and was killed while on one of his military expeditions, at the foot of the Alps, by lightning.
• 465. March 17—Death of St. Patrick.
• 554. The last triennial council held at Tara.
• 795. First Invasion of the Danes.
• 1014. April 23, Good Friday—Defeat of the Danes at Clontarf by Brian Boroihme.
• 1152. Synod of Kells. Supremacy of the Church of Rome acknowledged.
• 1159. Pope Adrian's bull granting Ireland to Henry II.
• 1169. May—First landing of the Normans.
• 1171. October 18—Henry II. arrives in Ireland.
• 1172. A Council, called by some a Parliament, held by Henry II. at Lismore.
• 1185. Prince John is sent over by his father as Lord of Ireland, accompanied by his tutor, Giraldus Cambrensis.
• 1210. King John, at the head of a military force, arrives in Ireland.
• 1216. Henry III. grants Magna Charta to Ireland.
• 1254. Ireland granted, under certain conditions, by Henry III. to his son, Prince Edward.
• 1277. Some of the Irish petition Edward I. for an extension of English laws and usages to them.
• 1295. A Parliament held at Kilkenny by Sir John Wogan, Lord Justice.
• 1309. A Parliament held at Kilkenny by Sir John Wogan. Its enactments on record in Bolton's Irish Statutes.
• 1315. Edward Bruce lands with 6,000 men at Larne in May, invited by the Irish. Crowned near Dundalk.
• 1318. Defeat and death of Bruce at Faghard, near Dundalk.
• 1367. Parliament assembled at Kilkenny by Lionel, Duke of Clarence, at which the celebrated Anti-Irish Statute was passed prohibiting adoption of Irish costume or customs, intermarriage with the Irish, etc., under very severe penalties, to the Anglo-Irish of the Pale.
• 1379. The first Act ever passed against Absentees.
• 1394. Richard II. lands with an army at Waterford.
• 1399. Richard II.'s second expedition to Ireland.
• 1463. A College founded at Youghal by the Earl of Desmond. Another at Drogheda.
• 1472. Institution of the Brotherhood of St. George for the protection of the Pale.
• 1494. Nov.—The Parliament assembled at Drogheda passed Poyning's Law.
• 1534. First step of the Reformation in Ireland.
• 1536. Nearly total destruction of the Kildare Geraldines. Henry VIII.'s supremacy enacted by Statute.
• 1537. Act passed for the suppression of religious houses.
• 1541. Act passed declaring Henry VIII. _King_ of Ireland.
• 1579. The last Earl of Desmond proclaimed a traitor.
• 1583. The Earl of Desmond assassinated.
• 1586. April 26—Attainder of Desmond and his followers. Forfeiture of his estate—574,628 Irish acres. Elizabeth institutes the planting system.
• 1592. The Dublin University founded.
• 1595. Aodh O'Neill's victory at Blackwater, and death of Marshal Bagnal.
• 1603. March 30—Submission of O'Neill (Tyrone) to Mountjoy.
• 1607. Flight of the Northern Earls, Tyrone and Tyrconnell. Consequent seizure by the Crown of the six entire counties of Cavan, Fermanagh, Armagh, Derry, Tyrone, and Tyrconnel (now Donegal), amounting in the whole to about 511,456 Irish acres.
• 1608. May 1—Sept.—Sir Cathair O'Dogherty's rising.
• 1613. May 18—After the creation of fourteen peers and forty new boroughs, a Parliament is assembled to support the new _plantation_ of Ulster by the attainder and outlawry of the gentlemen of that province.
• 1616. Commission for inquiring into defective titles.
• 1635. Lord Wentworth's oppressive proceedings to find a title in the Crown to the province of Connaught.
• 1641. Oct. 23—The breaking out of the celebrated Irish insurrection.
• 1642. The confederate Catholics form their General Assembly and Supreme Council at Kilkenny—"Pro Deo, pro rege, _et patria, Hibernia, unanimes_," their motto.
• 1646. June 5—Monroe totally defeated by Owen Roe O'Neill at Benburb, near Armagh.
• 1649. Aug. 15—Oliver Cromwell arrives in Dublin.
• —— Sept. 2, 10, 15.—Siege, storming, and massacre of Drogheda.
• —— Oct. 1—Siege and massacre of Wexford.
• —— Nov. 6—Death of Owen Roe O'Neill at Cloch-Uachdar Castle, Co. Cavan.
• 1650. May 29—Cromwell embarks for England.
• 1653. Sept. 26—The Irish war proclaimed ended by the English Parliament.—Act of Grace, ordering the Irish Catholics to transport themselves, on pain of death, into Connaught before 1st of March, 1654.
• 1661. May 8, 1666. Acts of Settlement and Explanation. 7,800,000 acres confiscated and distributed under them.
• 1689. March 12—James II. landed at Kinsale.
• —— May 7 } The Irish Parliament summoned by him: met at the
• —— July 20 } Inns of Court.
• 1690. June 14—William III. landed at Carrickfergus Bay.
• —— July 1—Battle of the Boyne.
• —— Aug 30—The first siege of Limerick under William III. raised by Sarsfield.
• 1691. June 30—Athlone taken after a gallant defence.
• 1691. July 12—Battle of Aughrim.
• —— Oct. 3—Capitulation and Treaty of Limerick.
• 1692. April 5—The articles agreed upon by the Treaty confirmed by William III.
• —— Nov. 3—Lord Sydney's protest against the claim of the Irish House of Commons to the right of "preparing heads of bills for raising money"—the beginning of the struggle between the Protestant ascendency and the English Government, which bore national fruit in 1782, but which was crushed in 1800.
• 1695. August—Parliament violated the Treaty of Limerick—
• 7 William III., c. 67—Prohibits Catholic education at home or abroad.
• 7 William III., c. 5—Disarms Papists.
• 1697. 9 William III., c. 1—Banishes Popish archbishops, bishops, vicars-general, and all regular clergy, on pain of death. 9 William III., c. 2—An Act "to confirm the Treaty of Limerick," which directly and grossly violates its letter and spirit. It is fit to remember that in the Irish House of Lords, from which Catholics were excluded, seven spiritual and five temporal peers protested against this infamous legislation.
• 1698. The 9 and 10 William III., c. 40—An Act aimed at the Irish woollen manufacture. Molyneux published his famous _Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament passed in England_. This book, by order of the English House of Commons, was burned by the hangman.
• 1704. March 4—The "Act to prevent the further growth of Popery," one of the most noted links in the penal chain.
• 1719. October 17—Representation of the Irish House of Lords against appeals to England.
• 1720. 6 Geo. I.—Act passed by the English Legislature to secure the dependency of Ireland.
• —— Swift's first Irish pamphlet—"A proposal for the universal use of Irish manufactures." Prosecuted by Government.
• 1724. Wood's patent to coin half-pence for Ireland, and Swift's successful opposition to the scheme by the "Letters of M. B. Drapier." The first time all Irish sects and parties were unanimous upon national grounds.
• 1728. 1 Geo. II., c. 9, s. 8.—The Act disfranchising Roman Catholics.
• 1737. The tithe of agistment got rid of by the Irish gentry, and the chief burden of the tithe thereby thrown on the farmers and peasantry.
• 1743. Lucas rises into notice in the Dublin Corporation.
• 1745. April 30—Battle of Fontenoy.
• 1749. Dr. Lucas is obliged to leave Ireland.
• 1753. Dec. 17—The House of Commons asserts its control successfully over the surplus revenue, in opposition to Government.
• 1756. The first public effort by Mr. O'Connor and Dr. Curry to inspire the Catholics with the spirit of freedom. They succeed with the mercantile body, but are opposed by many of the gentry and clergy.
• 1760. March and April—Mr. Wyse and Dr. Curry revive the scheme of an association to manage Catholic affairs.
• 1761. Dr. Lucas returned as representative of Dublin to the first parliament of George III.
• 1763. Establishment of the _Freeman's Journal_ by Dr. Lucas—the first independent Irish newspaper.
• 1768. The duration of parliament limited to eight years.
• 1778. First relaxation of the Penal Code, Catholics allowed long tenures of land, etc.
• —— The Volunteers first formed. Flood the foremost popular leader.
• 1779. The achievement of Free Trade [_i.e._, Ireland's right to trade with the colonies, etc.].
• 1782. Ireland's legislative independence won. Grattan's prime.
• 1785. Orde's Commercial Propositions.
• 1789. Debates upon the Regency question.
• 1790. The formation of the Society of United Irishmen at Belfast. Theobald Wolfe Tone its founder.
• 1792.} The Franchise restored to the Roman Catholics; the Bar opened
• 1793.} to them, etc.
• 1795. Sept. 21—First Orange Lodge formed.
• 1796. Dec. 24—The remnant of the French expedition arrives in Bantry Bay without General Hoche, the commander.
• 1798. May 23—Breaking out of the insurrection.
• —— June 21—Battle of Vinegar Hill.
• —— August 22—General Humbert lands with a small force at Killala.
• —— Dec. 9—Meeting of the Bar to oppose the projected Union. Saurin moves the resolution, which is carried.
• 1799. Jan. 22—The Union proposed.
• —— June 1—Parliament prorogued, Government having been defeated by small majorities.
• 1800. Feb. 10—The House of Lords divided, 75 for and 26 against the Union.
• —— Feb. 15—The House of Commons divided, 158 for, 115 against the Union.
• —— March 17—On this day, the first of the following January was fixed in the Commons for the commencement of the Union.
• 1803. Robert Emmet's insurrection and execution.
• 1810. Great Repeal meeting in Dublin.
• 1821. George IV. in Ireland.
• 1823. Catholic Association formed.
• 1825. Act passed to put down the Catholic Association.
• 1828. O'Connell's election for Clare.
• 1829. April 13—Emancipation granted.
• 1831. Education Board formed.
• 1833. Coercion Bill passed by the Whigs.
• 1836. May—Parliament rejects Repeal motion.
• 1838. Poor Law. Temperance Movement.
• 1840. Corporation Reform. Repeal Association formed by O'Connell.
• 1842. October 15—Establishment of the _Nation_.
• 1843. Monster meetings. Prosecutions. William Smith O'Brien joins the Repeal Association.
• 1844. Verdict against, and imprisonment of Repeal leaders, 12th February, and 30th May. Liberation, 7th September.

The future is ours—for good, if we are persevering, intelligent, and brave; for ill, if we quarrel, slumber, or shrink.