The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Ireland: Social, Political, and Religious. Vol. I: Historical Introduction.
• First Epoch.: From 1169 to 1535.
• Chapter I.
• Sect. I.—: Political Condition of Ireland In the Twelfth Century.
• Sect. II.—: The Still Recent Invasion of the Danes.
• Sect. III.—: Influence of the Court of Rome.
• Chapter II.
• Sect. I.—: Political Condition of the Irish an Obstacle to the Conquest.
• Sect. II.—: Second Obstacle to the Completion of the Conquest: the Relation of the Anglo-norman Conquerors to England, and of England to Them.
• Sect. III. —: Third Obstacle to the Conquest; the Condition Imposed On the Natives By the Conquerors.
• Second Epoch.: From 1535 to 1690.
• Chapter I.: Religious Wars.
• Sect. I.—: How, When England Became Protestant, It Must Have Desired That Ireland Should Become So Likewise.
• Sect. II.—: Of the Causes That Prevented Ireland From Becoming Protestant.
• Sect. III.—: How England Rendered Ireland Protestant—protestant Colonisation—elizabeth and James I.
• Sect. IV.—: Protestant Colonisation—charles I.
• Sect. V.—: Civil War—the Republic—cromwell.
• Sect. VI.—: The Restoration of Charles II.
• Third Epoch,: From 1688 to 1755.
• Chapter I.: Legal Persecution.
• Chapter II.: The Penal Laws.
• Special Character of the Penal Laws.
• Another Special Character of the Penal Laws.
• Legal Persecution Was Not Restrained By the Limits of Law.
• Why Persecutions Continued When Religious Passion Ceased.
• Which of the Penal Laws Were Executed, and Which Not.
• The Whiteboys.
• Fourth Epoch,: From 1776 to 1829. Revival and Enfranchisement of Ireland.
• Chapter I.: Effects of American Independence On Ireland.
• Sect. I.—: First Reform of the Penal Laws, 1778.
• Sect. II.—: Second Effect of American Independence On Ireland, (1778 to 1779.) the Irish Volunteers.
• Sect. III.—: Independence of the Irish Parliament.
• Sect. IV.—: Legal Consequences of the Declaration of Irish Independence.
• Sect. V. 1782.—: Abolition of Certain Penal Laws. Consequences of the Declaration of Parliamentary Independence.
• Sect. VI.—: Continuation of the Volunteer Movement. Convention of 1783.
• Sect. VII.—: Corruption of the Irish Parliament.
• Sect. VIII.—: Is a Servile Parliament of Any Use?
• Chapter II.: The French Revolution—its Effects In Ireland.
• Sect. I.: 1789.
• Sect. II.—: Other Effects of the French Revolution. Abolition of Penal Laws.
• Sect. III.—: Other Consequences of the French Revolution.—re-action.
• Sect. IV.—: French Invasion of Ireland. Insurrection of 1798.
• Consequences of the Insurrection of 1798.— The Union.
• Constitutional and Political Effect of the Union.
• Chapter III.: Catholic Emancipation In 1829.
• First Part: Ireland, Social, Political, and Religious.
• Chapter I.: External Appearance of Ireland. Misery of Its Inhabitants.
• Chapter II.: A Bad Aristocracy Is the Primary Cause of All the Evils of Ireland.—the Faults of This Aristocracy Are, That It Is English and Protestant.
• Section I.: Civil Consequences.
• Section II.: Political Consequences.
• Subsection I.—: The State.
• Subsection II.: Influence of the Same Principle On the Institutions of the County.
• Subsection III.: Influence of the Same Principle In the Municipal Corporations.
• Subsection IV.—: Influence of the Same Principle On the Parish.
• Section III.: Religious Consequences.

Sect. II.—

The still recent Invasion of the Danes.

Ireland, which has suffered so cruelly from conquest, was the last of the European countries conquered. At the time when the savage nations of the north sought countries to invade, Ireland, separated from them by two seas and one large island, long escaped their notice; the Romans disdained it, the barbarians knew it not. Gaul and England had been each stained by three invasions, while the soil of Ireland remained intact. Still, about the middle of the ninth century, the Danes, a people issuing from the forests of Scandinavia, landed in Ireland; they occupied a part of it without much difficulty; but the opposition to them became vigorous and obstinate. After a series of sanguinary combats, and alternations of victory and defeat, these stern conquerors abandoned the hope of founding an empire in the heart of the country, and limited themselves to the occupation of some points on the south and east coast of Ireland.* Dublin, formerly Dyvelin, Wexford, and Waterford, are Danish cities.† Thus, the Irish, who had been sufficiently strong to check the Danes in their invasion, were too feeble to expel them completely; and at the moment when the Anglo-Normans came into Ireland, the Danes remained masters of all the east coast of Ireland, lived in a sort of tacit peace with the Irish, who were contented to see their conquerors confined to a narrow space, with the understood condition that they would not pass its limits.

However this may be, these struggles, maintained for three centuries, had exhausted the country, and increased the weakness of the body politic, already so great.*

The presence of the Danes on the Irish soil at this epoch diminished, for another reason, the strength of Ireland. The Anglo-Normans landed precisely in that portion of the country which was occupied by the Danes; consequently the Danes had to sustain the first shock of the Norman invasion. Now, it is impossible to imagine a more unfortunate circumstance for a country menaced by invaders. On one side the Danes, defending against the Normans a precarious and contested possession, could not display the zeal and devotion of a people summoned to the defence of their country.* On the other side, the Irish, seeing the Anglo-Normans engaged with the Danes, their first assailants, fluctuated between the terror which the new conquerors inspired, and the satisfaction with which they beheld the destruction of an enemy established in their territory.

All these circumstances united, sufficiently show how Ireland, both social and political, must have been weak in resisting the Anglo-Norman invasion.

[*]Under Zurgesius, the Danes for a brief space established their authority over the whole of Ireland.—Tr.

[†]A little before the Anglo-Norman invasion, the Danes these cities declined the jurisdiction of the Irish prelates, and placed themselves under the see of Canterbury.

[*]So weak were the Irish, that the king of the Isle of Man attempted the conquest of their country.—Tr.

[*]The Danes were at first disposed to receive the Normans as fellow-countrymen, but the conduct of Fitz-Stephen in Wexford drove them to resistance.—Tr.