The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

Thus Ireland, even in districts which had been thoroughly devastated by the first invaders, became the old Ireland again; and the song of the bard and the melody of the harper were heard in the English castle as well as in the Irish rath.1 (1 The process of gaining over an Englishman to Irish manners is admirably described in the "Moderate Cavalier," under Cromwell, quoted by Mr. J. P. Prendergast in his second edition of the "Cromwellian Settlement," p. 263. If this process were common with the Protestant officers of Cromwell, how much more so with Catholic Anglo-Normans!)

The nationalization of their kin, which received a powerful impetus from the fact that the English who lived without the Pale escaped feudal exactions and penalties from the impossibility of enforcing the feudal laws on Irish territory, alarmed the Anglo-Normans by birth, in whose hand rested the engine of the government; and, looking around for a remedy, they could discover nothing better than acts of Parliament.

We have not been able to ascertain the precise epoch in which the first Irish Parliament was convened; indeed, to this day, it seems a debated question. The general belief, however, ascribes it to King John. The first mention of it by Ware is under the year 1333, as late as Edward III., more than one hundred and fifty years after the Conquest. But the need of stringent rules to keep the Irish at bay, and prevent the English from "degenerating," became so urgent that, in 1367, the famous Parliament met at Kilkenny, and enacted the bill known as the "Statutes of Kilkenny," in which the matter was fully elaborated, and a new order of things set on foot in Ireland.

The Irish could recognize no other Parliament than their ancient Feis; and, these having been discontinued for several centuries, they showed their appreciation of the new English institution in the manner described by Ware under the year 1413: "On the 11th of the calends of February, the morrow after St. Matthias day, a Parliament began at Dublin, and continued for the space of fifteen days; in which time the Irish burned all that stood in their way, as their usual custom was in times of other Parliaments."

The reader who is acquainted with the enactments which go by the name of the "Statutes of Kilkenny" will scarcely wonder at this mode of proceeding.

Neither at that period, nor later on save once under Henry VIII., was the Irish race represented in those assemblies. In the reign of Edward III. no Irish native nor old English resident assisted at the Parliament of Kilkenny, but only Englishmen newly arrived; for all its acts were directed against the Irish and the degenerate English—against the latter particularly. How the members composing these Parliaments were elected at that time we do not know; but they were not summoned from more than twelve counties, which number, first established by King John, gradually dwindled, until, in the reign of Henry VII., it was reduced to four, so that the Irish Parliament came to be composed of a few men, and those few representatives of purely English interests.

A true history of the times would demand an examination of the various enactments made by these so-called Irish Parliaments, as setting forth more distinctly than any thing else could do the points at variance between the two nations. Our space, however, and indeed our purpose, forbids this. In order to put the reader in possession of at least an idea of the difficulties on either side, we add a few extracts from the very famous "Statutes of Kilkenny."

The preamble sets forth "that already the English in Ireland were mere Irish in their language, names, apparel, and their manner of living, and had rejected the English laws and submitted to the Irish, with whom they had many marriages and alliances, which tended to the utter ruin and destruction of the commonwealth." And then the Statutes go on to enact —we cull from various chapters: "The English cannot any more make peace or war with the Irish without special warrant; it is made penal to the English to permit the Irish to send their cattle to graze upon their land; the Irish could not be presented by the English to any ecclesiastical benefice; they—the Irish—could not be received into any monasteries or religious houses; the English could not entertain any of their bards, or poets, or shanachies, " etc.

This extraordinary legislation proves beyond any amount of facts to what degree the posterity of the first Norman invaders of Ireland had adopted Irish customs, and made themselves one with the natives.

The Irish, therefore, had, in this instance, morally conquered their enemies, and feudalism was defeated. Another example was given of the invariable invasions of the island. The enemy, however successful at the beginning, was compelled finally to give way to the force of resistance in this people; and the time- honored customs of an ancient race survived all attempts at violent foreign innovations. The posterity of those proud nobles, who, with Giraldus Cambrensis, had found nothing but what was contemptible in this nation, so strange to their eyes, who looked upon them as an easy victim to be despoiled of their land, and that land to be occupied by them, that posterity adopted, within, comparatively speaking, a few years, the life and manners of the mere Irish in their entirety. Feudalism they renounced for the clan. Each of the great English families that first landed in the island had formed a new sept, and the clans of the Geraldines, De Courcys, and others, were admitted into full copartnership with the old Milesian septs. This the two great families of the Burkes in Connaught called their chiefs McWilllams Either and McWilliams Oughter. The Berminghams bad become McYoris; the Dixons, McJordans; the Mangles, McCostellos. Other old English families were called McHubbard, McDavid, etc.; one of the Geraldine septs was known as McMorice, another as McGibbon; the chief of Dunboyne's house became McPheris.