In ancient times, in addition to the four grand divisions of Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught, there was another, the property of the paramount sovereign. As there does not appear to have been any rule of precedence, however, among the four kings, except that of their ability to repress their rivals by force of arms, the territory must have been very frequently in debate. These several kingdoms were subdivided into a large number of principalities, each inhabited by a distinct sept, and governed by its own chieftain, called a carfinny, or toparch. These petty chiefs were in their own dominions independent; they created laws, administered justice, made war or peace, and so long as they did not encroach upon the privileges of their superior sovereign, were unmolested and unquestioned. They were elective too; and in this respect the primitive institutions of Ireland were founded upon that execrable system which has distracted and destroyed every kingdom in which it has been attempted. The choice of toparchs was limited, however, by the laws of tanistry to noble families; and the tanist was always selected upon the accession and during the lifetime of the ruling toparch. Under such a system intrigue and conflict between the septs, and between individuals of the same sept, must have been perpetual; and it is easy to see that the conditions were prepared which would make eventual subjugation by foreign arms an easy task.
But we now come to a still more obnoxious feature of the institutions of Ireland under the Milesian rule; and it will be no relief to the miseries entailed upon this unfortunate island, that the same peculiarity, modified in other countries, existed very generally during the feudal ages. The property in each district was regarded as the common possession of the entire sept, but the distribution of the shares was intrusted to the toparch. The people themselves had absolutely no property in the soil; that right belonged exclusively to the chief, and tenants were removed whenever it suited his convenience or caprice. There were many causes that could lead to change. The death of the old toparch and the accession of a new one, the addition of new members to the sept, or the death of those already in the occupancy of a piece of soil, were some of the many causes that made the land tenure very precarious; and the custom of inheritance by gavelkind, which differed from the system of England and Wales, is thought to have perpetuated the evil. Females were excluded, and no distinction was made between legitimate and illegitimate children. The common people were divided into freemen and betages. The former had the privilege of changing their sept; but the latter were common property with the soil, and transferred with it in every deed or sale. Under a liberal government, and by the aid of a good administration, the people of Ireland might have been, in the course of seven hundred years, completely extricated from this situation; but, as we shall see in the sequel, it has been the policy of the Norman nobility in that country, if not of the English government itself, to maintain as far as possible the original condition of things. Such were the institutions of Ireland at the beginning of the ninth century, when the Danish monarch Turgesius overran the entire island, and subjugated the inhabitants to his authority. His dominion was of short duration, however; for at the battle of Clontarf, fought on Good-Friday, A.D. 1014, the celebrated Brien Boiroimhe gave him a permanent leave of absence from the five provinces, and a limited monarchy in the seaports. But the factions inherent in the Irish system of government at that time placed the national independence at the mercy of a foreign aggressor, and the ambition of the Norman element in England soon marked the island as a prize worthy an adventure at arms.
The immediate cause of the invasion was the act of young Dermod McMurchaid, King of Leinster, who ran off with the beautiful Devorghal, wife of O'Rourke, and princess of Breffny. Having, by reason of this outrage, been driven from his kingdom, he invited Richard Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, and Robert Fitzstephen, to his assistance. Thus the dissensions among the Irish princes opened the way for the adventure of the Norman noblemen. A few hundred Norman cavaliers, followed by comparatively a handful of infantry, were sufficient to secure a permanent footing, an event most singular when we take into consideration the military record which those people have made since that period. But the Irish have always shown a capacity to fight better in any other cause than their own. True, the Norman adventurers from England did not succeed immediately in the subjugation of the entire island. Their dominion was limited to a small area; but they found and used those elements of discord among the native rulers which made their situation impregnable against those who still cherished the idea of freedom and independence. The Irish were worsted in every considerable conflict; not so much, perhaps, through the superiority of their adversaries as by reason of their own disunion.
The new rulers endeavored only to consolidate their power, and made no effort for the reformation of existing institutions. If they found a large proportion of the inhabitants in a condition akin to serfdom, there was certainly no motive why they should desire to change the situation. It only gave them more personal consideration and power. Hence, we find that Strongbow and his associates had hardly established themselves in their new dominions before they strove to perpetuate the old customs of tenure and descent. The distinction between the new settlers and the natives was carefully preserved; and the benefit of English laws permitted only to Normans, to the citizens of seaport towns,—who were still, it is to be presumed, in great part Danes—and to a few who had received charters of denization as a matter of personal favor. Five septs only, say the historians, were received within the English pale, and the rest were all accounted aliens or enemies, who, even down to the reign of Elizabeth, had no rights which an Englishman was bound to respect.
The Great Charter, wrested from King John, and confirmed by Henry III., did not benefit Ireland. English laws and jurisprudence were extended over those portions of the island known as the English pale, and during the reign of King John the lands subject to the crown were divided into counties, sheriffs appointed, and supreme courts of law established in Dublin. But these improvements were made rather as a convenience for the English than for the protection of the native inhabitants. During the reign of Edward I., we read that Lord De Clare, connected by marriage with the Geraldines, then the most powerful Norman house in Ireland, was granted extensive domains in Thomond. No regard was paid to the rights of native possessors in this transfer, and though a war, in which the new proprietor was defeated by O'Brien, an Irish chieftain, was the result, no considerable advantages seem to have been derived from the conflict. At the close of the century, we are told that all hopes of independence were resigned, and eight thousand marks offered to the king for the rights of British subjects. No doubt the cupidity of the monarch would have been gratified by so profitable a disposal of privileges, but the favor was not granted by reason of the opposition of the local aristocracy. At the first constitutional parliament, summoned in 1295 by Sir John Wogan, several judicious acts are said to have been passed; but we are unable to see in what manner they operated in favor of the native inhabitants. After the war caused by the invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce, in the year 1315, the exaction of "coyne and livery" by the impoverished barons first appears, and the method of supporting an army by quartering it on the people was instituted. During a period of active hostilities, and upon the territory of an enemy, such an expedient may be pardonable; but in a country regulated by what was nominally a domestic government it would be hard to perpetrate an act of grosser tyranny.
To afford an idea of the situation of the native inhabitants at this period, we will instance the statute of Kilkenny, passed in the year 1367, by a parliament summoned by the Duke of Clarence. This precious bit of legal wisdom provides that marriage, fosterage, or gossipred with the Irish, or submission to the Irish law, should be regarded as high treason, and punished accordingly. This fosterage or gossipred, of which the English legislators were so fearful, was the practice, traditional among the Irish, of allowing the children of the nobility to be nursed by the wives of the peasantry; and the custom was thought to encourage a sentiment of reciprocal kindness between the lower and the higher orders of the population. The statute also declared that if any man of English descent should adopt an Irish name, be guilty of speaking the Irish language, or follow any of the customs of the country, he should forfeit his estate, or give security for better conduct. It made penal the act of presenting an Irishman to any benefice, or his reception into any monastery. It also forbade the entertainment of any native bard, minstrel, or story-teller; or the granting of permission for an Irish horse to graze in the pasture of a loyal English subject. To such a degree had risen the follies of the dominant race in Ireland in the last half of the fourteenth century.
During the reign of Henry VII. we begin to witness that struggle between the Anglo-Irish nobility and the crown which, in the end, without improving the condition of the masses, was the means of breaking down many noble houses, and still further adding to the distresses of the country. In the parliament of 1494, the act known as Poyning's law was passed. Its enactment was secured by Sir Edward Poyning, lord-deputy of the island, and its purpose was to prevent the assembling of an Irish parliament without the consent of the king. It is easy to see in such an act, however wise it might have been considered, the dawn of fresh conflicts of authority.
During the life of Queen Mary, we have an instance of what fearful infamy could be perpetrated under the system of the Irish land tenure. The septs of O'More and O'Carroll, two chiefs who, under a previous reign, had been arrested, thrown into prison, and left there to perish, claimed that their lands could not be justly forfeited through the offence of their toparchs; but that the ground was the property of the clans, and inalienable save through their own acts. An army was the only response to this reasonable claim, and the inhabitants were forcibly ejected. But not this only. The butcheries that signalized the act were such as to make the event infamous in history; and, in the language of a native historian, "the fires of the burning huts were slaked in the blood of the inhabitants." O'Fally and Leix, the territory occupied by the unfortunate septs, were converted into King's and Queen's counties, and the principal towns were called Philipstown and Maryborough, in commemoration of the queen and her husband. This transaction was one of the first fruits of the coming supremacy of the crown over the local aristocracy.
We now come to the reign of Elizabeth, a woman celebrated alike for her capacity and her vices; and such was her force of character, and the consummate ability of her rule, that she has impressed her policy upon the history of Ireland more deeply than any other sovereign. We have not the space to attempt to follow the incidents of this turbulent period; but must be satisfied with a short statement of the policy of Elizabeth as it seems to have been developed in her measures. When the queen was cautioned against the turbulent and designing character of O'Neill, an Irish chief, and Earl of Tyrone, she is said to have replied that she did not care for his rebellion, as it would give her possession of more lands with which to reward her faithful servants. Historians have endeavored to explain away the meaning of this expression, by attributing it to a desire to silence the enemies of the Irish nobleman; but since, from the beginning to the end of her reign, the history of Ireland proves that she acted as though determined to better the instruction, we have to conclude that in a spirit of levity she had inadvertently unmasked her deliberate policy. From first to last it is only a story of rebellions provoked for the purpose of destroying some Irish nobleman, that an English sycophant might be put in possession of his estates.
The reign of James I., which began in 1603, is regarded by English historians as favorable to Ireland; but how, it is difficult to understand. In some respects the regulations of this king were perhaps advantageous. The introduction of English law over the entire island, the abolition of tanistry and gavelkind, and the more general institution of courts of justice, had public sentiment been healthy, might have eventuated in great advantages; but the spirit of religious persecution, which was now becoming implacable, served to keep alive the animosity of the races, and all improvement was more theoretic than real. Previous to this time, patents for English tenure had been granted only to great lords and chieftains; while their vassals, still retaining their own laws and customs, owed no direct allegiance to the crown. Under the new regulation, estates were to descend by the course of common law, and the people were placed within its operation; but they had really no more interest in the soil than formerly. The king was merely substituted for the toparchs, and while the chiefs were humiliated, their subjects were not made more independent. The land held in demesne by the chieftain was all that was left under his absolute control, but his tenants were subject to an annual rent.