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PREFACE Page v

Rebellion of 1798--The Union--Acts of the Imperial Parliament: respecting dispensaries, hospitals, and infirmaries--Examination of bogs--Fever hospitals--Officers of health--Lunatic asylums--Employment of the poor--Deserted children--Report of 1804 respecting the poor--Dublin House of Industry and Foundling Hospital--Reports of 1819 and 1823 on the state of disease and condition of the labouring poor--Report of 1830 on the state of the poorer classes--Report of the Committee on Education--Mr. Secretary Stanley's letter to the Duke of Leinster--Board of National Education--First and second Reports of commissioners for inquiring into the condition of the poorer classes--The author's 'Suggestions'--The commissioners' third Report--Reasons for and against a voluntary system of relief--Mr. Bicheno's 'Remarks on the Evidence'--Mr. G. C. Lewis's 'Remarks on the Third Report' 67

Recommendation in the king's speech--Motions and other proceedings in the House of Commons--Lord John Russell's instructions to the author--The author's first Report--Lord John Russell's speech on introducing a bill founded on its recommendations--Progress of the bill interrupted by the death of the king--Author's second Report--Bill reintroduced and passed the Commons--Author's third Report--Bill passes the lords, and becomes law 153

Summary of the 'Act for the more effectual Relief of the Poor in Ireland,' and of the 'Amendment Act'--Arrangements for bringing the Act into operation--First and second Reports of proceedings--Dublin and Cork unions--Distress in the western districts--Third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Reports--Summary of the Act for the further amendment of the Law--Seventh Report--Cost of relief, and numbers relieved--Issue of amended orders 222

Eighth Report of proceedings--Failure of the potato--A fourth commissioner appointed--Ninth Report--Potato disease in 1846--Public Works Act--Distress in autumn 1846--Labour-rate Act--Relief-works--Temporary Relief Act--Pressure upon workhouses--Emigration--Financial state of unions--First Annual Report of Poor-Law Commissioners for Ireland--Extension Act--Act for Punishment of Vagrants--Act to provide for execution of Poor Laws--General import of the new Acts--Change of the commission--Dissolution of boards of guardians--Report of Temporary Relief Act Commissioners--British Association--Second Annual Report of Poor-Law Commissioners--Recurrence of potato disease--Cholera--Rate-in-Aid Act--Further dissolution of boards of guardians--Boundary Commission--Select committee on Irish Poor Laws--Expenditure, and numbers relieved 303

Third Annual Report of Poor-Law Commissioners--Further Amendment Act--Fourth Annual Report--New unions and electoral divisions--Consolidated Debts Act--Rates in aid--Fifth Annual Report--Annuities under Consolidated Debts Act--Treasury minute--Act to amend Acts relating to payment of advances--Medical charities--Medical Charities Act--First Report of Medical Charity Commissioners--Census of 1851--Retrospection--Sixth Annual Report--Rate of wages--Expenditure, and numbers relieved--Changes in Poor-Law executive--New order of accounts--Author's letter to Lord John Russell, 1853--Present state and future prospects of Ireland 364

INDEX 405

HISTORY

THE IRISH POOR LAW,

THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.

After Strongbow's expedition to Ireland in the year 1170, which was followed by that of Henry the Second and the general submission of the chieftains of the several clans in 1172, the history of Ireland becomes closely connected with and may be said to form a portion of that of England. The accounts we have of the state of the country anterior to Strongbow's invasion are vague and uncertain, although there are grounds for believing that some degree of civilization had prevailed, and that intercourse with the East had been to some extent maintained, at a very early period. It has been said that "The Gauls or Celtes from the north-west parts of Britain, and certain tribes from the north-west parts of Spain peopled Ireland, either originally or by subduing the Phoenician colonies which had been established there;" and that the Irish, and their kinsmen the Highlanders of Scotland, are supposed to be "the remains of a people who in ancient times had occupied not only Britain, but a considerable part of Gaul and Spain." The Irish were no doubt commonly known by the name of Scots, and the proximity of the two countries, irrespective of all other considerations, renders the identity of origin highly probable.

See the 'Liber Munerum publicorum Hibernie,' the first and following chapters on the Establishments of Ireland, supplementary to the History of England, by Rowley Lascelles, of the Middle Temple, printed by authority in 1824. This work has been chiefly relied upon for historical reference. It bears evidence of great research, and is on every account entitled to much weight in the conflicting testimonies with regard to the early events of Irish history.

The Romans never extended their conquests to Ireland, and it was protected by its insular position from the irruption of barbarians which burst upon the Roman provinces in the fifth and sixth centuries, and caused the dismemberment of the western empire. In that age, we are told, "Irish missionaries taught the Anglo-Saxons of the north, who also resorted to Ireland for instruction." Lingard says that "when learning was almost extinguished on the continent of Europe, a faint light was emitted from the shores of Erin; and that strangers from Britain, from Gaul, and from Germany, resorted to the Irish schools." It is probable however that the light was partial as well as faint, and that the Christian monasteries with their learned men which constituted the "schools," existed in only a few places in Ireland, each establishment forming as it were a speck of civilization, like an oasis in the desert of barbarism. It is certain that the Irish of that day paid no Peter's pence, and acknowledged no supremacy in the see of Rome; and there is reason to believe that the Irish Church was derived rather from the Greek than the Latin hierarchy. Whatever glimmering of civilization prevailed in Ireland at this early period, must have been damped and prevented from expanding "by the rude influence of the native institutions, and it was nearly if not quite extinguished by the irruptions of the Northmen, or Danes, who annually made incursions into Ireland from the middle of the eighth to the end of the tenth century." The ancient division of the country into the four provinces of Munster, Connaught, Leinster, and Ulster, which must be referred to this early period, seems to have been for ecclesiastical purposes. The division into counties, of which there are thirty-two, took place long after.

See 'The Handbook of Architecture,' a recent publication in which the ingenious author supports this conclusion by showing the similarity of the religious buildings erected in the East and in Ireland, which in both differ materially from what is seen in Italy and the other countries of Europe.

The Conqueror is said to have at one time entertained the project of bringing Ireland under subjection, but notwithstanding its proximity to England, and the obvious advantages that would result from uniting the two islands under one government, neither he nor his three immediate successors made any effort to accomplish this object. In the reign of Henry the Second however, a circumstance occurred which drew the attention of the English sovereign to the state of Ireland, and led to consequences most important to both countries. In the year 1169 Dermod, king of Leinster, who had been expelled by O'Connor, king of Connaught, sought the protection of Henry, who accepted the tendered allegiance, and permitted his subjects to assist the Irish chief. Earl Strigul took advantage of this permission, and in 1170 embarked for Ireland with a few armed retainers. He was followed two years afterwards by the king himself, with a considerable force. Henry was everywhere received as a conqueror, the Irish princes and chiefs submitting without opposition; and at a council assembled at Lismore, the laws of England are said to have been gratefully accepted by all, and established under the sanction of a solemn oath.

The chieftains who had however, so readily submitted to become Henry's vassals, as readily withdrew their allegiance on his quitting Ireland, which he was compelled to do at the end of little more than six months, in consequence of Becket's murder, and the rebellion of his own sons. Thenceforward for the long period of 400 years, the country was distracted by local dissensions and jealousies, and the conflicts of contending chiefs. Treachery and murder everywhere prevailed. The sovereigns of England were too much occupied with the crusades, and their French wars, to attend to the state of Ireland; and although the English race maintained itself in that country, it is said to have become wilder and less civilized in each succeeding generation. "The first adventurers trampled down the original Irish; they were themselves in their turn trampled down by the next adventurers; these by subsequent ones; and so on in a continual series, as if each race had forfeited all rights, or power of acquiring and retaining any rights whatsoever, more than a common robber or pirate."

Little was done towards establishing order and the supremacy of law in Ireland, until Henry the Seventh, after having put an end to civil strife in England, was enabled to direct his attention to the state of that country, where he was alike successful. Henry the Eighth assumed the title of king, instead of that of lord of Ireland as used by his predecessors. His efforts to establish the Reformation in Ireland, were not so successful as in England, where a great majority of the nobility and the people were with him, but in Ireland he had neither. The power of the government moreover was there less, and might be opposed or disregarded with comparative impunity. On the accession of Mary in 1553, "so little had been done in advancing the Reformation, that there was little to undo." In the reign of Elizabeth, however, the whole ecclesiastical system was assimilated to that of England, and such of the clergy as would not conform, were deprived of their cures. Throughout great part of Elizabeth's reign, Ireland was kept in a state of disquiet by Spanish emissaries, the landing of Spanish troops, and the intrigues of Tyrone and other Irish chieftains; but the Spaniards were compelled to evacuate the country, Tyrone submitted, and before the close of her reign in 1603, peace had been everywhere restored.

Our great poet Spenser has left us a description of the state of Ireland in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign. Both he and his friend Raleigh had obtained grants of land there, and Spenser had resided in Ireland for several years, and thus acquired a knowledge of the country, which he describes with all the fancy of a poet and the fervour of a patriot--"and sure it is a most beautiful and sweet country as any under heaven, being stored thro'out with many goodly rivers, replenished with all sorts of fish most abundantly, sprinkled with many very sweet islands and goodly lakes, like little inland seas, that will carry even shippes upon their waters; adorned with goodly woods even fit for building houses and ships, so commodiously, as that if some princes in the world had them, they would soon hope to be lords of all the seas, and ere long of all the world; also full of very good ports and havens opening upon England, as inviting us to come unto them, to see what excellent commodities that country can afford, besides the soyle itself most fertile, fit to yield all kinds of fruit that shall be committed thereunto. And lastly, the heavens most mild and temperate, though somewhat more moist in the parts towards the west."

After thus eulogising the country as most sweet and beautiful, Spenser describes the habits of the people, in less favourable colours certainly, but no doubt with equal truth--

"All the Irish almost boast themselves to be gentlemen, no less than the Welsh; for if he can derive himself from the head of any sept then he holdeth himself a gentleman, and thereupon scorneth to worke, or use any hard labour, which he saith is the life of a peasant or churl; but henceforth becometh either an horseboy or a stocah to some kerne, inuring himself to his weapon, and to the gentlemanly trade of stealing, as they count it. So that if a gentleman, or any wealthy man yeoman of them, have any children, the eldest of them perhaps shall be kept in some order, but all the rest shall shift for themselves and fall to this occupation. And moreover it is a common use among some of their gentlemen's sonnes, that so soon as they are able to use their weapons, they straight gather to themselves three or four straglers, or kearnes, with whom wandering up and down idly the country, taking only meate, he at last falleth unto some bad occasion that shall be offered, which being once made known, he is thenceforth counted a man of worth, in whom there is courage; whereupon there draw to him many other like loose young men, which stirring him up with encouragement, provoke him shortly to flat rebellion; and this happens not only sometimes in the sonnes of their gentlemen, but also of their noblemen, specially of them who have base sonnes; for they are not only not ashamed to acknowledge them, but also boast of them, and use them for such secret services as they themselves will not be seen in, as to plague their enemies, to spoil their neighbours, to oppress and crush some of their own too stubborn freeholders, which are not tractable to their wills."

Having thus given a general description of the country and the people, Spenser next adverts to circumstances connected with the landlord and tenant classes in particular, to the first of which classes it will be remembered he himself belonged--

"There is one general inconvenience which reigneth almost thro'out Ireland: that is, the lords of land and freeholders, doe not there use to set out their land in farme, or for terme of years, to their tenants, but only from year to year, and some during pleasure; neither indeed will the Irish tenant or husbandman otherwise take his land than so long as he list himself. The reason hereof in the tenant is, for that the landlords there use most shamefully to racke their tenants, laying upon them coigny and livery at pleasure, and exacting of them what he pleaseth. So that the poor husbandman either dare not binde himself to him for longer terme, or thinketh by his continual liberty of change, to keep his landlord the rather in awe from wronging of him"--"The evils which cometh hereby are great, for by this means both the landlord thinketh that he hath his tenant more at command, to follow him into what action soever he shall enter, and also the tenant being left at his liberty, is fit for every occasion of change that shall be offered by time, and so much the more ready and willing is he to runne into the same, for that he hath no such state in any his houlding, no such building upon any farme, no such coste employed in fencing or husbanding the same, as might withhold him from any such wilfull course as his lord's cause, or his own lewde disposition may carry him unto"--"and this inconvenience may be reason enough to ground any ordinance for the good of the common wealth, against the private behoof or will of any landlord that shall refuse to graunt any such terme of estate unto his tenant, as may tende to the good of the whole realme."

It appears that Tipperary was at that time distinguished from the other counties, being the only county palatine in Ireland; and of it and its peculiar privileges, and the consequences to which these gave rise, Spenser thus complains--"A county palatine is, in effect, to have a privilege to spoyle the enemy's borders adjoining. And surely so it is used at this day, as a privilege place of spoiles and stealthes; for the county of Tipperary, which is now the only county palatine in Ireland, is, by abuse of some bad ones, made a receptacle to rob the rest of the counties about it, by means of whose privileges none will follow their stealthes; so as it being situate in the very lap of all the land, is made now a border, which how inconvenient it is, let every man judge."

Spenser also describes several measures which he considered necessary for the repression of disorder and the protection of life and property. In this "enumeration of needful points to be attended to for the good of the common wealth," he first wishes "that order were taken for the cutting and opening of all places through woods, so that a wide way of the space of 100 yards might be laid open in every of them for the safety of travellers, which use often in such perilous places to be robbed and sometimes murdered. Next that bridges were built upon the rivers, and all the fords marred and spilt, so as none might pass any other way but by those bridges, and every bridge to have a gate and a gatehouse set thereon, whereof this good will come, that no night stealthes, which are commonly driven in by-ways, and by blind fordes unused of any but such like, shall not be conveyed out of one country into another, as they use, but they must pass by those bridges, where they may be easily tracked, or not suffered to pass. Also that in all straights and narrow passages, as between two boggs, or through any deep ford, or under any mountain side, there should be some little fortilage set, which should keep and command that straight. Moreover that all highways should be fenced and shut up on both sides, having only forty feet for passage, so as none shall be able to pass but through the highways, whereby thieves and night robbers might be more easily pursued and encountered where there shall be no other way to drive their stolen cattle. And further, that there shall be in sundry convenient places by the highways, towns appointed to be built, the which should be free burgesses and incorporate under bailiffs, to be by their inhabitants well and strongly intrenched, or otherwise fenced, with gates on each side to be shut nightly, like as there is in many places in the English pale, and all the ways about it to be strongly shut up, so as none should pass but through the towne; and to some it were good that the privilege of a market were given, for there is nothing that doth sooner cause civility in any country than many market townes, by reason that people repairing often thither for their needs, will daily see and learn civil manners of the better sort."

See Spenser's View of the State of Ireland, written in 1596, vol. viii. of his works, printed in octavo in 1805.

These extracts throw much light upon the social condition of Ireland at that time, and no apology can be necessary for giving them insertion here. It is impossible to doubt the writer's sincerity, or the truthfulness of his descriptions; and it is no small advantage to have such a testimony to the state of things then existing in Ireland, which may be regarded as a kind of standard or starting-point for future comparison.

Shortly after Elizabeth's death, and the accession of James the First, an insurrection again broke out in the north of Ireland. It was soon put down however, but it led to upwards of 500,000 acres of land being escheated to the crown. This vast tract, situated in the six northern counties, on which, we are told, "only robbers and rebels had found shelter," now afforded James the opportunity for carrying into effect his favourite scheme of a plantation in Ireland. The natives were removed to other localities, and settlers from England and Scotland introduced; and thus Ulster shortly became the most civilized and best cultivated of the four provinces, instead of being the most wild and disorderly, as had previously been the case.

In the contest between Charles the First and the parliament, the Roman Catholics of Ireland adhered to the cause of the king; but their adherence to that cause was accompanied by the treacherous massacre of the Protestant settlers in 1641--an atrocity that gave rise to the bitterest feelings throughout England, and eventually led to the exacting of a stern and ruthless retribution. In 1649, six months after the death of Charles, Cromwell proceeded to Ireland, taking with him a considerable body of his disciplined veterans. He landed at Dublin in August, and shortly afterwards Drogheda and Wexford were stormed with great slaughter, upon which Cork, Kinsale, and other towns opened their gates; and in ten months the entire country was brought under subjection, with the exception of Limerick and Waterford, the reduction of which Cromwell left to his son-in-law Ireton, and re-embarked for England where his presence had become necessary. If Cromwell had remained longer in Ireland, it is probable that he would with his usual vigour have crushed the seeds of many existing evils, and laid the foundation for future quiet; but this was not permitted, and the elements of disorder remained, repressed and weakened it is true, but still ready to burst forth whenever circumstances should give vent to the explosion.

The following summary of the estimated population of Ireland at several periods is abstracted from the memoir of Mr. Shaw Mason, the officer appointed under the Act for taking the census of Ireland in 1821, as the same is given in the Appendix to Selections from the Lords' Journals, by Mr. Rowley Lascelles--

These are taken from the census returns of the respective periods.

With reference to the above summary, it may be remarked that a rapid increase in the population of a country, cannot always be taken as a proof of the increase of wealth and civilization, or of improvement in the social condition of the people. It is possible indeed that it may be productive of results the very reverse in these respects, when the increase unduly presses upon or outruns the ordinary means of subsistence, as it sometimes undoubtedly did in certain parts of Ireland. But on the whole, and making every allowance for adverse circumstances, the above table affords grounds for concluding, that subsequently to 1672, the productive powers of the country were receiving continually increased development, to meet the wants of a continually increasing population. Or we might perhaps go further back, and date the increase from the time when Cromwell, with a strong hand, enforced order and established the ascendancy of the law in Ireland. The decrease in the population which took place between 1841 and 1851, when the number was forced back below what it had been thirty years preceding, indicates a period of great trial and suffering. In the latter portion of this period, the country was assailed by famine and pestilence--a fearful visitation which will be noticed hereafter in its order of date, and of which it would be out of place to say more at present.

Until a comparatively recent period, there was no law directly providing for the relief of the Irish poor. In this respect the legislation of Ireland differed from that OF England and Scotland, in both of which countries we have seen that such a provision was early made. The difference in this respect, was probably at first owing to the disturbed and unsettled state of Ireland; and afterwards, when it was brought more thoroughly under subjection, the difference of race and religion with other unfavourable circumstances, united to prevent the growth of that orderly gradation of classes, and that sympathy between one class and another, which exist in every well-conditioned community, and of which a poor-law is a natural development.

Although there was no direct provision for the relief of the poor in Ireland, several Acts of the Irish parliament were more or less subsidiary to that object, whilst others were calculated to illustrate the progress of civilization, and the general condition of the country. Various institutions of a charitable character were likewise established; and it will be necessary to notice certain of these matters, before entering upon a consideration of the important measure of 1838. The legislative enactments have precedence in order of time, and to these we will now in the first instance direct our attention.

The citations hereafter made, are taken from 'The Statutes at Large, passed in the Parliament held in Ireland'--published by authority in thirteen volumes folio, in 1786.

As early as 1310, in the reign of Edward the Second, we find that in a parliament assembled at Kilkenny "it was agreed that none should keep idle people or kearn in time of peace, to live upon the poor of the country; but those which will have them shall keep them at their own charges, so that the free tenants and farmers be not charged with them." And 130 years afterwards, in the reign of Henry the Sixth, among the ordinances established by a parliament holden in Dublin, it was declared--"that divers of the English do maintain and succour sundry thieves robbers and rebels, because that the same thieves robbers and rebels do put them into their safeguard and comrick, so that the king's faithful subjects dare not pursue their right against such thieves robbers and rebels, for fear of them which have taken them into their safeguard and comrick"--wherefore it is ordained, that such as do put themselves, and such as do grant such safeguard and comrick, be adjudged traitors, and suffer accordingly. And in the same reign, at a certain great council held in Dublin it was declared--"that thieves and evildoers increase in great store, and from day to day do increase in malice more than they have done heretofore, and do destroy the commons with their thefts stealings and manslaughters, and also do cause the land to fall into decay and poverty and waste every day more and more"--wherefore it is ordained that it shall be lawful for every liege man to kill or take notorious thieves, and thieves found robbing spoiling or breaking houses--"and that every man that kills or takes any such thieves, shall have one penny of every plough and one farthing of every cottage within the barony where the manslaughter is done, for every thief."

These enactments show that the state of the country within the English pale, or that portion of it which was subject to English rule, was then very similar to what existed at the same periods in England and Scotland, more prone to violence and disorder perhaps, and therefore somewhat more backward in civilization; but all the leading characteristics are nearly identical. Beyond the pale however a far worse state of things prevailed. There violence and disorder ranged without control. "The Irishry," as they were called, were continually engaged in battleings and feuds among themselves, one chief or one sept against another, or in making inroads and committing robberies and murders within the pale, which again led to retaliations; and thus a species of domestic or border warfare alike injurious to all parties,--and a state of ferment and insecurity throughout the country, were kept up and perpetuated.

A parliament held at Trim in 1447, laments--"that the sons of husbandmen and labourers, which in old time were wont to be labourers and travaylers upon the ground, as to hold ploughs, to ere the ground, and travayl with all other instruments belonging to husbandry, to manure the ground, and do all other works lawful and honest according to their state--and now they will be kearnes, evildoers, wasters, idle men, and destructioners of the king's leige people"--wherefore it is ordained that the sons of labourers and travaillers of the ground, shall use the same labours and travails that their fathers have done. And ten years afterwards, at a parliament held at Naas, it was ordained--"forasmuch as the sons of many men from day to day do rob spoil and coygnye the king's poor liege people, and masterfully take their goods without any pity--that every man shall answer for the offence and ill doing of his son, as he himself that did the trespass and offence ought to do, saving the punishment of death, which shall incur to the trespasser himself." This last enactment, making the father answerable for the acts of his son, was perhaps under the circumstances of the period calculated to check violence and disorder and may be so far regarded as defensible. But the same cannot be said of the former enactment requiring the son to follow the same occupation as the father. Yet such has been the practice throughout a great part of Asia from the earliest period. In the present instance, the enforcement of the practice by special enactment, seems to imply that the demand for agricultural labour was increasing in Ireland, either through an increase of land under cultivation, or an increased amount of labour applied to it; and either the one or the other must be considered as indicative of improvement.

In the reign of Edward the Fourth an Act was passed ordaining and establishing "that in every English town of this land that pass three houses holden by tenants, where no other president is, there be chosen by his neighbours or by the lord of the said town, one constable to be president and governor of the same town, in all things that pertaineth to the common rule thereof"--doubtless a useful provision, and calculated to aid the cause of order and good government. In the same reign, at a parliament held at Naas, it is recorded--"For that there is so great lack of money in this land, and also the grain are enhanced to a great price because of great lading from day to day used and continued within this realm, by the which great dearth is like to be of graines, without some remedy be ordeyned"--whereupon the premises considered it is enacted--"that no person or persons lade no grain out of the said land to no other parts without, if one peck of the said grains exceed the price of ten pence, upon pain of forfeiture of the said grain or the value thereof, and also the ship in which the said grains are laden."

That is every town within the English pale.

So called after Sir Edward Poynings, who was lord deputy in Ireland during a great part of Henry's reign, and in the earlier part of that of his successor. The lord deputy is described as "the active scourge of all insurgents," and it was latterly said of him that "he might call all Ireland his own." See Liber Munerum, book ii. cap. 1. Mr. Lascelles gives 1494 as the year in which this Act was passed. In the Statutes at Large it bears the date of 1495.

We see from the above, that the Irish beyond the pale were still regarded as enemies; and to prevent as far as possible the barbarous conflicts that were continually taking place between them and the people within the pale, was doubtless one reason for passing these Acts. But independently of this object, the general policy of the two measures is abundantly obvious. They amount, taken together, to no more than extending to Ireland the principle observed by Henry in his government of England, namely, that of reducing the exorbitant power assumed by the great nobility and gentry, and making them amenable to the general law, a thing no less necessary in one country than in the other, although widely differing in so many respects.

These Acts for the protection of the corn-grower against waste in time of harvest, and against incendiarism when the corn is in the rick, are indications of the advance of agriculture in Ireland. The titheowner may have had some influence in the passing of the latter Act; but taking the two together, it seems impossible to doubt that the occupation of the "poor earth-tillers," as they are termed, was considered to be important with regard to the general welfare, and therefore deserving of special protection.

Three years after the last preceding Act, another was passed in which it is declared that the king, considering that "there is nothing which doth more conteyne and keep many of his subjects of this his land in a certain savage and wilde kind and manner of living, than the diversitie that is betwixt them in tongue, language, order and habite, which by the eye deceiveth the multitude, and persuadeth them that they should be as it were of sundry sorts, or rather of sundry countries, where indeed they be wholly together one body"--wherefore it is enacted, that no person shall wear hair on the head or face nor any manner of clothing, mantle, coat, or hood, after the Irish fashion, but in all things shall conform to the habits and manners of the civil people within the English pale. And it is further enacted, that all persons of whatsoever degree or condition "to the uttermost of their power cunning and knowledge shall use and speak commonly the English tongue," and cause their children to do the same, "and shall use and keep their houses and households as near as ever they can, according to the English order." Spiritual promotion is moreover directed to be given only to such as can speak English; so that nothing appears to have been omitted for bringing about the desired assimilation of the native Irish with their fellow-subjects of the English race. Subsequent events showed however that these efforts were not crowned with success, and a long period elapsed before the Irish of the western districts can be said to have at all assimilated to English habits, or become amenable to English rule.

See post, p. 51.

The Reformation had at this time been established in Ireland, and the clergy whom the state recognised were necessarily all Protestant. The desire for extending education as a means for improving and enlightening the people, was therefore to be expected from them; and it is not improbable this desire was accompanied, and perhaps strengthened, by a belief that education would bring about the conversion of such of the people as were not yet of their flock, but still adhered to the church of Rome. That such were the motives of the Protestant clergy in the prominent part taken by them with regard to these free schools, and that the government and the proprietary classes generally were influenced by similar motives, can hardly admit of doubt. The result turned out different however from what was anticipated. The great bulk of the people remained in ignorance, and devotedly attached to the old religion, as it was and still is called; and thus a separation sprung up between one class and another, between the more English and Protestant class, and the more Irish and Romanist class, which has been a fruitful source of evil to each, and in spite of the countervailing efforts which have of late years been made, can hardly be said to have altogether disappeared even at the present day. How strange it seems that religion, which ought, and we must believe was designed to be, a bond of concord and union, should be perverted into an occasion for hatred and strife!--Yet so it unhappily too often has been, and in no country perhaps more than in Ireland.

The justices at their quarter session of the peace are required to assign to the governors of the said houses a fitting salary, to be paid quarterly in advance by the treasurer of the county, which if the treasurer neglect to pay, the governor is empowered to levy upon him by distress of his goods. And in order that more care may be taken by the governors of such houses of correction, "when the country hath been at trouble and charge to bring all such disorderly persons to their safe keeping," it is directed that they shall at every quarter session yield a true account to the justices of all persons committed to their custody; and if any of such persons "shall be troublesome to the country by going abroad, or otherwise shall escape away from the said house of correction before they shall be from thence lawfully delivered, the justices may impose such fines and penalties upon the said governor as they shall think fit." The justices are to meet at least twice a year for the better execution of this statute, and are by warrant to command the constables of every barony, town, parish, village and hamlet within the county to make a general privy search in one night for finding out and apprehending all rogues, vagabonds, wandering and idle persons, who are to be brought before the justices to be examined of their wandering idle life, and punished accordingly, or otherwise sent to the house of correction and there set to labour and work.

Ante, p. 22.

See 'History of the English Poor Law,' vol. i. pp. 115, 171, 233 and 234.

A parallel to the "pulling off the wool from living sheep," may even now be witnessed all over the west of Ireland, in the plucking off the feathers from the living geese, a process that must be attended with great pain, and under the cruel infliction of which many of the poor geese perish.

These Acts certainly indicate the existence of very rude and barbarous practices in some parts of Ireland--so rude indeed, that one finds some difficulty in giving credence to them; but that they did prevail, there can be no reasonable doubt. To plough by the tail, to strip the wool off sheep, and to burn corn in the straw, are doubtless all indications of a lamentable state of backwardness and barbarism; but how far this backwardness was owing to "a natural lazie disposition" in the Irish tenantry, or whether it was the "better to enable them to be flitting from their lands to deceive their landlords of their rents," as asserted above, or occasioned by the oppressive conduct of the landlords, as described by Spenser, it is impossible to say with certainty. Most likely all these causes were in operation, together with a general feeling of insecurity, a backward state of civilization, and a feeble and uncertain administration of the law.

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