The Irish Nation, Vol. 2 : Its History and Its Biography (Classic Reprint). James Wills
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Author: James Wills
Page Count: 758 pages
Published Date: 27 Sep 2015
Publisher: Forgotten Books
Publication Country: United States
Language: English
ISBN: 9781330256909
File size: 48 Mb
Download Link: The Irish Nation, Vol. 2 Its History and Its Biography (Classic Reprint)
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Excerpt from The Irish Nation, Vol. 2: Its History and Its Biography
Retrospect - Early Religion not that of Rome - State of Ireland in the previous Period - Anglo-Norman Conquest - Reign of Mary Elizabeth.
To obtain a just insight into the social or political history of Ireland, during the period on which we must now enter, it will be necessary to recall from the past some general conditions which have still, through all our periods, had a main influence to govern, or chiefly shape the course of events. The consideration is the more essential, as most of the seeming difficulties and misrepresentations which have obscured our history, have their source in opposite views on those fundamental elements - the social condition and early religion of the native Irish.
For the first of these main considerations, we have to observe, that even so late as the 17th century, there existed in Ireland no class, to which, in any modern sense, the term "people" could be intelligibly applied. There was no constitutional structure of civil government - or social order between the lord and the serf. The common people were slaves to chiefs, with few exceptions, little less savage than themselves. As such a statement must seem to many inconsistent with the traditional exaggerations of the annalist or the bard, it may be useful to recall the truth, even as it becomes transparent through the very surface of the tradition itself. And it will also be clearly apparent, that the boasted learning of the early Hibernian saints and doctors, was wholly confined to those learned individuals themselves; and, in no way indicates the state of the people, rich or poor. They were teachers without a school - speculative disputants in religion or philosophy, travelling to learn or teach. The chiefs and the people had other objects to attend to; the incessant and murderous contentions of the petty toparchs who robbed each other, and trampled on their "hereditary bondsmen." The frequent invasions from the Dane or Norwegian, invited by such a state of things, ever tended to repress the first germs of civilization, and drive the arts and muses from the shore.
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