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English settlers and the new English settlers continued with unabated rancour. The attention of Edward was too much occupied with his grand and magnificent speculations of conquest and glory in France, to turn for a moment to a careful consideration of the best remedies for the disorders which convulsed his Irish dominions; but a chief governor happened to be appointed about this period (1345) who possessed those qualities of vigour and determination, which were well suited to curb and restrain the vindictive and violent passions of the people he was to govern.

Sir Ralph de Ufford was entrusted with the Irish administration. This firm and active deputy not only suppressed the common enemy, but he also reduced to obedience those English barons, of whom Desmond and Kildare were at the head. The sudden death of this efficient chief governor, replunged the colony into its old factions, and revived all its old animosities. Sir John Morris, possessing a mild and conciliating disposition, succeeded, and was unequal to the task of awing into obedience these turbulent lords whom Sir Ralph de Ufford had put down.

Edward had now (1346) completed his preparations for the invasion of France; and Desmond having appeared before this monarch to complain of the injuries he had received from the chief governor, was solicited by Edward to join his standard, and participate in the fame and laurels he was about to acquire against the common enemy of England. The complaints of Desmond and Kildare were attended to; their lands restored, and those noble and powerful barons, with their numerous followers, contributed in an eminent degree to the fame of English arms, in the celebrated battle of Cressy. Edward witnessed with the enthusiasm of a hero, the agility and strength, and skill at arms, displayed by his Irish auxiliaries; and the earl Kildare so greatly distinguished himself at the siege of Calais, that he received the honor of knighthood from the

king's hand, and returned to Ireland, covered with military glory and royal honors.

The restoration of Desmond and Kildare to their extensive estates in Ireland, contributed in a great degree to tranquillize the colony; but the animosity of the old English against their newly arrived brethren, was too deeply rooted to suffer that complete harmony which would haveinsured the stability of the English interests in this country. The old English formed alliances with the native Irish; their manners and customs and affections became Irish, and the union of the people was considered by the viceroy, as the certain forerunner of the destruction of the English power. It was therefore enjoined by royal mandate, that "No mere Irishmen should be admitted into any office or trust in any city, borough, or castle in the king's land; that no bishop or prior, under the king's dominion and allegiance, should admit any of this race to an ecclesiastical benefice or into any religious house, on account of consanguinity or other pretence whatever;" thus breaking up all those social and endearing connections which time had formed, which good policy would have strengthened, and which only excited the envy, the jealousy, and malignity of a short-sighted monopoly. Such is the epitome of Irish history, and in those few words might Ireland's story be told, for 600 years of English domination. Of those impolitic ordinances the native chiefs took advantage, and “Bellum ad internecionem" was the signal from one corner of the kingdom to the other; O'Neil from the north, O'Brien from the south, recruited their forces by the foolish denunciations of their inveterate enemies. They desolated the English territories, and threatened power in Ireland with complete annihilation. concert and union," writes Mr. Leland, "among the Irish, prevented them from demolishing the whole fabric of English power, by one general and decisive assault."

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agitation, the miserable disorders of his Irish dominions. He sent forward his second son, lord Lionel, who was affianced, in his tender years, to the daughter of the earl of Ulster, and by right of his wife, claimed immense property in Ireland. A royal proclamation was issued, that all Englishmen holding lands in Ireland, should join the prince's standard. Fifteen hundred men were thus collected; and in 1361, lord Lionel, accompanied by Ralph, earl of Stafford, James, earl of Ormond, sir John Carew, sir William Windsor, and other knights of distinction, landed in Ireland.

Lionel, diffident of the old settlers, trusted entirely to his new companions in arms, who were ignorant of the nature of the country, the habits and manners of the Irish, and unequal to the struggle with their experienced leaders. Defeat and disaster were the consequences of such imprudent steps. This partial policy therefore was abandoned, and the old English settlers were invited to the prince. This new system in some degree checked the career of the Irish; but Lionel having carefully observed the circumstances of the colony, did not place any great confidence in temporary expedients. He summoned a parliament at Kilkenny, which proved more respectable and more numerous than was ever before convened in Ireland.

The prelates of Dublin, Cashel, Tuam, Lismore, Waterford, Killaloe, Ossory, Leighlin, and Cloyne, obeyed the summons of the king's son. The temporal peers and commons cheerfully attended. It is to be obscrved, that both estates sat together; and the result of their deliberations was that famous ordinance, the statute of Kilkenny. It is impossible to look back upon this statute without deploring that barbarous selfishness, and absurd antipathy, which such an instrument exhibits to posterity. That a people remarkable for their hospitality and kindness to strangers, as the Irish are acknowledged

to be; that the connections formed by the imperative ordinances of time, among a people distinguished by the -strength of their social affections, the acute sensibility of their feelings, and the honesty and candor of their hearts, should be thus driven out of the pale of civilization, and denied the common rights of mankind, is only to be accounted for by that infuriate and poisoned sentiment which monopoly generates in the human breast; which makes man a tyger among his species, swallowing up and devouring with insatiable appetite, all those rights, privileges, and advantages, which it imagines would be lost by participation among his countrymen. The same blind and wretched sentiment characterised the Spartan, as well as the English settler; and the miseries of the Helot, and the Irish native, were sweet sounds to the ears of the monopolist, whom it had pleased Providence to arm with ascendancy. "This statute of Kilkenny," says Mr. Taaffe, with honourable feelings of indignation, "empaled the pale from social life; it formed an insulated Jewish cast, abhorring all, and abhorred by all; the Jews were insulated from the neighbouring idolatrous nations to guard them against idolatry.”

"This English pale excluded the intercourse of a people better Christians than they, better men, more civilized. What crime," says Mr. Taaffe, "could be in the melody of the Irish harps, chanting the sweet strains of Erin's bards? Why should Irish learning and piety be excluded from benefices founded by Irishmen, or from monasteries founded by them?-The Norman conquerors passed no such statute in England, nor the heathen Danes in Ireland." Yet, let it not be forgotten, that the parliament which enacted this statute was a popish one; that its denunciations against catholics are by catholics, and that the same unwearied despotism, which, in succeeding times, poured new blood on the pages of our statute book, caused the enactment of this infamous statute of Kilkenny. To

England alone should our eyes be perpetually turned, the prolific source of all our sorrows, and the indefatigable corrupter of our people. A catholic or a protestant parliament, under its malignant influence, is equally blasting of the energies, and torturing to the feelings of our country. The catholic is a blockhead who condemns the protestant as the enemy of Irish freedom. The catholic, under the burning heat of an English treasury, would be equally malleable to English purposes. We should therefore learn to look to the first cause of Ireland's treachery to herself.

The statute of Kilkenny enacted, that marriage, nurture of infants, and gossipred, with the Irish, should be considered and punished as high treason. It enacted, that if any man of English race shall use an Irish name, the Irish language, or the Irish apparel, or any mode or custom of the Irish, he shall forfeit lands and tenements, until he hath given security in the court of chancery, to conform in every particular to the English manners; or if he has no lands, that he shall be imprisoned until the like security be given. This kind and benevolent statute made it penal to the English to permit their Irish neighbours to graze their lands, to present to ecclesiastical benefices, or receive them into monasteries or religious houses. It also enacted, that the colonists should not entertain the Irish bards, who perverted their imaginations by romantic tales, or their news-tellers, who seduced them by false reports. Such are the provisions of an act for the better securing the English interests in Ireland, and the more effectually extirpating the Irish name and nation. Such has ever been the impotent instrument, and the barren expedient of despotism, in all ages and countries, which has no security but in chains, reposes no confidence but in the sword, and looks at every object around it with eyes of jealousy and suspicion. The reflection of Mr. Leland on this celebrated statute, is very unworthy the kind and benignant

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