TO THE MEMORY

OF

MY DEAR FRIEND,

THOMAS DAVIS,

WITH DEEP REVERENCE

I INSCRIBE

THIS BOOK.

JOHN MITCHEL.

Banbridge, Sept. 22, 1845. Vone min

R.bf. May 12th 1916

PREFACE.

PERHAPS in no country, but only Ireland, would a plain narrative of wars and revolutions that are past and gone two centuries and a half ago, run any risk of being construed as an attempt to foster enmity between the descendants of two races that fought so long since for mastery in the land.

Yet the writer of this short record of the life of the greatest Irish chieftain, is warned that such construction may, and by some assuredly will, be put upon the following story and the writer's manner of telling it. But as to the narrative itself, undoubtedly the only question ought to be is it true? And if so-is the truth to be told, or hidden? Is it not at all times, in all places, above all things, desirable to hear the truth instead of a lie? And for the way in which it is told the writer does indeed acknowledge a strong sympathy with the primitive Irish race, proud and vehement, tender and

poetical; with their deep religion and boundless wealth of sweetest song, and high old names, and the golden glories of Tradition; retiring slowly, and not without a noble struggle, before what is called "Civilization," and the instiutive and unrelenting insolence of English dominion; mostly victors in the field, but always overcome by policy; plucking down the robber standard of England in many a stricken battle-but on the whole, by iron destiny, and that combination of force and fraud and treachery, which has ever characterized the onward march of English power-borne back, disunited, and finally almost swept from the earth, to make way for the greedy adventurers of all Great Britain. And if the word "Saxon" or "Englishman" is sometimes used with bitterness, it is because the writer, carrying himself two hundred and fifty years teckward, and viewing events, not as from the Council-chamber of Dublin Castle, but from the Irish forests and the Irish hearths, is sometimes tempied to use the language that fitted the time, and might have lain in the mouth of a clansman of Tyr-eoghain.

But the struggle is over, and can never, upon that quarrel, be renewed. Those Milesian Irish, as a distinct nation, (why not admit it?) were beaten-were finally subdued; as the Fir-bolgs