TO MY YOUNG FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN AT HOME AND IN EXILE, IN THE COTTAGE AND THE MANSION, AMIDST THE GREEN FIELDS AND IN THE CROWDED CITIES, AUTHOR'S PREFACE. HIS little book is written for young people. It does not pretend to the serious character of a History of Ireland. It does not claim to be more than a compilation from the many admirable wo®ks which have been published by painstaking and faithful historians. It is an effort to interest the young in the subject of Irish history, and attract them to its study. I say so much in deprecation of the stern judgment of learned critics. I say it furthermore and chiefly by way of owning my obligations to those authors the fruits of whose researches have been availed of so freely by me. To two of these in particular, Mr. M'Gee and Mr. Haverty, I am deeply indebted. In several instances, even where I have not expressly referred to my authority, I have followed almost literally the text supplied by them. If I succeed in my design of interesting my young fellowcountrymen in the subject of Irish history, I recommend them strongly to follow it up by reading the works of the two historians whom I have mentioned. They possess this immeasurable advantage over every other previously published history of Ireland, that in them the authors were able to avail themselves of the rich stores of material brought to light by the lamented O’Curry and O'Donovan, by Todd, Greaves, Wilde, Meehan, Gilbert, and others. These revelations of authentic history, inaccessible or unknown to previous history-writers, not only throw a flood |