And now I descend unto these humble petitions which I am to make, &c.

(Wherein he most humbly requesteth that the ancient rights and privileges of the House of Commons, in freely delivering their speech and minds and of being free from arrests, as well themselves as their servants, during the time of Parliament, might be kept whole and untouched; and if that in anything not well by them understood they should happen to offend, he requesteth eave, as well for himself as for the rest, to have access unto his Lordship.)

A DESCRIPTION

OF

IRELAND

BY

FYNES MORYSON,

SECRETARY TO THE LORD MOUNTJOY, THEN LORD DEPUTY.

1600-1603.

FYNES MORYSON'S

DESCRIPTION OF IRELAND.

THE longitude of Ireland extends four degrees, from the meridian of eleven degrees and a half to that of fifteen and

a half; and the latitude extends also four degrees, from the parallel of fifty-four degrees to that of fifty-eight degrees. In the geographical description I will follow Camden, as formerly.

This famous island in the Virginian Sea is by old writers called Ierna, Inverna, and Iris; by the old inhabitants Erin, by the old Britons Yuerdhen, by the English at this day Ireland, and by the Irish bards at this day Banno, in which sense of the Irish word, Avicen calls it the Holy Island; besides, Plutarch of old called it Ogygia, and after him Isidore named it Scotia. This Ireland, according to the inhabitants, is divided into two parts,-the wild Irish and the English-Irish living in the English Pale; but of the old kingdoms, five in number, it is divided into five parts.

1. The first is by the Irish called Mowne, by the English MUNSTER, and is subdivided into six counties, of Kerry, of Limerick, of Cork, of Tipperary, of the Holy Cross, and of Waterford, to which the seventh County of Desmond is now added. The Gangavi, a Scythian people, coming into Spain, and from thence into Ireland, inhabited the County of Kerry, full of woody mountains, in which the Earls of Desmond had the dignity of Palatines, having their houses in Tralee, a little town now almost uninhabited. Not far thence lies St. Mary Wick, vulgarly