THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND

THE PALE

AN ACCOUNT OF THE EARLY SEPTS AND LATER SETTLERS OF THE KING'S COUNTY AND OF

LIFE IN THE ENGLISH PALE

BY

F. R. MONTGOMERY HITCHCOCK, M.A.

AUTHOR OF "CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA,” “MYSTERY OF THE CROSS," "SUGGESTIONS FOR BIBLE STUDY," 66 CELTIC TYPES OF LIFE AND ART," ETC

DUBLIN:

SEALY, BRYERS AND WALKER

MIDDLE ABBEY STREET

1908

PRINTED BY

SEALY, BRYERS AND WALKER, MIDDLE ABBEY STREET,

DUBLIN.

Rapta sinu subito niteas per saecula caeli,
Pars animi major, rerum carissima, conjux.
Mox Deus orbatos iterum conjunget amantes;
Et laeti mecum pueri duo limina mortis,
Delicias nostras visum, transibimus una.
Tempora te solam nostrae coluere juventae ;
Fulgebit facies ridens mihi sancta relicto
Vivus amor donec laxabit vincula leti.

Interea votum accipias a me mea sponsa libellum.
Gratia mollis enim vultus inspirat amantem,
Mensque benigna trahit, labentem et dextera tollit.
Aegros egregio solata venusta lepore es :
Natis mater eras, mulier gratissima sponso.
Coelicolûm jam adscripta choris fungere labore,
In gremio Christi, semper dilecta, quiescens.
Christus enim servat, servum revocatque Redemptor.
Usque novissima vox mêa pectora personat illa.

PREFACE.

THE favourable reception of "Celtic Types of Life and Art" has emboldened the writer to attempt another book on Irish life. This second venture deals principally with the history of the original Irish septs and the later English settlers of the King's County, giving contemporaneous glimpses of the unhappy progress of life in the district known as "The Pale." It will be seen that the story of the settlers makes even greater demands upon the sympathy of the historian than that of the Irish septs of O'Carroll and O'Connor; and that, while almost every English official propounded his scheme for the settlement of the country, the poet Spenser, for a time private secretary of the Deputy, Lord Grey, fell most completely under the spell of the land, not only writing his "View of the Present State of Ireland," but also wedding an Irish maid and composing the immortal "Faerie Queen" on Irish soil.

Subjects of controversy in religion and politics have again been avoided because of the conviction that there is a common platform on which all Irishmen, however opposed in these matters, may meet to consider the improvement of their country, the promotion of its industry, and the preservation of the annals of its past.