happenings in England and Scotland. The absorption of the invaders occurred earlier in the Green Isle. "If the speech is Irish the heart is also Irish," as an English official bitterly declared. So long as the Irish retained their native culture and language, their power of assimilating what was best in other resident races was marvellous. The Sean Ghalls (old foreigners) became "more Irish than the Irish themselves." They donned the Irish national dress, used the Irish tongue, fostered Irish literature and music, ruled their subjects by the Brehon laws, and because they thus became essentially Irish they won the devotion and fidelity of the people. They even discarded their own Norman names in favour of Irish names. Sir John Davies, in the reign of James I of England, deplored their conduct: "As they did not only forget the English language and scorned the use thereof, but grew to be ashamed of their very English names, though they were noble and of great antiquity, and took Irish surnames and nicknames." The De Burghs were transformed, first into Burkes, then into MacWilliams. The De Birminghams became MacYoris; the Dexecesters, MacJordans; the De Angulo family was henceforth known as MacCostello. "In Munster, of the great families of the Geraldines planted there, one was called MacMorice, chief of the House of Lixnaw; and another MacGibbon, who was also called the White Knight.' "And they did this in contempt and hatred of the English name and nation whereof these degenerate families became more mortal enemies" to England than the Gaels. Because they fell under the spell of the wide culture of the Gaels, with its deep humanities, its kindly, genial atmosphere, there was "utter ruin" to English interests. Perhaps in no other race was the doctrine of the equality of man so well understood as among the Gaels. The meanest clansman of an O'Neill or a MacDonnell stood on an equal footing with his chieftain. When Art MacMurrough and three other Irish kings visited Richard II in Dublin the English were horrified to see the royal guests sitting down to table with their minstrels and whole retinue. "They told me this was a praiseworthy custom of their country," records the official scribe, but such democratic conduct would not be allowed by this feudal master of ceremonies. So they were separated-the kings were sequestered at one table, the retinue at another. "The Kings looked at each other and refused to eat, saying I had deprived them of their old custom in which they had been brought up." But the boorish "allotted tutor in manners" informed them that it was not decent or suitable to their rank, "for now they must conform to the manners of the English." "With the dignity of courteous guests" they yielded. When Sir John Harington visited O'Neill he found him seated in the open surrounded by his clansmen. In such a position he averred he would rather be "The O'Neill than the King of Spain." Harington marvelled at the love and admiration the Gaels exhibited toward their lord. "With what charm such a master makes them love him I know not: but if he bid come they come; if go, they do go; if he say do this, they do it." The habit of the Normans fostering their children with mothers of the Gael and having them to act as sponsors in baptism for their children, was hateful to the English Government. "Both of which," adds Davies, "have ever been of greater estimation among this people than with any other nation in the Christian world. . . .. Fostering hath always been a stronger alliance than blood, and fosterchildren do love and are beloved of their foster fathers and their sept more than of their natural parents and kindred, and do participate of their means more frankly, and do adhere unto them in all fortunes with more affection and constancy." England bitterly bewailed the "degenerate" fate in Ireland of its own original conquerors-the Norman-French. On the other hand, the Gaels, with truer insight, declared that these Sean Ghalls (Old Foreigners) "gave up their foreignness for a pure mind, their surliness for good manners, their stubbornness for sweet mildness, and their perverseness for hospitality." Drastic steps were taken to prevent the amalgamation of the races, to blight the bloom of Gaelic-Anglo-Norman civilisation. The notorious Statute of Kilkenny (1367) was but one of a long series of legislative acts designed for this purpose. It begins thus: "Many of the English of Ireland discarding the English tongue, manners, style of riding, laws and usages, lived and governed themselves according to the mode, fashion and language of the 'Irish enemies,' and also made divers marriages between themselves and the Irish, whereby the said lands and the liege people thereof, the English language, the allegiance due to their lord the King of England, and the English laws, were put in subjection and decayed, and the Irish enemies exalted and raised up, contrary to reason." So it declared any such alliance high treason. It declared war on gossipred, on fostering, on the Irish language, on Irish culture, on Irish music and its professors, on Irish law and its judges, on Irish 1 The godfathers and godmothers of the same child were gossips. The children nursed by the same mother were fosters. Two boys nursed on the same milk were foster-brothers. games and pastimes, on the Irish clergy, on Irish manners and customs, on Irish trade and commerce. The English born in England were no longer to be dubbed "English churls or clowns," nor were the English born in Ireland to be called "Irish dogs." To crown all, the English Archbishops and Bishops pronounced sen tence of excommunication against all who disobeyed the statute. Love mocked at such penal laws. The wedding bells continued to ring down the corridor of the centuries. The prospect of being hanged, drawn, disembowelled, and quartered-the legal penaltyhad no terrors for the Irish, New or Old, Sean Ghalls or Gaels.2 Every avenue of tyranny and of terror was explored to find means of arresting the irresistible tide of Gaelicism. If a wayfarer was seen either riding in the Irish fashion, or dressed in Gaelic costume, or not wearing "a civil English cap," it was "advisable and lawful" to murder the offender. Even the sporting of a moustache after the Irish fashion (the fashion on the Continent then also) and not having a shaven upper lip like the English, was denounced by Act of Parliament (25 Henry VI, 1447) as deserving of death, and the delinquent's estate was to be forfeited to the Crown. 2 "I would not give my Irish wife for all the dames of the Saxon land; I would not give my Irish wife for the Queen of France's hand; "I knew the law forbade the banns-I knew my king abhorred her race- CHAPTER XXXVIII TRADE IN MEDIEVAL IRELAND THE risen waters of a common Irish life flooded even the walled towns. At the first Invasion the King of England had banished all the Irish, who were not granted "English liberty," from these urban communities, and replaced them with his own subjects, allowing, however, the numerous Portuguese, Spanish, French-Norse and Flemish merchants and traders to abide therein. From that time onward it had been an accepted principle that no Irishman should be allowed to engage in trade or commerce, or accepted as an apprentice to any handicraft where English power was felt. Then, with delicious irony, their writers derided our people as "idlers, hating honest business." By letters of denization, by peaceful penetration, by intermarriage, the Gaelic clansmen, by the fifteenth century, formed the bulk of the Craft Gilds, even in Dublin, and made not a little headway in obtaining a foothold in the Merchant Gilds. The town merchants, from the very beginning, had to journey into the country to buy the far-famed Irish woollens, rugs, mantles, and linens, to bargain for hides and beautiful peltries, flax, beef, and corn. So in time, partnerships were formed with the Clans, and Irish law in the Irish tongue was pleaded in the town courts. The merchants, like the Norman lords, dressed themselves in the banned national costume, spoke, even in Dublin and Waterford, the Irish tongue, and took part in all the inhibited festivities of the Gael. If proof were needed that these merchants were not, as is so often stated, English, it will be found in the fact, attested by the records in Continental archives, that whilst English traders and factors in Spain, Portugal, Oporto, Italy, the Hansa Towns, Flanders, Russia and elsewhere, used their own, or the French language, in commercial transactions, the Irish and the Scots employed Latin only. Latin was spoken by all educated people throughout Gaeldom. Moreover, in nearly all commercial treaties the foreign potentates describe our merchants as of "the Irish Nation." In Spain and Portugal, "the noble Irish," as they were there known, obtained more valuable privileges than the English. So great was the commercial intercourse with the Peninsula, of the O'Sullivans, MacCarthys, Desmonds, O'Driscolls, O'Flahertys, O'Malleys, and of the merchants from the seaports from Waterford to Sligo, that the waters which lapped the southern and western coasts of Ireland were designated by map-makers "The Spanish Seas." "Portingal" became a proper name in Southern Ireland. Men of that race were elected as Mayors of our towns. "Spain" yet survives as a surname in our land. The great Italian financial houses, the bankers of Lucca, the Ricardi, the Friscobaldi, the Mozzi and the Bardi of Florence, were active agents in Mediæval Ireland. The wine trade, as shown by the Pipe Roll accounts, and other sources, was of great dimensions, with Clan and Town. Bordeaux, Dordogne, Libourne, St. Emilian, besides Spain, Portugal and Oporto, traded direct with the Irish ports. With France the records of our trade go back to the days of St. Patrick. Rouen was the chief port of Normandy and obtained from Henry II the "monopoly of Irish trade." Bordeaux had a colony of Irish merchants—as had St. Omer, Marseilles, Bayonne, St. Malo, La Rochelle, Nantes and other ports-who were importers of Irish wool, skins, hides, fish, woollen cloth, fine linen, leather and corn, and they sent to Ireland their own manufactures and products. The enterprising Flemings were stationed in many of the Irish ports. Their influence on maritime and inland trade was as beneficent here as it was in England. In Kilkenny, Youghal, Cork, Waterford and New Ross they were most numerous. On the other hand, Irish merchants had their own settlements in all the leading ports of Flanders. In the old records of Bruges, Ireland, as distinct from England, is mentioned as one of the seventeen nations whose corporations added to the fame of that port. It had its own commercial houses there-two bore the proud name, "Ireland," and the third "St. Patrick," "a lofty and beautiful edifice." This last was a sixteenth century foundation. In 1399 Philippe le Hardi made Ecluse (Sluys) a staple town for Irish mantles and cloths. This duke's safe-conducts to Irish merchants in 1387 and in other years have been printed. In all trading charters to Englishmen, Irishmen are specifically mentioned likewise. With a view to encourage the home manufacture of wool the Duke of Flanders (1496-7) forbade the importation of foreign cloths. Thereupon a clamour arose from the populace to be allowed still to buy the cheaper Irish cloth and linens, Irish cloaks and Scottish kerseys; and Archduke Philippe gave orders that such goods from |