Church towards the ancient Celtic Church, or the
burning of some heretics in the fourteenth century, could be so
described; a view which the Nationalists of to-day will hardly care to
put forward. Nor can the English Government be fairly blamed for the
condition of affairs; for responsibility depends on power, and English
power in Ireland hardly existed. The suzerainty of England, feeble at
best, had gradually been limited to a mere fraction of the country.
The Celtic tribes had long since thrown off even a nominal submission
to the English Crown; the Anglo-Norman lords had become either
avowedly or practically independent. But the inhabitants of Ireland
did not constitute a nation or possess any common interest or bond of
union. There was no trace of an organization by which the Irish tribes
could be united into one people. The ceaseless civil wars had indeed
supplanted the original tribesmen by the mercenary followers of
another set of rival chiefs; but there had been no union; and the mass
of the people, still under the influence of their native customs, were
probably in a more wretched condition than they had ever been before.

CHAPTER III.

IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS.

We have seen that at the close of the Middle Ages Ireland was in the
condition that some people in England now consider the panacea for
all the woes of the country; it possessed a subordinate Parliament and
England interfered as little as possible in its local affairs. Henry
VIII attempted "to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas"; having no
army of his own, he appointed the most powerful of the Norman barons
his deputy. But this deputy used his authority precisely as an
Ersefied Norman (who possessed no more patriotism or national feeling
than a Celtic chief) might have been expected to use it,--that was, to
aid him in a succession of family quarrels and tribal wars in which,
allied with some of the native septs he attacked others. Even the
towns outside the Pale fared little better than the remoter districts;
there was actually a civil war between Cork and Limerick. The state of
affairs in Celtic Ireland during the brief period from 1500 to 1534
as stated in the annals (which, however, only deal with a part of the
country, hardly referring to what took place in Leinster or Munster)
has been summed up by Dr. Richey in the following words:--

"Battles, plunderings, etc., exclusive of those in which the
English Government was enga