tance that members of Parliament should
read--and not only read, but carefully study--the history of Ireland.
Irishmen have a right to _demand_ that they shall do so. If they
undertake to legislate for us, they are bound in conscience and in
honour to know what we require, to know our past and our present state.
Englishmen pride themselves on their honour; but it is neither honorable
to undertake to govern without a thorough knowledge of the governed, or
to misrepresent their circumstances to others whose influence may decide
their future.

It was manifest from the speech of her Majesty's minister, on the night
of the all-important division on the Irish Church question, that he
either had not studied Irish history, or that he had forgotten its
details. If his statements are correctly reported by the press, they are
inconceivably wild. It may be said that the circumstances in which he
found himself obliged him to speak as he did, but is this an excuse
worthy of such an honorable position? The Normans, he is reported to
have said, conquered the land in Ireland, but in England they conquered
completely. The most cursory acquaintance with Irish history would have
informed the right honorable gentleman, that the Normans did _not_
conquer the land in Ireland--no man has as yet been rash enough to
assert that they conquered the people. The Normans obtained possession
of a small portion, a very small portion of Irish land; and if the
reader will glance at the map of the Pale, which will be appended to
this edition, at the proper place, he will see precisely what extent of
country the English held for a few hundred years. Even that portion they
could scarcely have been said to have conquered, for they barely held it
from day to day at the point of the sword. Morally Ireland was never
conquered, for he would be a bold man who dared to say that the Irish
people ever submitted nationally to the English Church established by
law. In fact, so rash does the attempt seem even to those who most
desire to make it, that they are fain to find refuge and consolation in
the supposed introduction of Protestantism into Ireland by St. Patrick,
a thousand years and more before that modern phase of religious thought
appeared to divide the Christian world.

But I deny that Ireland has ever been really conquered; and even should
the most sanguinary suggestions proposed in a nineteenth-century serial
be carried out, I am certain she could not be. I