e been then controlled by a Hohenzollern, instead
of by a Spanish Hapsburg, how different might have been the future of
the world!

Although Europe had forgotten Ireland, Ireland had never forgotten
Europe. Natural outpost and sentinel of that continent in the West for
three-hundred years now gagged and bound, since the flight to Rome of
her last native Princes, she stands to-day as in the days of Philip
III, if an outcast from European civilization non the less rejecting
the insular tradition of England, as she has rejected her insular
Church. And now once more in her career she turns to the greatest of
European Sovereigns, to win his eyes to the oldest, and certainly the
most faithful of European peoples. Ireland already has given and owes
much to Germany.

In the dark ages intercourse between the Celtic people of the
West and the Rhinelands and Bavaria was close and long sustained.
Irish monasteries flourished in the heart of Germany, and German
architecture gave its note possibly to some of the fairest cathedral
churches in Ireland.

Clonfert and Cashel are, perhaps amongst the most conspicuous examples
of the influence of that old-time intercourse with Germany. To-day,
when little of her past remains to venerate, her ancient language on
what seemed its bed of death owes much of its present day revival
to German scholarship and culture. Probably the foremost Gaelic
scholar of the day is the occupant of the Chair of Celtic at Berlin
University, and Ireland recognises with a gratitude she is not easily
able to express, all that her ancient literature owes to the genius
and loving intellect of Dr. Kuno Meyer.

The name of Ireland may be known on the Bourses or in the
Chancelleries of Europe; it is not without interest, even fame, in the
centres of German academical culture. But that the German State may
also be interested in the political fate of Ireland is believed by the
present writer.

Maurice Fitzgerald, the outlawed claimant to the Earldom of Desmond,
wrote to Philip II, from Lisbon on September 4th, 1593:

"We have thought it right to implore your Majesty to send the aid
you will think fit and with it to send us (the Irish refugees in the
Peninsula) to defend and uphold the same undertaking; for we hope,
with God's help Your Majesty will be victorious and conquer and hold
as your own the kingdom of Ireland.--We trust in God that Your Majesty
and the Council will weigh well the advantages that will ensue