On the death of a freeholder his land was divided amongst his sons equally, according to what is called “the custom of gavelkind.”  Whether primogeniture is a good or a bad thing in England or the British Colonies at the present day is of course a totally different question; the circumstances of the times are totally different.  But it can hardly be doubted by a thoughtful student of history that the adoption of primogeniture in the early days of feudalism in other European countries was a social necessity if civilization was to rise to a higher state; and that its not being introduced in Ireland was if not a cause at least an evidence that civilization in that country did not progress.  For in a condition not far removed from anarchy the connection between the ownership of land and political power is inevitable; hence if holdings are small their owners become an easy prey to stronger neighbours; whereas the possessors of larger areas can repel attacks and enable their dependents to live in some sort of security.  It was the enormous number of petty independent chiefs that added to the miseries of Celtic Ireland.

I shall probably be accused of having painted too dark a picture in the brief sketch that I have given of Ireland before the coming of the Normans.  I admit that it is very different from the glowing accounts of “Irish Ireland” that may be found in the pages of Nationalist journals.  But the question to me is not which account is more pleasant but which is true.  And I defy anyone who has cared to look through the works of such writers as Richey, Stokes, and Sullivan, to prove that what I have said is incorrect or unfair.

CHAPTER II.

Ireland from the time of Henry II to the time of Henry VIII.

In the last chapter I dealt with the long period during which the Celtic tribes of Ireland were free from foreign influence except for the comparatively brief time when a small part of the country was under the rule of the Danes; and I endeavoured to show that according to the evidence of their own annalists and in the opinion of modern writers of various political sentiments, the whole island throughout that period remained in a chronic state of anarchy, without any advance towards a higher civilization.

As Dr. Richey, when describing the condition of Ireland about the year 1170, says, “The state of the Celtic people was beyond all hope of self-amendment.  The want of law, order and justice, the absence of self-knowledge and self-control, paralysed their national action and reduced the power of their chief king to insignificance.”

I come now to what has been absurdly called the conquest of Ireland under Henry II.

That the English king was instigated in his efforts by the Pope is perfectly clear.  The Bull of Pope Adrian, issued in 1155, is still extant:—­