The late Mr. Darcy Magee, a real lover of his country, in his Irish history points out this fact.  The Normans found the population divided into two great classes—­the free tribes, chiefly if not exclusively Celtic, and the unfree tribes, consisting of the descendants of the subjugated races, or of clans once free, reduced to servitude by the sword, and the offspring of foreign mercenary soldiers.  ’The unfree tribes,’ says Mr. Darcy Magee, ’have left no history.  Under the despotism of the Milesian kings, it was high treason to record the actions of the conquered race, so that the Irish Belgae fared as badly in this respect at the hands of the Milesian historians as the latter fared in after times from the chroniclers of the Normans.  We only know that such tribes were, and that their numbers and physical force more than once excited the apprehension of the children of the conquerors.  One thing is certain—­the jealous policy of the superior race never permitted them to reascend the plane of equality from which they had been hurled at the very commencement of the Milesian ascendency.’

Mr. Haverty, another Catholic historian, learned, accurate, and candid, laments the oppression of the people by their native rulers.  ’Those who boasted descent from the Scytho-Spanish hero would have considered themselves degraded were they to devote themselves to any less honourable profession than those of soldiers, ollavs, or physicians; and hence the cultivation of the soil and the exercise of the mechanic arts were left almost exclusively to the Firbolgs and the Tuatha-de-Danans—­the former people, in particular, being still very numerous, and forming the great mass of the population in the west.  These were ground down by high rents and the exorbitant exactions of the dominant race, in order to support their unbounded hospitality and defray the expenses of costly assemblies; but this oppression must have caused perpetual discontent, and the hard-working plebeians, as they were called, easily perceived that their masters were running headlong to destruction, and that it only required a bold effort to shake off their yoke.’  Then follows an account of a civil war, one of the leaders of the revolution being elected king at its termination.  Carbry reigned five years, during which time there was no rule or order, and the country was a prey to every misfortune.  ’Evil was the state of Ireland during his reign; fruitless her corn, for there used to be but one grain on the stalk; and fruitless her rivers; her cattle without milk; her fruit without plenty, for there used to be but one acorn on the oak.’