21 APRIL 1894, Page 23

DR. JOYCE'S IRISH HISTORY.*

Tins excellent history of Ireland, by Dr. Joyce, who is one of the Commissioners for the Publication of the Ancient Laws of Ireland, and is well known as the author of Irish Names of Places and Old Celtic Romances, is perhaps the most im- portant contribution to Irish history since Lecky's History of Englund during the eighteenth century.

The most interesting and novel portion of the book is Part I., which treats of the Literature, Art, and Institutions of Ancient Ireland, and includes a popular exposition of the Brehon Laws. These laws, which were in vogue in Ireland long before the English invasion, were not enacted by legis- lative bodies convened for the purpose, nor had they the power of the State behind them for their enforcement. They were derived from an immemorial custom, or from the decisions of eminent jurists. The Brehon Law knew nothing of an offence against the State, and the State never prosecuted. Every offence was against the individual, and it was for the injured party to seek redress. If the offender refused to submit the case to the usual tribunal, the plaintiff proceeded to seize the cattle or other effects of the defendant; and if the defendant defied all the proceedings of the plaintiff to the last, the injured person or his family bad no other resource than to fall back upon the old rule of direct retaliation. Con- tracts, however, were regarded as peculiarly sacred. The Sa,nchus Mor says, "There are three periods of evil for the world; the period of a Plague, of a General War, and of the Dissolution of Contracts." It might have been well if Mr. Glad- stone, in his recent Irish legislation, had borne this principle more in mind. Though laws such as these may have been well suited to a Keltic country in early times, it is obvious that their retention in a rapidly degenerating form after Ireland had passed a certain stage in its development must have been fatal to all true progress; and the obstinate clinging to their native code by the Irish, combined with the imposition of the feudal system upon them at the sword's point, are no doubt among the most potent causes why Ireland has not progressed as rapidly as England towards civilisation. Another cause of this stagnation was the complicated character and consequent abuse of the native tribal ownership; and those who preach Communism would do well to study and take to heart the lesson left behind by this early practice of it.

In the chapter on the laws relating to land, Dr. Joyce calls attention to the ancient rights of tenants, which included "fair rents," and points out that amongst those who held the tribe lands there was no such thing as eviction. If the rent was not paid it was recovered by distress. There was there- fore a sort of fixity of tenure. These customs, which had grown up daring more than a thousand years, still affect the historical imaginations of Irishmen, in spite of the lapse of centuries daring which the English land-laws have been im- posed upon them. Their remembrance has, indeed, been the prime cause of the cruel land wars from which even now Ireland cannot be said to be free, in spite of the restoration of their long-forfeited fixture of tenure to her people.

Dr. Joyce's chapters on music and art are full of interesting and accurate information, and with Moore's melodies, and Dr. Stanford's two collections of Irish folk-songs in view, we are not much disinclined to agree with him when he says that "the Irish native music forms a body of national melody

• (1.) A Short History of /reload, from ths Earliest Times to 1606. By P. W. Joyce, LL.D. London: Longmans, Green, andCo.—(!) A Concise History of Ireland, doss to DM. By P. W. Joyce, LL.D. Dublin: Gilland Bon. superior to that of any other nation in the world." We are, on the other hand, puzzled to conceive how a people with such early art traditions and instincts should be able to point to such slight evidence of high artistic power in recent times. The same remarks will apply, in a mitigated degree, to the unfulfilled promise of early Irish literature exhibited in such Keltic originals as have been collected and translated by Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady in his Silva Gadelica. A vast body of material for Irish historical romance and drama and poetry of the narrative order, as was once pointed out to the writer of this article by Mr. Fronde, is lying in our archives ready for the transmuting touch of the Wizard of the West for whom Mr. Stopford Brooke is waiting, and for whose appear- ance Sir Charles Gavan Daffy has perhaps already provided for in his new Irish Library. The hopes of a similar literary departure were blighted by the death of Thomas Davis, nearly fifty years ago ; and it would be indeed remarkable if they were to be fulfilled by the instrumentality of his old friend and colleague. However, history repeats itself, andtit is not improbable that our existing feelings of irritation against the country and country-folk of the Healys and O'Briens may ere long be dispelled by the magic of an Irish Scott, if not converted into as romantic an affection for Ireland as Sir Walter aroused, and has kept alive, in our South British hearts for his— "Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood."

For the rest, Dr. Joyce tells the thrice-told tale of insurrection, confiscation, and plantation, with considerable originality, and many fresh points of interest. His bias is evidently Nationalist, but he is no partisan. He has been at great pains to consult his authorities at first hand, and his knowledge of Erse has given him an advantage in dealing with historical documents in that language. But that advantage he does not abuse ; indeed, he is as ready to quote one of "The Four Masters" in condemnation of the treachery of an Irish Chieftain, as he is to unearth evidence of the cruelty or unscrupulousness of an Elizabethan Viceroy from a contemporary State document. On the other hand, his portraitures of a Raymond Le Gros or a Sir John Perrot, are just as sympathetic as those of a Hugh O'Neill or a Hugh O'Donnell.

In his smaller work, A Concise History of Ireland, Dr. Joyce brings his story down to the accession of Queen Victoria, and recounts it in the same impartial spirit that inspires his Short History. But we regret that, for the purposes of cheap publication, he should have been obliged to resort to such extreme condensation, and we hope that before long he will give us a second volume of the larger work as complete, as fair, and as admirably proportioned as the first. Whilst Dr. Joyce is guilty of an occasional looseness of style in his Short History, it is in the main written in pure, unpretentious English. Here and there, as in the historic idyll from the battle of Clontarf, which we extract below, he reaches dra- matic intensity :— " The Danish fortress of Dublin—perched on its hill summit— overlooked the field; and Sitric and those with him in the city crowded the parapets, straining their eyes to unravel the details of the terrible conflict. They compared the battle to a party of reapers cutting down corn ; and once when Sitric thought he observed the Danes prevailing, he said triumphantly to his wife —King Brian's daughter= Well do the foreigners reap the field : see how they fling the sheaves to the ground The result will be seen at the close of the day,' answered she quietly ; for her

heart was with her kindred Towards evening the Irish made a general and determined attack; and the main body of the Danes at last gave way. Then flight broke out throughout all the host. The rout was plainly seen by those on the para- pets of the fortress ; and Sitric's wife, whose turn of triumph had now come, said to her husband, with bitter mockery:—' It seems to me that the foreigners are making fast for their natural inheritance,—the sea ; they look like a herd of cows galloping over the plain on a sultry summer day, driven mad by heat and gadflies; but indeed they do not look like cows that wait to be milked P—Sitric's brutal answer was a blow on the mouth which broke one of her teeth."