IRELAND FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.”]
Six,—In your remarks of last week upon the Unionist Club dinner, you refer to a speech of Mr. John Redmond, quoted by Lord Derby, in which the speaker laid it down as self-evident
that the Irish movement of to-day" is the same in all its essen- tials with every movement which in the past history of Ireland has sought, with either one weapon or another, to achieve the national rights of the land. The truth underlying this move- ment to-day is precisely the same in principle as that for which other generations have fought and died." It will per- haps interest some of your readers to see what one old historian has to say about that same truth, and that "one weapon or another." In Higden's "Polychronicon," translated by John of Trevisa in 1387 (Rolls Series), we find :— " Solinus seith that men of this lend [Ireland] beeth straunge of naciowa, bowies, and gretefighteres, and acounteth right andwrong al for eon, and beeth sengle of clothing°, scarse of mete, cruel of herte, and angry of specie, and drinketh firsts blood of dede men that beeth i-slawe and vseth moche playas and hydelnesse and huntynge and tramailleth ful litel. These men beeth of cruel maneres and leuynge ; they paieth none tethinges [tithes], thei weddeth lawefulliche none wyfes, they spareth not her alies, bot the brother weddeth his brother wyf. They beeth besy forto betraye hire neighbores and othere. They berm sparthes in here hond instede of stanes, and fyghteth therwith aghenst hem that tristeth to hem beste : the men beeth variable and vnstedefast, trecherous and gileful. Who that deleth with hem nedeth more to be war more of gile than of craft, of pees than of brennynge brondes, of hony than of galle, of malice than of knyghthode." (Vol. I., pp. 351-56.)
If this was the Irish character five hundred years ago, what becomes of all the allegations as to present degradation being the result of centuries of British oppression P The following is a curious comment upon the constant remark respecting immigrants from England and elsewhere becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves :—
" Among hem longe vsage and euel costume hath so image 1- dared that it hath i-made the maistrie, and t,orneth among hemsef traisoun in to kynde so fer forthe, that as thei be traytoures by kynde, so aliens and men of straunge londes that woneth longe among hem draweth aftir the manere of hr companye, and, skapeth wel vanethe but they be i-smotted with the schrewednesse- .and bycometh traytours also."—Trevisa, Vol. I., p. 357.
Much interesting information about Ireland, its topography, fauna, and superstitions, is to be found in the same chapter.—
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