The Land-War In Ireland (1870) | Page 9

Hence the necessity of settling the question as speedily as possible, and
the duty of all who have the means to contribute something towards
that most desirable consummation, which seems to be all that is wanted
to make Irishmen of every class work together earnestly for the welfare
of their country. It is admitted that no class of men in the world has
improved more than the Irish landlords during the last twenty years. Let
the legislature restore confidence between them and the people by
taking away all ground for the suspicion that they wish to extirpate the
Celtic race.
Nor was this suspicion without cause, as the following history will too
clearly prove. A very able English writer has said: 'The policy of all the
successive swarms of settlers was to extirpate the native Celtic race, but

every effort made to break up the old framework of society failed, for
the new-comers soon became blended with and undistinguishable from
the mass of the people--being obliged to ally themselves with the native
chieftains, rather than live hemmed in by a fiery ring of angry septs and
exposed to perpetual war with everything around them. Merged in the
great Celtic mass, they adopted Irish manners and names, yet
proscribed and insulted the native inhabitants as an inferior race.
Everything liberal towards them is intercepted in its progress.
'The past history of Ulster is but a portion of Scottish history inserted
into that of Ireland--a stone in the Irish mosaic of an entirely different
quality and colour from the pieces that surround it.
'Thus it came to pass that, through the confiscation of their lands and
the proscription of their religion, popery was worked by a most
vehement process into the blood and brain of the Irish nation.'
It has been often said that the Irish must be an inferior race, since they
allowed themselves to be subjugated by some thousands of English
invaders. But it should be recollected, first, that the conquest,
commenced by Henry II. in the twelfth century, was not completed till
the seventeenth century, when the King's writ ran for the first time
through the province of Ulster, the ancient kingdom of the O'Neills; in
the second place, the weakness of the Celtic communities was not so
much the fault of the men as of their institutions, brought with them
from the East and clung to with wonderful tenacity. So long as they had
boundless territory for their flocks and herds, and could always move
on 'to pastures new,' they increased and multiplied, and allowed the
sword and the battle-axe to rest, unless when a newly elected chief
found it necessary to give his followers 'a hosting'--which means an
expedition for plunder. Down to the seventeenth century, after five
hundred years' contact with the Teutonic race, they were essentially the
same people as they were when the ancient Greeks and Romans knew
them. They are thus described by Dr. Mommsen in his 'History of
Rome:'--'Such qualities--those of good soldiers and of bad
citizens--explain the historical fact that the Celts have shaken all States
and have founded none. Everywhere we find them ready to rove, or, in

other words, to march, preferring movable property to landed estate,
and gold to everything else; following the profession of arms as a
system of organised pillage, or even as a trade for hire, and with such
success that even the Roman historian, Sallust, acknowledges that the
Celts bore off the prize from the Romans in feats of arms. They were
the true 'soldiers of fortune' of antiquity, as pictures and descriptions
represent them, with big but sinewy bodies, with shaggy hair and long
moustaches--quite a contrast to the Greeks and Romans, who shaved
the upper lip--in the variegated embroidered dresses which in combat
were not unfrequently thrown off, with a broad gold ring round their
neck, wearing no helmets and without missile weapons of any sort, but
furnished instead with an immense shield, a long ill-tempered sword, a
dagger and a lance, all ornamented with gold, for they were not
unskilful in working in metals. Everything was made subservient to
ostentation--even wounds, which were often enlarged for the purpose
of boasting a broader scar. Usually they fought on foot, but certain
tribes on horseback, in which case every free man was followed by two
attendants, likewise mounted. War-chariots were early in use, as they
were among the Libyans and Hellenes in the earliest times. Many a trait
reminds us of the chivalry of the middle ages, particularly the custom
of single combat, which was foreign to the Greeks and Romans. Not
only were they accustomed in war to challenge a single enemy to fight,
after having previously insulted him by words and gestures; in peace
also they fought with each other in splendid equipments,