Establishment of English Power.— With the 12th century opens that long chapter of Irish history which records the relations of Ire land to England. The history of those relations is the history of Ireland to the present day. In 1169 the first body of Anglo-Norman adventur ers crossed the Irish Sea, the precursors of many a subsequent expedition. They came as the allies of a native chief who had been ex pelled from his territory. They came to stay, and after them came, in long succession, other bodies of adventurers. It was thus the founda tions of English power in Ireland were laid. It was a fitful and tedious process, carried out for four centuries without any definite plan, and at no time during that period with forces suffi cient to effect a general conquest. On the other hand the native Irish, owing to their tribal or ganization and to the absence of an effective central authority among them, were never able to unite for common defense against the in vaders. The growth of a national spirit and a national life was rendered impossible. Politi cally there were two Irelands within the island — one, that portion of the country in which Eng lish law prevailed, and the authority of the English Lord Deputy was recognized, and which came to be called the Pale; and, outside this, another, ruled by Irish chieftains, or by Anglo Norman lords who adopted Irish customs and who obeyed or resisted the authority of the Crown as suited their interests. Parliamentary institutions were introduced into Ireland soon after their establishment in England. But, as they were for the English settlers only, and were set in motion chiefly to provide subsidies for the English monarch, and as representation was bestowed much as the Lord Deputy chose to distribute it, the occasional summoning of a Parliament did little to promote the evolution of a national government. With the reign of Henry VIII came the Reformation (q.v.), and, with this, the introduction of a new clement of discord into Ireland. Racial and political feuds were now intensified and embittered by religious antagonism. Throughout the desolating wars of Elizabeth's reign, the "Plantations" of James I, and the sanguinary campaign of Crom well (q.v.) the policy of at once destroying the °Irish Enemie," and extirpating popery, was consistently pursued. The defeat of the Irish at the Boyne (1690) made the English interest in Ireland definitively safe from armed attack. The English power was now supreme and it might have been anticipated that the country would enter on a career of economic and politi cal development. But this was not to be for some time yet. Religious hate divided the coun try as effectually as animosities of race. A penal code was passed against the Catholic re ligion Which demoralized alike those who ad ministered it and those whom it oppressed. Mr. Lecky describes it as °ingeniously contrived to injure, to insult, and to impoverish the people of Ireland." It is evident there could be no de velopment of political organization in a coun try four-fifths of whose inhabitants were by law excluded from Parliament, from the magis tracy and from the bar, could not vote at elec tions, could not act as constables, sheriffs or jurymen, were debarred from every means of educating their children, from acting as school masters, ushers or private tutors, could not marry Protestants or purchase °manors, tene ments, hereditaments or life annuities.* (Lecky).
English Repression, Subsequent Poverty and Passage of Land Acts.—A vigorous na tional spirit is the best cure for the excesses of religious intolerance, and through the 18th century there were causes at work which tended to create and develop this spirit. The English government, under pressure from English agri culturists and manufacturers, had, since the Restoration (1660), hampered by restrictive leg islation every Irish industry which seemed likely to compete with England in the home or foreign market. This policy of stiffing or starv
ing industry affected Irish Protestants and Cath olics alike and roused in them the sense of coin . mon national interests. The ablest spokesmen of the dominant party began to demand free trade for Ireland, a free Parliament and eman cipation for the Catholics. Free trade and a free Parliament were secured and some of the more galling disabilities of the Catholics were removed. A genuine national life began to ani mate the country and its progress during the period of its Parliamentary independence was unexampled. As Lord Clare put it, °No na tion on the habitable globe had advanced in cul tivation, commerce and manufacture, with the same rapidity as Ireland from 1782 to 1800.' But in 1800 the Act of Union put an end to the Irish Parliament, checked the further growth of that prosperity which had been stimulated by distinctively Irish legislation and hindered the further development of that spirit of religious tolerance which the sense of common economic needs and interests was generating. Explain it as we may, England and Ireland will not, and apparently cannot, form one economic organism, in which one stream of industrial life will cir culate. The long series of repressive acts di rected against Irish industries is proof of this for the centuries that are past. For our own time, the proof is furnished still more cogently. The 19th century was, for Great Britain, a pe riod of unexampled prosperity. Her growth in wealth, in power, in population was continuous. She secured for herself the supremacy among the manufacturing and trading nations of the world, and from that eminence she has not yet been displaced. But while Great Britain was thus rising to unexampled industrial greatness, the remaining portion of °the United Kingdom' was declining in wealth and population with a rapidity which has no modern parallel. Thirty years after the Irish Parliament had been abol ished, the industries which had flourished under its care had almost disappeared. The people of Ireland were, in consequence, thrown wholly upon the land. Competition for the one avail able means of livelihood became excessive, holdings were divided and subdivided, and rents rose far above the economic level. The population grew, but the means of subsistence did not increase proportionately. The peas antry subsisted mainly on the potato crop; in 1846 this crop failed and famine followed. Tice repeal of the Corn Laws and the competition of foreign countries brought down the prices of agricultural produce. High rents could no longer be paid by small tillage farmers. The only farm industry as yet safe from foreign competition was that of cattle raising—the means of rapid transport from the United States, the Argentine Republic and Australia had not yet been perfected—and to make room for large grazing farms the small cultivators were ruthlessly cleared off the land. With the famine and the clearances began a move ment of emigration which has reduced the popu lation by nearly one-half. But in time the grazing ranches of the United States and the Argentine, and the sheep farms of Australia were brought within reach of the English markets, and prices fell so far that the graziers could no longer pay the high rents. An agrarian revolution was the consequence. The government intervened, -first to fix farm rents on the basis of current prices, and, when this was found unsatisfactory, to mediate for the sale of the land to the occupiers with the aid of state credit.