CHARITIES. The poor-law system is similar to that described under title GREAT BRITAIN for England and \Vales. The adult able-bodied in door paupers in 1901 numbered 49.17. and all other indoor paupers nurnhered 36.934. The out door paupers for the same year numbered 57,575, and the number I if inmates of asylums was 145•. Much was done during the last decade of the nineteenth century to improve the conditions of the districts which had long suffered from poverty. A law of 1821 declared that when the population of an electoral division exceeded a certain ratio to the ratable value of its prop erty it should be known as a congested districts county. These districts are wholly in Western Ireland—principally in Connaught and in the counties of Donegal and Berry, A Congested Distrhds Board was estaldish•d and means was made accessible for this board's use in the better. ment of conditions in these districts. The sys• tem of cultivation practiced in them was found to be most deplorable, and it was generally neces sary for the occupants of the holdings to have a secondary source of income. a., for instance. harvest migrations to Scotland and England, as already mentioned. Agricultural inspectors were employed by the board, and much has been done toward improving the soil and the methods of cultivation. Sometimes families are removed to more favorable localities, and not infrequently a number of small holdings are amalgamated into one sufficiently large to maintain a family. The board has done much also to aid in the develop ment of the coast fisheries.
Ilistonv. According to native legends Ireland was inhabited lirst by various tribes, of which the most important were Nemedians, Firbolgs, and Danaan, who were eventually subdued by Milesians or Scots. Although Ireland is men tioned under the name of !erne in a Greek poem live centuries before Christ, and by the names of Hibcrnio and Jure rna in various HO 111:111 writers. little is known with certainty ( f its inhabitants before the fourth century after Christ, when, under the appellation of Ncoti, they became formidable by their descents upon the Roman Province of Britain. These expedi tions Were (.011Iiiilled, and extended to the t of Gaul, till the time of Locgaire MacNeill (e.430), in whose reign Saint Patrick (q.v.) at tempted the conversion of the natives. Although Christianity had been previously introduced in some parts of• Ireland. Patrick encountered great obstacles, and the new faith was not fully estab lished in the island till about a century after his death.
From the earliest period each province of Ire land appears to have had its own king, subject. to the ard•ri or monarch, to whom the central district, called Meath, was allotted, and who usually resided at Tara. Each elan was gov erned by a chief selected from its most impor tant family. The laws were dispensed by pro fessional jurists styled brchens, who re•eiVeli great consideration, and were endowed wit It lands and important privileges.
In the sixth century extensive monasteries were founded in Ireland, in which religion and learning were zealously cultivated. From these establishments numerous missionaries went forth (luring the succeeding centuries, while many stu dents of distinction from England and the Conti nent visited Ireland and reeeived instruction at this period. The progress of Irish civilization was checked by the incursions of the Scandi navians, commencing toward the close of the eighth century, and continued for upward of two hundred years. Establishing themselves in towns on the eastern coast of Ireland, with the assistance of friendly native tribes, they con tinued to make expeditions into the interior until their signal overthrow at the battle of Clontarf, near Dublin. in 1014, by Brian, sur named Itoroimhe.
The lirst step toward an Anglo-Norman con quest of Ireland was made by Henry II., who is said to have obtained in 1155 a bull from Pope Iladrian I k". authorizing him to take possession of the island, on condition of paying to the Papal treasury it stipulated annual reve nue. Political circumstances prevented Ifenry from entering upon the undertaking until 1167, when Dermod Macmurrough, the deposed King of Leinster, sought refuge at his Court and obtained permission to enlist the services of English subjects for the recovery of his king dom. Dermod, returning to Ireland in 1169, with the aid of his foreign mercenaries and still more numerous Irish allies, sneeeeded in recover ing part of his former territories and in cap turing Duhlin and other towns on the eastern coast. After his death, in 1171, the succession to the Kingdom of Leinster was claimed by his son•indaw, Richard Fitz Gislebert, Earl of Pem broke, surnamed 'Strongbow.' In the following year King Henry, with a formidable armament, visited Ireland, received homage from several minor native chiefs and from the principal Nor man leaders, anti granted to the latter charters authorizing them, as his subjects, to take posses sion of portions of the island, in virtue of the grant made to him by the Pope. The chief Anglo-Norman adventurers. Fitz Gislebert, De Cogan, De Lacy, Fitzgerald, Fitzstephen, Fitz maurice, and De Courey, encountered formidable opposition before they succeeded in establishing themselves on the lands which they thus claimed. The government was intrusted to a viceroy, and the Norman legal system was introduced into such parts of the island as were reduced to obedience to England. The youthful Prince John was sent by King Henry into Ireland in 1185; but the injudicious conduct of his council excited disturbances, and he was soon recalled to England. John made an expedition into Ire land in 1210, to curb the refractory spirit of his barons, who had become formidable through their alliance with the natives. During the thir teenth century the principal Anglo-Norman ad venturers succeeded in establishing with the feudal institutions of their nation, in seine parts of Ireland, by the assistance or suppression of native clans. The Fitzgcralds. or Geraldines, acquired almost unbounded power in Kildare and East Munster. or Desmond ; the Le Botillers, or Butlers, in Ormond, or West Mun ster; and the De Burghs, or Burkes, in Con naught. After the battle of Bannockburn, in 1314, Edward Bruce invaded Ireland and attempted to overthrow the English power there. The Pope, at the instigation of England, excommuni cated Bruce with his Irish allies; hut although his enterprise failed of success, the general result was a decline of the English dominion in Ire land. The descendants of the most powerful set tlers gradually became identified with the natives, whose language, habits, and laws they adopt ed to so great an extent that the Anglo-Irish Parliament passed, in 1366, the 'Statute of Kil kenny,' decreeing excommunication and heavy penalties against all those who followed the cus toms of, or allied themselves with, the native Irish. This statute, however, remained inopera tive; and although Richard II., later in the four teenth century, made expeditions into Ireland with large forces, he failed to effect any prac tical result, and the power and influence of the natives increased so much at the time of the War of the Roses that the authority of the English Crown became limited to a few towns on the coast and the district termed the Pale (see ENG LISH PALE), comprising a small circuit :liana Dublin and Drogheda. In the struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster Ireland sup ported the House of York.