History of Ireland

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The evils that have flowed from this disunion and the dangers which it still threatens, are univer sally acknowledged but there is not the same una nimity in assigning the cause of its continuance. On this subject the theories are as numerous as the writers; and each is supported with a fierceness and violence unusual even in the most furious po litical warfare. The blame of the long catalogue of ills under which Ireland has suffered we find alternately cast on the British and on the local gov ernment - ou the churches of Rome and of Eng land - on the successive oligarchies that controlled the destinies of the country, and on the several fac tions by which they were opposed - ou the oppres sions of magistrates, and on the artifices of dema gogues - and on a thousand other causes, potent enough collectively to produce considerable mis chief, but separately insufficient to account for that vast amount of evil to which the country has been subjected. An impartial inquirer might be led to surmise that blame in different degrees belonged to all the parties enumerated; and a careful investiga tion would confirm his suspicion. But when he proceeds to apportion to each their several shares. Of censure, he must prepare to encounter the most virulent opposition. At variance in every other respect, the several political partisans who have written on Irish history are wondrously unanimous in one principle - each that there was nothing wrong on the side which he chose to ad.

The evils that have flowed from this disunion and the dangers which it still threatens, are univer sally acknowledged but there is not the same una nimity in assigning the cause of its continuance. On this subject the theories are as numerous as the writers; and each is supported with a fierceness and violence unusual even in the most furious po litical warfare. The blame of the long catalogue of ills under which Ireland has suffered we find alternately cast on the British and on the local gov ernment — ou the churches of Rome and of Eng land — on the successive oligarchies that controlled the destinies of the country, and on the several fac tions by which they were opposed — ou the oppres sions of magistrates, and on the artifices of dema gogues — and on a thousand other causes, potent enough collectively to produce considerable mis chief, but separately insufficient to account for that vast amount of evil to which the country has been subjected. An impartial inquirer might be led to surmise that blame in different degrees belonged to all the parties enumerated; and a careful investiga tion would confirm his suspicion. But when he proceeds to apportion to each their several shares. Of censure, he must prepare to encounter the most virulent opposition. At variance in every other respect, the several political partisans who have written on Irish history are wondrously unanimous in one principle — each that there was nothing wrong on the side which he chose to ad.