Labour in Irish History (Revolutionary Classics)

In her great work, The Making of I reland and its Undoing, the only contribution to I rish history we know of which conforms to the methods of modern historical science, the authoress, Mrs, Stopford Green, dealing with the effect upon I reland of the dispersion of the I rish race in the time of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and the consequent destruction of Gaelic culture, and rupture with Gaelic tradition and law, says that the Irishmen educated in schools abroad abandoned or knew nothing of the lore of ancient Erin, and had no sympathy with the spirit of the Brehon Code, nor with the social order of which it was the juridical expression. She says they urged the theory, so antagonistic to the immemorial lazv of I reland, that only from polluted sinks of heretics could come the idea that the people might elect a ruler, and confer supreme authority on whomsoever pleased them. In other words the new I rish, educated in foreign standards, had adopted as their own the feudal-capitalist system, of which England was the exponent in I reland, and urged it upon the Gae HcI rish. As the dispersion of the clans, consummated by Cromwell, finally completed the ruin of Gaelic I reland, all the higher education of Irishmen thenceforward ran in this foreign groove, and was coloured with this foreign colouring. In other words, the Gaelic culture of the I rish chieftainry was rudely broken ot Tin the seventeenth century, and the continental Schools of European despots implanted in its place in the minds of the I rish students, and sent them back to I reland to preach a fanatical belief in royal and feudal prerogatives, as foreign to the genius of the Gael as was the English ruler to I rish soil.(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and