fcended. From this ancient family, the northern part of that county is fil called Riaght ui chonchaber, O Conors kingdom. But, though there are matters to which you will undoubtedly pay every attention, you are not to forget that the Mac Carthy ores were the ott emi' nent by far of all the noble families there, and fovereigns of all that part of Ireland. including the greatett part art of the county or Co k. "Even when we were broken down by our own divifions, rather then the power of our enemies, the chief of this gallant family retired into the mountains, where he main tained his hofpitable independence,

and the religion of his ancestors, in a manner which reflected back the honors he had received from them; and glad am I to hear, (but I will hear it better from you,) that several refpectable branches of the family ftill fupport a manly independence, after the wreck of almost all that was dear to us both at home and abroad.I am really anxious for a good account of the celebrated Florence Mac Carthy, who affumed the title of More, by the unanimous fuffrages of Tyrone, the clergy, and the people, and was kept prifoner ele. ven years in the tower of London, after which he escaped and joined in the Tyrone war. Mac Carthy More Reagh

More patrio according to him is More Danorum! The Irish round tower may be feen in almost every inland county in Ireland, and the Danes poffeffed the fea coafts only. Mr. Gordon gives an account of two in Scotlaud, which he attributes to the Irith who fettled there, Hin. Sept. p. 164.). Mr. Ledwich himfelf owns that that of Brechin is probably a century older than the church, which was founded in 990, (See Pinkerton's Scot. p. 268) Would we attribute to the Danes the improven ents of Glendaloch which they never meddled with, ex. cept to destroy the fhrine of St. Kieran? See Archdal) Would criticifm turn away from the ages preceding the 9th, when the arts of peace were cultivated, and attribute to fanguinary pirates who lived by rapine and depredation the round tower that decorated our ancient churches? In a country where war was the only trade during a gloomy period, where men were divided and fubdivided under petty chief

tains, connected only in a few in ftances by a fense of common intereft, in most instances at war with each other, as well as with their common enemy-refifting feparately, feparately defeated, and fubmitting almost all their difputes whether of honour or of property, to be decided by the law of the ftrongeft, or contefted at the edge of the fword. Cambrenfis who came over here in the reign of Henry II. mentions the round tower as "an elegant and ancient edifice, erected after the native fashion of the Irish nation, more patrio-Turres Ecclefiafticas que more patrio ar&tæ funt, et altæ, nec non et rotundæ.-The Danes, fay Ware, (vol. 2. fol. p. 129. had no models of fuch buildings in their own country, and as in their long poffeffion of England they erected none of the kind there, fo neither were they the authors of fuch ftruc tures in Ireland, Dublin edit. 1745-) ...... A caitle erected at Tuam of lime and tone, by Roderick O'Conor, King of Connaught,

11611

of Desmond, had a right by our old cuftom and established rules, to call upon O'Donaghoe of Rofs, O'Donagho of Glanke, Mac Donagh of Duhallow, O'Kief of Drumtariff, Mac Awley of Clan Awley, O'Callaghan of Cloonmeene, O'Sullivan More, O'Sullivan Bear, Mic Gillicuddy, and others to attend him in the field; and furnish 60 horfe and 1500 fort, to be at the call of the Earls of Defmond. Mac Carthy

1161, got the name of caftrum-mirificum, not becaufe of the novelty as being built with lime and tone, but because it was vaulted with more elegance than usual, for in the office of St. Kianan, who died in 489, as it is quoted by Ware, (Antiq. c. 29. lat) we find that St. Kianan built a church of tone at Damlag, (or Duleek,) from which church that place took its name; for Damh in old Irish is a houfe, and Liag a ftone." St. Kianan was educated in France under St. Martin of Tours, and cannot be supposed unacquainted with ftone edifice.

Hence the hiftorian of Kerry cannot be too particular in his account of the ages antecedent to the Danish invafion. They were the golden ages of Ireland. So great was the character of St. Brendan in that country, that it was anciently called the country of St. Brendan; and Camden calls the fea along the - coafts of Kerry, Mare Brendanicum. There must be in fuch a country, fome remains of our ancient religious buildings fimilar to thofe that are to be seen in the valley of Glendalogh, or at Clonmacnois, built in 547, fee Ware, and many other parts of the kingdom, which plainly evince that there was an age when Ireland enjoyed a confide. ble fhare of civilization, and that it VOL. I.

the

is not what the English, with all the intemperate bitterness of enemies, eagerly pronounced it to be, a nation without laws, without records, and without any mark to distinguish them from rude favages and infantine societies.

Mr Thorkelin has fhewn in a late publication, that the northern nations are indebted to the Irish for chriftianity and learning.-The first inftructors, and very probably the first inhabitants of Iceland, were Irish.

When the Danes and Nor. wegians fettled there in the 9th century, they found Irish books, bells. and croziers there. See the letters on Iceland published by Sir Jofeph Banks, Dr Solander, and others.It is faid by a contemporary German writer, that through the inftructions of Clement and Albin, two Irishmen, the French might vie with the Romans and Athenians, in, the reign of of harlemagne. And Lord Lyttleton adds, "that most of the lights which in thofe times of thick darknefs caft their beams over Europe, proceeded out of Ireland; and that the lofs of the MSS. which the rawages of the Danes deltroyed, may well be deemed a misfortune not only to them, but to the whole learned world." See his Life of Henry II. vol. 3.

the English could fend against them, could have availed, if they had not been fatally split into different factions, which prepared an easy conqueft for an united enemy, and made a wide breach long before there was attack.*

"I will also expect from you an interefting account of the great and good family of the O'Sullivans More, and Bear. O'Donaghoes, O'Mahonys, Fitzgeralds of Defmond, and the knights of the Glin,

&c.

"But I beg you will not overload your fubject with too much matter. It is difgufting in the highest degree, to fee how heavily people enter into barren pedigrees, fkeletons without meat, and bodies without foul. Let us have the spirit of our ancient families transfufed into the pens of their hiftorians, and let us avoid having too many heroes together on the ftage, mindful of Horace's rule, that a Unus aut alter is fufficient.

"Pardon this hint from one whofe zeal for the honor of our ancient race, has often led him into indifcretions; whofe foul is on fire when he fees that the heroes of his native country are in no refpect inferior to thofe of Greece and Rome, except in the want of an hiftorian, whofe talents would not be inferior to the talk of doing them that justice, without which they will be inglorious in the midft of laurels, and no more known than if they had never

NOTE.

Mr. O'Conor had a particular veneration for the Mac Carthys, and begged of the gentleman he wrote this letter to, to fend him materials for a history of that family, but no fuch materirls were feat to him.

I could not discover that the perfon to whom this letter was addreffed purfued his plan, and Mr. Smith wrote his hiftory of Kerry, unoppofed and unrivalled. Encouraged by the great and patronized by the Phyfico-biftorical Society, and gentlemen of the College, it is only to be wondered that his work is so much inferior to what we are entitled to expect from fuch advantages. It is a

defultory unconnected compilation. which gives no acconnt of the fpirit of former times, nor of the causes which combine them with the prefent; which gives names without enlivening the narrative with those facts that would render them interefting and the chief merit of which confifts in fome topographical descriptions, not incorrectly nor inelegantly done, and conveying an idea of the quality of the foil and productions of the country.

As a fpecimen of his political abilities, he tells us-" that the po verty of the peafantry proceeded in his days from the indolence of the proprietors, whom it moft concerns to encourage manufactures, inclofures, plantations, &c. Diligence and industry arife from neceflity'; when these are once fet on foot by acquiring wealth, they create luxury, to fupport which, they are eagerly purfued. If a few perfons be rendered happy, by letting them on fome profitable employment,

others

others will envy them, and ftrive to emulate their methods of thriving: thus induftry will advance, because willing labours are more readily performed than thofe to perfons are compelled," page 99. This paragon of political wisdom verifies the old proverb, "none more blind than those that will not fee." Mr. Smith would attribute the poverty of the kingdom to any thing but the very fimple fource it arofe from the terrible acts of Parliament, which made the properties, the tenements, and the improvements of Roman Catholics difcoverable, and made them the property of the difcoverer if a Proteftant! Could it be expected that Roman Catholics would be guilty of the crime and the folly of improving under circumftances, which made improvement criminal by Act of Parliament?" Diligence and in duftry arife from neceffity," fays Smith; if he had faid from an interest in the land and fecurity of tenure, I would understand him; but the word neceffity implies want and poverty, and he owns every where that this was every where to be found, the diligence that arifes from neceffity is not to be measured by that neceffity, but by the means that are within the grafp of a people; thofe means that are within their grafp may be utterly unknown to them and that is the favage ftate, or thofe means may be well known but forbidden by a favage oppreffion, and this was the ftate of the Irish. The Deceffity of the Indian made him diligent in the chafe, but this diligence and industry did not arise from that neceffity; it arofe from his ignorance of any better method to fapply his wants. The neceffity of the Irish in Mr. Smith's days,

made them diligent in gathering water-creffes, wild roots and bog-berries; but this diligence did not arife from any ignorance of a better method of fupplying their wants, but from their being unmercifully de barred from thofe branches of trade and industry, that could render them comfortable and happy!

The Phyfico hiftorical fociety above mentioned, confifted of a number of gentlemen who in 1744 affociated for enquiring into the ftate of the feveral counties in Ireland. They publifhed tables of queries, relating to the civil and natural history of each, and raised a fmall fund by fubfcription, to employ proper perfons to travel through the kingdom, to make obfervations and collect proper materials for the purpose. These infantine efforts with the vigilance of the linen board, and the patriotic efforts of the Dublin fociety were the firft fteps towards the revival of industry, as well as of the arts and fciences of Ireland. It was foon difcovered that we had enough to do for millions, if millions were let into action, bogs were to be reclaimed, roads to be made, fisheries, an exhauftlefs treasure, fufficient to fupply all the markets of Europe, to be eftablished, manufactures to be encouraged, canals to be cat, and a people who were forced into idleness and mifery by penal laws, to be forced into activity by giving them that intereft in improvements, which is the true fource of diligence, and the life and foul of a nation.

But though all this was felf-evi dent, though we had no exportation, no activity, no energy; fuch was the obftinacy of inveterate prejudices, that while the inhabitants of the fwamps and dykes of Holland, were

extending

extending their commerce to every quarter of the gobe, our great men fat down fatisfied with the power of putting a poor peafant into stocks for killing wild-geefe, and fubmitted to be the flaves of Great Britain, in hopes that the whore of Babylon would be banished, and pop ry and idolatry extirpated from the laud they polluted.

This ridiculous bigotry, ever hoftile to Ireland, oc fioned very feri ous alarms throughout the nation, about this time As Roman Catholics could not take mortgages by law they not be fecured in any debts but by bond or note, and therefore it was the practice of the country that, where a Roman Catholic ent money on a bond, he fued out a Cuftocium against the borrower's ettare. But at this time a question was flart d by Difcoverer, whether thofe Culodiams at the fuit of Roman Catholics were not to be confidered as real fecurries on the fame footing with mortgages, whether they were not mere evasions of the laws againit Papifts, and th refure difcoverable under the popery acts: a bili of dif. covery was filed on this puncipe, and every oman Catholic in the kingdom, who had lent money, was involved in affue, for in cafe it fuc ceeded in favor of the Difcoverer, no remedy remained for the recovery of money lent. but a precarious one against the prions of the borrowers. They therefore entered into a tubfori, tion to fee lawyers, and Mr. O'Conor's patriotic anxiety on this occafion, produced his cafe of the Roman Catholics, confifting of 79 pages, and printed in 5.

When this pamphlet came out, every one gured it was written by the author of the Thoughts, and the Roman Catholics entertained hopes,

and collected fome degree of courage from the manner in which it was written. It was advertised in Pue's, Faulkner's an Williamfon's paners; copies, elegantly bound were frut inciofed to the Sec etary of State, for the Lord Lieutenant, and the following paragraph a pared in a!! the Dublin papers.- We hear that "the Cafe of the Roman Catholics, "&c. was yefterd v prefented to "the Lordicutein at the aflle, " and most gracioufty received." An elegant copy was alfo far to the Pri mate, it went off very pidly, and

the Roman Catholics of the three kingdoms read i with conscious exultation. Lord, the printer, was fo tiaid, that he often stopt the press, on account of his being informed that it would not find purcaefers among its own party, t at the boidnefs of it would do more harmt an god, and that the ftrokes against th Curt of Rome very different from the Church of Rome would out all the Popith clergy, and damn the work. "Yet," fays