PREFACE. IN OFFERING a 'Student's History of Ireland' to the public, it seems necessary to call attention to the neglect with which Irish history has hitherto been treated, and to the probable cause of that neglect. Englishmen generally were unwilling to press a study on their children which could afford little else than matter of constant regret and explanation. In Ireland, it is said by a recent lecturer, that indifference or dislike to a painful subject has caused a similar avoidance of this department of history. It is true that the past cannot be effaced, but past evils may be remedied by present care; and it is always, under all circumstances, a matter of imperative necessity that we should know the history of the past, whatever that history may have been. Ignorance is generally the source of misapprehension; and to remove misapprehension is, or should be, one of the chief objects of instruction. Now, however, these objections to the study of Irish history are removed by recent legislation. The English student, if he feels that the policy of the past has been generally worse than a mistake, can look with pride on the policy of the present. He can point also to the legislation by which the chief grievance of the Irish Celt will soon be remedied, since he will no longer be compelled to seek a remuneration for his labour in a foreign land which he has failed to find in his own country. Irish history also will convey a lesson of immense importance to those who, if they are not our future statesmen, will at least influence the decisions of future Parliaments. They will learn the fatal consequences of early misgovernment, and will see that the contempt 'the Norman settler manifested towards the Irish Celt, because he differed from him in dress, customs, and laws, was the source of much subsequent ill-feeling, and was as unjust as it was impolitic. He will see that to prevent insurrection by remedial measures is incomparably wiser than to repress it by the sword; and even if such lessons were not of the first importance, to be ignorant of any portion of our national history, or to possess only a superficial knowledge of it, is an injustice to our compatriots and a discredit to ourselves. To Irishmen also the history of their country provides lessons of no less importance; and they at least should require no inducement to make it one of the earliest historical studies of their children. KENMARE: April 30, 1870. |