Blair Collection > Celtic gleanings, or, Notices of the history and literature of the Scottish Gael

16 LECTURE I.
have much sympathy with their religion, and
little with their lawlessness. Yet he cannot
shut his eyes to the truth regarding them.
That their rulers have often received grievous
provocation at their hands none can deny. No
man can approve the atrocities of 1641 or of
1798. But, then, have w^e ever looked at the
other side of the account ? Without doing so we
cannot judge fairly of the state of the case. In
a little volume of Irish poems, published in
Dublin a few years ago, the following note ap-
pears, and as the facts are given on the autho-
rity of Leland and other credible parties, and
as the summary is put in a few words, it is
quoted here. " Since the arrival of the English
in 1169, the native Irish have suffered much
for political and religious offences. They have
been massacred, tortured, starved to death,
burned, broiled, flayed alive, sold to slavery,
compelled to commit suicide, and to eat human
flesh. In one century, their properties were
four times confiscated. They were forbidden
to receive education at home or abroad. Their
language, dress, and religion were proscribed,
and their murder only punished by fine. They
were declared incapable of possessing any pro-
perty, and finally compelled to pay large sums
to their worst oppressors." In the seventeenth