d,
the ancient Irish were practising a kind of socialism. There was a common
ownership of land. Each freeman had a right to use a certain acreage. But
the land of every man, from the king down, might be taken away by the
state. There was an elected king, and assemblies of nobles and freemen.
There were arbitration courts where the lawgivers decided on penalties, and
whose decisions were enforced by the assemblies. One of the reasons, the
bishop said, that England had found it difficult to rule the Irish, was
that she attempted to force a feudal government on a socialistic people.

Recently--to illustrate that the Irish still retain their instinct for
common ownership--there had been, as the bishop mentioned, a successful
socialistic experiment in Clare. On looking up this fact at a later time, I
discovered that the experiment had points of resemblance to the ancient
state.[2] In 1823 the English socialist, Robert Owen, visited Ireland. His
outline of the possibilities of co-operation on socialistic lines inspired
the foundation of the Hibernian Philanthropic Society. It was in 1831 that
Arthur Vandeleur, one of the members of the society, decided he would
establish a socialist colony on his estate in Ralahine, Clare county. A
large tract of land was to be possessed and developed by a group of
tenants. This property was not, incidentally, a gift, but was to be held by
Mr. Vandeleur until the tenants were able to pay for it. An elected
committee of nine, and a general assembly of all men and women members of
the society, were the government. The committee's decision against an
offending member of society could be enforced or not by the members. The
success of the society is acknowledged. Through it was introduced the first
reaping machine into Ireland. By it the condition of the toiler was much
raised, and might have been more greatly elevated but for the fact that the
community had to pay a very heavy annual rental in kind to Mr. Vandeleur.
The experiment came to a premature end, however, because of the passing of
the estate out of the hands of Mr. Vandeleur, and the non-recognition of
the right of such a community to hold a lease or to act as tenants under
the land laws of Great Britain.

"Why should there not be a modernized form of the ancient Gaelic state?"
asked the bishop.

When I spoke of the Russian soviet, and stated that I heard that the Roman
Catholic church had spread in eight dioceses under the new governme