the English invasion (1171) there were no fewer
than twenty predatory excursions or battles among the Irish chiefs
themselves, exclusive of contests with the invaders. Hence the Pope
said--'_Gens se interimit mutua caede_.' The Pope was right.

The clergy exerted themselves to the utmost in trying to exorcise the
demon of destruction and to arrest the work of extermination. Not only
the _Bashall Isa_, or 'the staff of Jesus,' but many other relics were
used with the most solemn rites, to impress the people with a sense
of the wickedness of their clan-fights, and to induce them to keep the
peace, but in vain. The King of Connaught once broke a truce entered
into under every possible sanction of this kind, trampling upon all,
that he might get the King of Meath into his clutches. Hence the Rev.
Mr. Kelly is constrained to say--'It is now generally admitted by
Catholic writers that however great the efforts of the Irish clergy to
reform their distracted country in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
the picture of anarchy drawn by Pope Adrian is hardly overcharged.'
Indeed, some Catholic writers have confessed that the anarchy would
never have been terminated except by foreign conquest establishing a
strong central government. This, however, was not accomplished
till after a struggle of centuries, during which, except in brief
intervals, when a strong prince was able to protect his people, the
national demoralisation grew worse and worse. An Oxford priest,
who kept a school at Limerick, writing so late as 1566 of the Irish
nobles, says--'Of late they spare neither churches nor hallowed
places, but thence also they fill their hands with spoil--yea, and
sometimes they set them on fire and kill the men that there lie
hidden.'

Mr. Froude, following the Irish MSS. in the Rolls House, has presented
graphic pictures of the disorders of the Irishry in the reign of Queen
Mary. 'The English garrison,' he says, 'harassed and pillaged the
farmers of Meath and Dublin; the chiefs made forays upon each other,
killing, robbing, and burning. When the war broke out between England
and France, there were the usual conspiracies and uprisings of
nationality; the young Earl of Kildare, in reward to the Queen who
had restored him to his rank, appearing as the natural leader of
the patriots. Ireland was thus happy in the gratification of all its
natural tendencies. The Brehon law readvanced upon the narrow limits
to which, by the exertions of