Liberty, Order and Law Under Native Irish Rule

laws, and who has freely criticized their provisions, has himself furnished the strongest testimony to the extensive and beneficial effect of the ancient laws and judicial system of Ireland upon the character of the Irish race. He did so in those remarkable words with which he concludes his Discovery of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued and brought under Obedience to the Crown of England until the beginning of His Majesty's [King James the First] Happy Reign. "There is," says Sir John Davies, "no nation of people under the sun that loves equal and impartial original: "indifferent" justice better than the Irish, or will be better satisfied with its execution, even if it is against themselves, provided they may have the protection and benefit of the law when they desire it for a just cause."

On the other hand, the reader may be motivated, in the main, by a measure of that broad historical and scientific spirit with which Dr. W. K. Sullivan deals with the subject. In his introduction to Dr. O'Curry’s Lectures on the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Sullivan treats the topic as one of central interest and supreme importance for solving the same problem regarding Indo-European original: "Aryan"; in the 19th century, this term was used by scholars like Sullivan to refer to the broad family of Indo-European languages and cultures. institutions in general. These institutions—as they have developed, whether healthily or corruptly, through the ages—now seem likely to dominate the world.

"It is now a recognized fact in science," says Dr. Sullivan, "that from the Indus River to the Atlantic Ocean, and from there across the American continent to the shores of the Pacific, the descendants of one primitive, blue-eyed, fair-haired race, divided into..."