age they were magnificent. Of the causes which produced the
decay of architecture, the extinction of the arts and sciences,
and the general degradation of the people of this island the
devotees of St. Paul and of the Romish Church are alike silent.
For ages after the subjection of Ireland, in open defiance of the
English, the people continued to dispense justice, and to enforce
the old Brehon laws of the country.
The lack of regard shown for English law in Ireland, even as late
as the sixteenth century, is set forth by Baron Fingles, who
wrote in the time of Henry VIII. He says:
"It is a great abuse and reproach that the laws and statutes made
in this land are not observed nor kept after the making of them
eight days, while diverse Irishmen cloth abuse and keep such laws
and statutes which they make upon hills in this country, firm and
stable, without breaking them for any favor or reward."
By a statute of Parliament enacted at Kilkenny, it was made high
treason to administer or observe these old Brehon laws. The two
enactments especially obnoxious to the English were Gahail Cinne,
and Eiric. The former of these enactments was that which in
opposition to the English law of primogeniture declared that the
estate of a parent should descend in equal proportion to all
members of the family. There was another law, or custom, among
this people, which provided that the chief of the tribe or people
should be elected by general suffrage.
We have something more than a hint of the condition of ancient
Ireland and its people in a description given by the Greeks of
one of its inhabitants. Abarras, who visited Greece about six
hundred years before Christ, and who was called by the Greeks a
Hyperborean, was a priest of the Sun, who went abroad for the
purpose of study and observation, and to renew by his presence
and his gifts the old friendship which had long existed between
the Celts and the Greeks. Strabo remarks concerning Abarras that
he was much admired by the learned men of Greece. Himerius says
of him that he came
"not clad in skins like a Scythian, but with a bow in his hand,
and a quiver on his shoulders and a plaid wrapped about his body,
a gilded belt encircled his loins, and trousers reaching from his
