Ulster A Brief Statement of Fact Classic Reprint

Excerpt from Ulster: A Brief Statement of Fact

The dawn Of history in Ireland finds the whole people of Ireland with a common language, common ideals and traditions, common social and political institutions, and a common literature. In political and social organisation their constructive instinct was federal rather than feudal, and individuality and individual freedom were fostered. The Provincial Kings gave a nominal deference to a High King, who was one of themselves, and Kings and Chiefs were regarded, and regarded themselves, as trustees rather than as owners. Their privileges and rights appertained to their position, to which they were elected by the popular voice, and not to themselves per sonally. Allegiance was to the Clan, then to the Province, and finally the symbolic, rather than rigid, allegiance to the Nation in the person of the elected High King, but never to any individual. The whole feudal idea was abhorrent to the Irish mind, and when feudal organisation was sought to be thrust on the nation by the English, they fought it so long as they had the power to do so. And the federal instinct, although suppressed by law, still finds expression in the co-operative movement.

Early Ireland was a wealthy country and a civilised country, rich in crops and in cattle and in manufactures, its fairs thronged with the merchants Of the Continent, its harbours thronged with their shipping, and its own ship ping thronging the harbours of the Continent. It was a country of great schools, where learning was taught free to strangers, where the lamp Of European culture was kept burning when it had flickered almost to extinction in Europe itself.

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