See the ‘Liber Munerum publicorum Hibernie,’ the first and following chapters on the Establishments of Ireland, supplementary to the History of England, by Rowley Lascelles, of the Middle Temple, printed by authority in 1824. This work has been chiefly relied upon for historical reference. It bears evidence of great research, and is on every account entitled to much weight in the conflicting testimonies with regard to the early events of Irish history. ----- The Romans never extended their conquests to Ireland, and it was protected by its insular position from the irruption of barbarians which burst upon the Roman provinces in the fifth and sixth centuries, and caused the dismemberment of the western empire. In that age, we are told, “Irish missionaries taught the Anglo-Saxons of the north, who also resorted to Ireland for instruction.” Lingard says that “when learning was almost extinguished on the continent of Europe, a faint light was emitted from the shores of Erin; and that strangers from Britain, from Gaul, and from Germany, resorted to the Irish schools.” It is probable however that the light was partial as well as faint, and that the Christian monasteries with their learned men which constituted the “schools,” existed in only a few places in Ireland, each establishment forming as it were a speck of civilization, like an oasis in the desert of barbarism. It is certain that the Irish of that day paid no Peter’s pence, and acknowledged no supremacy in the see of Rome; and there is reason to believe that the Irish Church was derived rather from the Greek than the Latin hierarchy.[2] Whatever glimmering of civilization prevailed in Ireland at this early period, must have been damped and prevented from expanding “by the rude influence of the native institutions, and it was nearly if not quite extinguished by the irruptions of the Northmen, or Danes, who annually made incursions into Ireland from the middle of the eighth to the end of the tenth century.” The ancient division of the country into the four provinces of Munster, Connaught, Leinster, and Ulster, which must be referred to this early period, seems to have been for ecclesiastical purposes. The division into counties, of which there are thirty-two, took place long after. ----- [2] See ‘The Handbook of Architecture,’ a recent publication in which the ingenious author supports this conclusion by showing the similarity of the religious buildings erected in the East and in Ireland, which in both differ materially from what is seen in Italy and the other countries of Europe. -----