I was in Ireland again a good many years afterwards in connection with the meeting of the Social Science Association, and was the guest of Lord O'Hagan. The Parnellite Movement was then in full activity; American Fenianism was at work; and the soil heaved with insurrection. My friend W. E. Forster was the Secretary, and, much against his own inclination, was administering measures of repression, the only alternative to which appeared to be the abdication of the government. On this occasion I was unlucky enough to draw upon myself a thunderbolt hurled through the _Times_, but evidently from the skies, by hinting in a public speech that the Phoenix Park was as worthy to be the occasional residence of royalty as Osborne or Balmoral. A happy change, attended apparently with the best effects, has now come in that august quarter. It is needless to say that this essay does not pretend to be a history of Ireland. It is an attempt to trace the general course of the history as it leads up to the present situation. The works published in recent years to which I have been chiefly indebted are: Joyce's "Social History of Ancient Ireland," Richie's "Short History of the Irish People," Bagwell's "Ireland under the Tudors," Froude's "The English in Ireland," Lecky's "Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland," together with the special chapters on Ireland in his general history, Ingram's "Two Chapters of Irish History" and "History of the Irish Union," Ball's "Irish Legislative Systems," T. P. O'Connor's "The Parnell Movement," and Sir Horace Plunkett's "Ireland in the Twentieth Century," with the comments on it by Father O'Riordan. To Mr. Bagwell's "Ireland under the Tudors" I am specially indebted for his narrative of the Tudor wars. To Mr. T. P. O'Connor I am specially indebted for the most vivid accounts of the famine and of the evictions, as well as for an improved insight into the Parnell Movement and of the doings which preceded it. Of part of those doings I was myself in some measure a witness, through my social connections with a circle of English politicians who were inclining to an Irish alliance. The annals of the Tudor wars are horrible and heartrending. But history cannot drop the veil over them. They long left their evil traces on Irish character and sentiment, explaining and extenuating some terrible things which ensued. Nor, in truth, have they become obsolete as warnings to us in general of the acts into which civilized nations may be betrayed when they make wars of conquest on those whom they deem barbarians. It seemed that a brief account of the recent land legislation for Ireland might be useful to readers of an essay of this kind. I append one which has been prepared for me by my friend, Mr. Hugh J. McCann, B.L., of the Dublin Bar. Its author is in no way committed to any opinion expressed in the other part of the work. CONTENTS PAGE