The Feudal system, thus augmented, tended towards centralisation. The Irish system had an opposite tendency. I notice that Mr. Orpen, in his comparison of the two systems, shows himself a whole-hearted worshipper of centralisation. His book, however, was written before the rulers and ministers of great states had begun to discover and formulate the objects of a righteous war. To my mind, European civilisation has suffered very much from undue centralisation--from the domination of courts and capitals over large regions and the consequent disrepute of what is called provincial life. We see the effect in countries like England and France, each of which consists of two parts--the capital and the provinces--the capital draining the provinces of all that is best in them, so that they are held and hold themselves in low esteem. I have often hoped that the Ireland of the future will not be unduly centralised, and that full scope will be given to the highest possible development of social life and art and education in every part of the country. The Normans so-called, when they came to Ireland, had ceased to be Northmen. The contemporary Anglo-Saxon, Welsh and Irish chronicles call them by the same name, Franks. Franks they were in language, customs and institutions. If they sometimes called themselves Angli, this meant no more than that they were subjects of the _rex Anglorum_, the king of the English, and not of the king of the French. Their ordinary language was French. When Giraldus Cambrensis expresses the wish that his works should be translated into the vulgar tongue, he makes it clear that he means French. In another part of his writings, he shows himself an enthusiastic adherent of the Welsh language, and voices a prophecy that his countrymen of Wales will speak Welsh till the day of Judgment. The rank and file of the invaders were Welshmen and Flemings. There was a large Flemish colony settled under the Normans in Pembrokeshire, and when the first invaders reached Ireland in 1169, an Irish chronicler recorded the arrival of the fleet of the Flemings. A Flemish colony was established after that in South Leinster, and their dialect continued in use there until well on in the nineteenth century. Many of the so-called Norman settlers in other parts of Ireland were Flemish and Welsh. Norman French continued to be used in Ireland for many generations. It was the language in which the colonists petitioned the lord Edward, as they called the king of England, for aid against Edward Bruce in 1315. I notice in Father Dinneen's Irish dictionary many of the words marked with the letter A, signifying of English origin, which I am sure came directly from the French of these invaders. Mr. Orpen's history is largely a laboured attempt to prove that the backward state of Ireland was the cause and justification of the invasion. This search after causes and justifications does not conduce to sound historical writing. One