Marx Engels On Ireland

MARX
ENGELS
r
Ireland
and the
Irish Question
Progress Publishers
M oscow
PUBLISH ERS’ NOTE
The Russian text of this collection was prepared for
publication by L.I. Golman and V.E. Kunina, assisted by
M.A. Zhelnova.
Translated from German by S. Ryazanskaya and
V. Schneierson, from the French by K. Cook, and from the
Italian by B. Bean.
The History o f Ireland, “Notes for the History o f
Ireland” and “Notes for the Preface to a Collection of Irish
Songs” have been translated by Angela Clifford.
Edited by R. Dixon.
K. Mapnc h O. 3 HreJii>c
OB HPJIAHflHH M HPJIAH^CKOM BOIIPOCE
Ha am nuucKOM H3biKe
First printing 1971

Second printing 1974
Third printing 1978
Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
M3 i.Q J .5 L 9 70
MJ 016(01)-79 9-78 0101010000
CONTENTS
Foreword . . g ................................................. ............................ ................... 17

Introduction..................................................................................................... 22
KARL MARX AND FREDERICK ENGELS
IRELAND AND THE IRISH QUESTION
LETTERS FROM LONDON. By Frederick E n g e ls............................. 43
THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING-CLASS IN ENGLAND. By
Frederick Engels . . . . . . .....................................................................47
From the Chapter “The Great Towns” JRj . . . . . 47
From the Chapter “The Agricultural Proletariat, , .......................... 49
From [THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND-THE
CHARTIST MOVEMENT—IRELAND]. By Frederick Engels . . 54
[THE COERCION BILL FOR IRELAND AND THE CHART
ISTS]. By Frederick Engels . ................................................................55
FEARGUS O’CONNOR AND THE IRISH PEOPLE. By Frederick
E n gels........................................................................................................... 58
From [THE SPEECH ON THE POLISH QUESTION. February 22,
1848]. By Karl Marx ............................... . . . 51
From COLOGNE IN DANGER. By Frederick Engels .......................62
From ELECTIONS—FINANCIAL CLOUDS-THE DUCHESS OF
SUTHERLAND AND SLAVERY. By Karl Marx ..........................63
From FORCED EMIGRATION—KOSSUTH AND MAZZINI—THE
REFUGEE QUESTION—ELECTION BRIBERY IN ENG-
LAND-Mr. COBDEN. By Karl M arx................................................. 64
The INDIAN QUESTION-IRISH TENANT RIGHT. By Karl Marx 69
From FINANCIAL FAILURE OF GOVERNMENT-CABS-
IRE LAND—THE RUSSIAN QUESTION. By Karl M arx............... 76
From THE WAR QUESTION-BRITISH POPULATION AND
TRADE RETURNS—DOINGS OF PARLIAMENT. By Karl Marx 77
From LORD PALMERSTON. By Karl M arx.......................................... 80
10 CONTENTS
From [THE BLUE BOOKS—PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES OF

FEBRUARY 6...-TH E IRISH BRIGADE]. By Karl M a rx ____ 82
IRELAND’S REVENGE. By Karl Marx ................................................. 84
[From Parliament] [Excerpt]. By Karl M arx........................................ 87
From LORD JOHN RUSSELL. By Karl M a r x ...................................... 89
ENGELS TO MARX. May 23, 1 8 5 6 ......................................................... 93
From THE QUESTION OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS. By Karl Marx 96
THE EXCITEMENT IN IRELAND. By Karl Marx ............................. 97
From POPULATION, CRIME AND PAUPERISM. By Karl Marx . . 102
From THE CRISIS IN ENGLAND. By Karl M arx............; .................105
From ENGLISH HUMANISM AND AMERICA. By Karl Marx . . . 107
From Chapter XXV of CAPITAL, Vol. I. By Karl Marx Section 5.
Illustrations of the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation . . . 109
From Chapter XXXVII of CAPITAL, Vol. III. By Karl Marx . . . . 127
THE FENIAN PRISONERS AT MANCHESTER AND THE
INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION. By
Karl Marx . . . . . . . . . . i .......................... ...............................128
[NOTES FOR AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH ON IRELAND]. By
Karl M a rx ................................ . .................................. . 130
[OUTLINE OF A REPORT ON THE IRISH QUESTION TO THE
COMMUNIST EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GERMAN
WORKERS IN LONDON. December 16, 1867]. By Karl Marx . 136
[RECORD OF A SPEECH ON THE IRISH QUESTION DELIV
ERED BY KARL MARX TO THE GERMAN WORKERS,
EDUCATIO NAL ASSOCIATION IN LONDON ON DE
CEMBER 16, 1 8 6 7 ] ....................... .................................... ..................150
EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS
ON IRELAND WRITTEN
BETWEEN 1867 AND 1868
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN. October 11, 1867 ................. 153
MARX TO ENGELS. November 2, 1867 .............. 153
ENGELS TO MARX. November 5, 1867 .............................................. 154
MARX TO ENGELS. November 7, 1867 ................................ ............ 154
ENGELS TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN. November 8, 1867 ............ 155
ENGELS TO MARX. November 24, 1 8 6 7 ....................... ...................... 155
ENGELS TO MARX. November 29, 1867 . . ......................................... 155
MARX TO ENGELS. November 30, 1 8 6 7 .............................................. 156
CONTENTS 11
MARX TO ENGELS. December 14, 1867 ....................................... 159

ENGELS TO MARX. December 19, 1 8 6 7 . . . . : . V . .... ......... .......... 159
MARX TO ENGELS. March 16, 1868 .................... ............................... 159
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN. April 6, 1868 .................... . . 160
[ON THE REFUSAL BY THE ENGLISH PRESS TO TAKE
NOTICE OF THE GROWTH OF SYMPATHY WITH IRELAND
AMONG ENGLISH WORKERS AND ON THE OPENING OF
THE DEBATE ON THE IRISH QUESTION (Record of the
Speech and Content of the Letter. From the Minutes of the
General Council Meetings of October 26 andNovember 9,
1869)]. By Karl M a rx .............................. . ..........................................161
[ON THE POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT WITH
RESPECT TO THE IRISH PRISONERS (Record of the Speech
and Draft Resolution. From the Minutes of the General Council
Meeting of November 16, 1869)]. By Karl Marx ......................162
[ON THE POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT WITH
RESPECT TO THE IRISH PRISONERS (Record of the
Speeches in Support of the General Council Resolution. From
the Minutes of the General Council Meetings of November 23
and 30, 1869). By Karl Marx ..................................... . . 167
[IRELAND FROM THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION TO THE
UNION OF 1801. Extracts and Notes].'#y Karl Marx . . . . . . . 169
[ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IRISH QUESTION (Record
of the Speech. From the Minutes of the General Council Meet
ing of December 14, 1869)]. By Karl M a rx ............................... 251
From CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION. By Karl Marx . . . . 252
THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT AND THE FENIAN PRISON
ERS. By Karl M arx........................................................V. . . ............ 256
[RECORD OF KARL MARX’S SPEECH CONCERNING THE
BEE-HIVE NEWSPAPER (From the Minutes of the General
Council Meeting of April 26, 1870)] ....................... .........................262
HISTORY OF IRELAND. By Frederick Engels . . . . . . g | j | . . . . 263
Natural C onditions.................... .....................................,. jga .. ....... . 263
Ancient Ireland . .................................................................................... 283
From THE PREPARATORY MATERIAL FOR THE HISTORY
OF IRELAND. By Frederick Engels ................................................... 303
Draft P lan .................... ... .'................... .................................................. 303
Notes for the History o f Ire la n d .................... .............. . . . . . 303
Chronology of Ireland................. .. ............................ 306
Notes on Goldwin Smith’s Book Irish History and Irish Character, 356
Varia on the History of the Irish Confiscations..........................372
12 CONTENTS
NOTES FOR THE PREFACE TO A COLLECTION OF IRISH
SONGS. By Frederick Engels ..........................................................383
ON IRELAND WRITTEN
MARX TO ENGELS. March 1, 1869 .................................................... 385
ENGELS TO MARX. September 27, 1869 ....................................... 386
ENGELS TO MARX. October 24, 1869 ................. 387
ENGELS TO MARX. November 1, 1869 .................... .. .................... 387
MARX TO ENGELS. November 6, 1869 ............ . . . .................. 388
ENGELS TO MARX. November 1 7, 1 8 6 9 .............................................. 388
ENGELS TO MARX. November 19, 1869 ........................................ .. . 391
ENGELS TO MARX. November 29, 1 8 6 9 .............. ............................... 392
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN. November 29, 1869 ............... 393
MARX TO ENGELS. December 4, 1 8 6 9 ............................... ................. 395
ENGELS TO MARX. December 9, 1 8 6 9 .................... ............................ 396
MARX TO ENGELS. December 10, 1869 ............................................. 397
MARX TO ENGELS. December 17, 1869 ................ . . . .................. 399
ENGELS TO MARX. January 19, 1870 ............................................... 399
ENGELS TO MARX. January 25, 1870 . . f 'S | . . . . . 3 . . . . . . . 400
ENGELS TO MARX. February 17, 1870 ..................................... .. 401
MARX TO ENGELS. February 19, 1870 .............. . ________. . . . 401
MARX TO ENGELS. March 5, 1870 ........................................... 402
MARX TO PAUL AND LAURA LAFARGUE. March 5, 1870 . . . 404
ENGELS TO MARX. March 7, 1870 ...................................................... 404
MARX TO ENGELS. March 19,1870 ................................................... 405
MARX TO SIGFRID MEYER AND AUGUST VOGT. April 9, 1870 406
MARX TO ENGELS. April 14, 1 8 7 0 ........................................................ 410
ENGELS TO MARX. April 15, 1870 ............... ....................................... 413
ENGELS TO MARX. May 15, 1870 ......................................................... 413
KARL MARX TO JENNY MARX (HIS DAUGHTER). May 31,
1870 ................ .................................................... W • ............................414
CONTENTS 13
MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLF SORGE. November 29, 1871 414

ENGELS TO SIGISMUND BORKHEIM. Beginning o f March 1872 415
[POSITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN’S
ASSOCIATION IN GERMANY AND ENGLAND (From the
Speech of September 22, 1871, at the London Conference)].
By Karl Marx . . . . : . . ............................. . . . P? . . . . . . 417
[RELATIONS BETWEEN THE IRISH SECTIONS AND THE
BRITISH FEDERAL COUNCIL. (Engels’s Recoifi of His Report
at the General Council Meeting of May 14,1 8 7 2 )].............. 418
From THE REPORT OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL TO THE
FIFTH ANNUAL CONGRESS OF THE INTERNATIONAL
WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION HELD AT THE HAGUE.
By Karl Marx ..................................................................................... 421
LETTERS FROM LONDON. By Frederick Engels . . . . . . . . . . 423
From THE INTERNATIONAL. [Excerpt.] By Frederick Engels . . . 426
From THE ENGLISH ELECTIONS. By Frederick E ngels..........427
From DIALECTICS OF NATURE. By Frederick E n g e ls ____ . . . 430
From ANTI-DOHRING. By Frederick Engels . ............................431
From THE PREPARATORY NOTES TO ANTI-DUHRING. By
Frederick Engels .....................................................................................432
From AMERICAN FOOD AND THE LAND QUESTION. By
Frederick Engels .................... .. . . .•; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
From BISMARCK AND THE GERMAN WORKING MEN’S
PARTY. By Frederick E n gels.......................................... .......... .... 135
From SYNOPSIS OF J.R. GREEN’S HISTORY OF THE
ENGLISH PEOPLE. By Karl Marx . ............................ 437
JENNY LONGUET, NEE MARX. By Frederick Engels . . . . . . . . 440
ON THE IRISH QUESTION
WRITTEN BETWEEN 1877 AND 1882
MARX TO ENGELS. August 1, 1 8 7 7 ............ . . .............. . . 442
MARX TO JOHN SWINTON. November 4, 1880 . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
ENGELS TO JENNY LONGUET. February 24, 1881 . . . . . . . . . 443
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. March 12, 1881 ................. . 446
MARX TO JENNY LONGUET. April 11, 1881 . . ............................. 447
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. April 14, 1881 . . . . . . . . . 447
MARX TO JENNY LONGUET. April 29, 1881 . . . . . . .................. 448
14 CONTENTS
MARX TO JENNY LONGUET. December 7, 1881 ............................. 448
MARX TO ENGELS. January 5, 1882 . . . . . .. . ............................... 449
ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY. February 7, 1882 | . . . . . . ---------449
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. May 3, 1882 .......................... 450
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. June 26, 1882 ....................... 451
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. August. 9, 1882 . . . _____454
From THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY
AND THE STATE. By Frederick Engels............................................456
From AN INTERVIEW WITH ENGELS PUBLISHED IN THE
NEW YORKER VO LKSZEITU N G.............................if...................460
From THE PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION OF THE
CONDITION OF THE WORKING-CLASS IN ENGLAND. By
Frederick Engels . . . . ; . . 461
From THE PEASANT QUESTION IN FRANCE AND GERMANY.
By Frederick Engels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. .............. 463
ON THE IRISH QUESTION WRITTEN
BY FREDERICK ENGELS BETWEEN 1885
AND 1894
TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT. December 1, 1885 . . . . . . . . . . . 465
TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER. December 5, 1885 ....................... 466
TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. May 22, 1886 . . ................. ... . . . . . . 466
TO FRIEDRICH ADOLF SORGE./wn* 18, 1887 . . . . . . . . i ; . 467
TO FLORENCE KELLY-WISCHNEWETZKY. February 22, 1888 467
TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT. February 29, 1888 . . . . . . . . . . . 468
TO FRIEDRICH ADOLF SORGE. December 7, 1 8 8 9 ............ 468
TO AUGUST BEBEL. January 23, 1890 ................................................. 468
TO NIKOLAI FRANTSEVICH DANIELSON. June 10, 1890 ------ 469
TO FRIEDRICH ADOLF SORGE. February 11, 1891 . . . . . . . . 470
TO FRIEDRICH ADOLF SORGE. August 11, 1891 .......................... 470
TO FRAU LIEBKNECHT December 2, 1891 ..................................... 471
TO HERMANN SCHLUTER. March 30, 1892 ..................................... 471
TO NIKOLAI FRANTSEVICH DANIELSON. June 18, 1892 . . 472
TO AUGUST BEBEL. July 7, 1892 .................................. 472
TO AUGUST BEBEL. January 24, 1893 ................................................. 473
TO FRIEDRICH ADOLF SORGE. N ovem ber10, 1 8 9 4 .................... 473
CONTENTS 15
SUPPLEMENT
THE IRISH STATE PRISONERS. SIR GEORGE GREY AND
THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION . . 477
MEETING OF THE COUNCIL AND MEMBERS AND FRIENDS
OF THE ASSOCIATION. November 19, 1867 ................................. 485
ADDRESS OF THE LAND AND LABOUR LEAGUE TO THE
WORKING MEN AND WOMEN OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
IRELAND ............................................................. ..........................................490
ARTICLES BY JENNY MARX ON THE IRISH QUESTION..........496
DECLARATION BY THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE INTER
NATIONAL WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION. Police Terror-
ism in Ireland ...............................................................................................523
COUNCIL MEETING. May 14th, 1872 .................................................. 526
WILLIAM THORNE AND ELEANOR MARX-AVELING TO
SAMUEL GOMPERS. January 25, 1891 ....................................... . 533
NOTES AND INDEXES
N o te s......................................................................................................................537
Name Index .............................................................................................. .. 620
Subject I n d e x ................................................................................................660
ILLUSTRATIONS
Draft plan for the History o f Ire la n d ................................................... • 311
First page of Marx’s letter to Paul and Laura Lafargue, March 5,
1870 ..............................................................................................................-411
Marx’s daughter Jenny ........................................................................... .. • 501
FOREW ORD
There are many reasons why the publication in one

volume of the writings of Marx and Engels on Ireland is to be
welcomed. It is timely since the myth that the Irish national
struggle was over has been exploded by events in “Northern
Ireland”, the area, since the partition of 1921, still held
within the Union, The present tangled position is totally
incomprehensible to those who lack knowledge of the
historical events which brought it about. That in their day
Marx and Engels faced and solved problems which are essenti
ally those that still lie before us today will be apparent to any
reader of this book who has freed himself even modestly
from that limitation. Consequently it provides numerous
guide-lines which, mutatis mutandis, have high relevance
today.
It should perform two valuable functions. First it should
give the Marxists, of England and the world, a fresh interest
in the. Irish question, when they see how seriously the
founders of Marxism regarded it, and the sheer volume of the
work they devoted to it. And it should help restore vision in
what has tended to become one of the blindest spots of the
English labour movement. England has centuries of imperial
ism (in the broad sense) behind her. Consequently most of
her best radicals have tended, in their struggle against the
chauvinism surrounding them on all sides, to identify all
national struggles with reaction. Perhaps since Irish people
resemble them so much, in contrast to peoples further afield,
they find it hard to believe that Irish nationalism has not the
same content as that of their own ruling class, which they
18 FOREWORD
have rejected. Wisdom begins in frank, total and uncondi
tional recognition of the right of the Irish nation to deter
mine its own international destiny, and it is from that point
that the identity of interest between the working class of
England and tnat of Ireland begins to operate in practice.
Second, it should arouse the interest of the Irish people
in Marxism, which the present ruling classes have tried to
represent as something alien to them. Not that the masses
have altogether believed it. There were many old craftsmen in
country parts, even in the dark days of the forties and fifties
of this century, who knew well that Marx defended Ireland in
Capital The book has been available in public libraries. But a
nation seeking national freedom thirsts after politics, not
economics. Many would know, few would read. The collec
tion made by the late Ralph Fox contained some of the
letters and exercised some influence in the thirties, but it has
been long out of print, except for a few copies zealously
guarded in Dublin.
At the turn of the century the great Irish Marxist James
Connolly, a working man who taught himself German, spread
some knowledge of the Letters to Kugelmann. Connolly’s life
work was indeed the revival and application of Marx’s teach
ing on the primacy of the national independence struggle
within Ireland. He had becoirie aware of this teaching while a
member of the Social Democratic Federation in Edinburgh,
at a time when Engels was still alive and influencing the
theoretical development of the world proletarian move
ment.
The extension of the International Workingmen’s Associa
tion to Ireland is referred to in Dr. Golman’s admirably
compact but comprehensive introduction. It must not
be lightly assumed, however, that it arose from a foreign
importation. There were a number of left radical and social-
ist-oriented groups in Ireland during the times of the Chart
ists. The attempts of O’Connell’s followers to extinguish
Chartism in Drogheda received attention in the Northern
Star. It is surely no accident that Feargus O’Connor, who
became the leader of Chartism in England during one of its
most virile periods, was the nephew of Arthur O’Connor, the
United Irishman, and that he chose for the name of his paper
FOREWORD 19
the name given by the Umted Irishmen to their own paper in

Belfast.
The deepest and most abiding tradition in Ireland is that
of Republicanism, best expressed in Marx’s day by the
Fenians. It originated in the Irish response to the French
Revolution. As Wolfe Tone wrote: “In a little time the
French Revolution became a test of every magi’s political
creed, and the nation was fairly divided into two great
parties, the Aristocrats and the Democrats.... It is needless. I
believe, to say I was a Democrat from the beginning.”
In his centenary book The Internationale Mr. R. Palme
Dutt remarks that “The international communist movement
developed in direct line of descent from the left wing of the
democratic revolution and the first beginnings of the work-
ing-class movement”. He quotes Marx in 1848: “The Jacobin
of 1793 has become the Communist of today.” Because of
their common origins in the political movements of the
oppressed classes of Europe in the early nineteenth century,
Republicanism, pragmatic rather than scientific, but con
sistently revolutionary, showed a constant receptivity to
socialist ideas. Thus it is said that Stephens, the Young
Ireland revolutionary forced to flee to Paris after the failure
of the rising of 1848, had contact with revolutionary socialist
groups, before returning to Ireland (after a stay in America)
to found Fenianism. The great Fenian John Devoy, while
scarcely describable as a Marxist, worked closely with the
First International. Why then did the United Irishman of
1798 not become the Communist of 1848? The full answer
must await a study that the publication of this book must
surely stimulate, namely, the analysis of ideological develop
ments in the Irish national movement during the nineteenth
century. But a decisive factor must surely have been the
diaspora following the “famine” and the scattering of Irish
revolutionaries over the face of the earth. The emigrant ship
was English imperialism’s strongest safeguard alike against
revolution and against revolutionary ideas.
The radical wing of Republicanism was constantly at
tracted towards the revolutionary working class. Thus Clarke,
Pearse and MacDermott were drawn into an alliance with
Connolly in 1916. Similar forces came together in 1921-22.
20 FOREWORD
The bourgeoisie, backed by a confused and fearful Labour

leadership, was prepared to accept partition, which Lloyd
George had forced on Ireland at the point of the gun. The
Republican party, Sinn Fein, split. Among those who
opposed the monstrous settlement were leaders such as Liam
Mellows, strongly influenced by Connolly’s teachings, and
Marxists within the Republican movement, such as Peadar
O’Donnell. Outside the Republican ranks the only party to
oppose the Treaty was the young Communist Party of
Ireland, led by James Connolly’s son, and a number of its
members took part in the fighting that ensued. In the twen
ties and thirties the Republican newspaper An Phoblacht
regularly carried articles by internationally known Marxists.
It may therefore be said, and the Irish reader of this book can
judge for himself from his own experience, that so little is
Marxism alien to the Irish tradition that reactionary ruling
classes, actual or prospective, have always sought specicd
means for insulating the people from its influence.
There was perhaps instinctive recognition of this fact in
Engels’s envious cry when O’Connell was parading Ireland
with two hundred thousand followers about him.“Give me”
(surely this emphasis is implied) “two hundred thousand
Irishmen and I could overthrow the entire British monar
chy.” Engels’s favourite resort was the home of the Bums
family, who had Fenian connections. After the death of his
constant companion Mary Burns in 1863, her sister Lizzie
became his second wife, and accompanied him on his visit to
Ireland in 1869. The fascination which the country held for
him was expressed in his description of the Irish climate:
“The weather, like the inhabitants, has a more acute charact
er, it moves in sharper, more sudden contrasts; the sky is like
an Irish woman’s face: here also rain and sunshine succeed
each other suddenly and unexpectedly and there is none of
the grey English boredom.” There is a research subject for
some young historian in the details of Engels’s connections
with Ireland and the Fenians of Lancashire.
Indeed, the publication of this collection prepared by Dr.
Golman and Dr. Valeria Kunina might well spur much
research in Irish and English political and economic history.
That Marx postulated a special variant of the universal law of
FOREWORD 21
capitalist accumulation in Ireland has been very little

appreciated even in Ireland, where it still appears to be
generally accepted that such economic categories as prices of
capital goods followed the same pattern in Ireland as in
England. It would be interesting to expand Marx’s analysis of
the eighteen sixties, in Capital, to cover a longer period and
to collate the data throughout the whole jfield of Irish
economic life. It would also not be impossible to find evid
ence that the special mode of capital accumulation discerned
by Marx over a hundred years ago is by no means defunct
today.
Marx and Engels never had the opportunity to arrange
and systematise all their ideas on Ireland and Irish history m
a state suitable for publication. As Dr. Golman points out,
despite the obvious existence of a completely ordered out
look, it has to be “gleaned from handwritten notes and
fragments”. But there is no subject on which Marx’s and
Engels’s views are not provocative of further thought. And
this is going to be the great value of this compilation. The
problems of Ireland today, internally, and in her relations
with England, Europe and the world, are complex and
thorny. Viewed as dogma Marx’s or Engels’s writings will not
help to solve them. But their writings were not intended as
dogma. Viewed as examples of the analytical methods of a
scientific genius, revealing the way problems were ap
proached and how thought out and solved, the contents of
this book make a most important contribution to the
equipment of the Labour and Republican movements in
Ireland, and to their progressive counterparts in Britain.
C. Desmond Greaves
Liverpool, September 1970
INTRODUCTION
This is the first endeavour to make a comprehensive col

lection of works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels on
Ireland and the Irish question—letters and articles, whole or
in part, excerpts from bigger works, transcripts and outlines
of speeches and reports, a number of synopses and rough
sketches. The supplement contains articles by Marx’s daught
er Jenny and documents of the international labour move
ment.
This collection is based on texts from the latest editions
of the works of Marx and Engels and of documents of the
International Working Men’s Association—the second Russian
edition of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels, the Marx-
Engels Archives, Vol. X (in Russian), and the five-volume
edition, The General Council o f the First International
Minutes, issued recently by the Institute of Marxism-Lenin
ism of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U., in Moscow.* Included in the
collection are a number of previously unknown works, letters
and documents casting additional light on the views of Marx
and Engels on the Irish question and affording the student a
more complete knowledge of their heritage.
Marx and Engels wrote more about Ireland than has been
collected between these covers. Their precis and notes on
Irish history and economy are given in part only, since sub
stantial sections of these preliminary summaries are still in
process of deciphering. However, this book comprises their
* Documents o f the First International, 5 vols., Progress Publishers,
Moscow.—Ed.
INTRODUCTION 23
most pertinent statements on the subject at hand and

presents a comprehensive picture of their views.
Ireland claimed the attention of Marx and Engels from
the 1840s onward. They followed the developments there,
responded to them in the press, spoke on Ireland at meetings
of the General Council of the First International, and dis
cussed the subject in letters to each other and to Ethers. Both
made a close study of Ireland’s economic and political situa
tion, and of her history and social relations. Marx used his
findings in his main work, Capital, while Engels, who paid
several visits to Ireland, wrote an account of his travels of
1856 and 1869 in some of his letters to Marx. Engels intend
ed to write a history of Ireland, gathered a store of material
for it, wrote the opening chapters, but did not live to com
plete his project.
Marx’s and Engels’s interest in Ireland ranged far afield.
As students of capitalist society, and as economists, sociolog
ists and historians, they seized the opportunity to examine
the operation of capitalist laws of development in an agrarian
and poorly developed land. The example of Ireland demon
strated the influence exerted by what was then the classic
capitalist country, England, from which they derived their
main data for analysing the laws of capitalist production.
Peasant countries and the peasant masses were of continuous
concern to the two theorists of the socialist revolution, who
arrived scientifically at the conception of a workers’ alliance
with the working peasants and of the peasants’ involvement
in the socialist reconstruction of society under the guidance
of the proletariat.
However, Ireland was not simply an agrarian country.
Marx and Engels saw her as a land subject to colonial domina
tion by a more powerful neighbour. Engels described Ireland
as England’s first colony (see p. 93), whose conquest dated
back to the latter half of the twelfth century. Social oppres
sion became interlaced with national oppression, since land
lords descended from the conquerors were the main ex
ploiters of the Irish peasants. The plunder of Ireland was one
of the sources of England’s industrial development, con
tributing to the rapid growth of her capitalist economy. Along
with Marx and Engels, Lenin described the process as follows:
24 INTRODUCTION
“Britain owes her ‘brilliant’ economic development and

the ‘prosperity’ of her industry and commerce largely to her
treatment of the Irish peasantry, which recalls the misdeeds
of the Russian serf-owner Saltychikha.
“While Britain ‘flourished*, Ireland moved towards ex
tinction and remained an undeveloped, semi-barbarous,
purely agrarian country, a land of poverty-stricken tenant
farmers.” (Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 148.)
Ireland shared the lot of other colonial countries ruthless
ly exploited as agrarian appendages and suppliers of raw
material. Marx referred to her in Capital as “an agricultural
district of England” supplying the latter with “com, wool,
cattle, industrial and military recruits” (see p. 114). Ireland
provided Marx and Engels, opponents of all social and
national oppression, with abundant material for their indict
ment of colonialism and for drawing up the workers’
programme of struggle against it.
For them, Ireland was of special interest as the seat of
continual resistance to oppression. Centuries of Irish resist
ance convinced them of the boundless vitality of the national
liberation movement of even such a relatively small people,
and of the futility of even the most systematic and cruel
measures to suppress it. “After the most savage suppression,
after every attempt to exterminate them,” Engels wrote in
one of his fragments, “the Irish, following a short respite,
stood stronger than ever before” (see p. 304). Marx and En
gels were deeply impressed by the inexhaustible revolution
ary energy of the Irish. “Give me two hundred thousand Irish
men,” young Engels said, “and I could overthrow the entire
British monarchy” (seep. 43). In Ireland Marx and Engels
traced the origins of the anti-colonial forces in an oppressed
country, the gradual development of the national liberation
movement, its specific features and trends.
The writings here collected show how thoroughly Marx
and Engels studied Irish history. They confuted many a
biased notion traceable to the chauvinist prejudices of
English bourgeois historians, economists and geographers,
and brought down to earth the romanticism of Irish national
ist historians. Bias, often disguised as objectivism, and distor
tions of history to suit the class interest of privileged social
INTRODUCTION 25
groups, infuriated Marx and Engels. In one of his sketches,

Engels wrote: “The bourgeoisie turns everything into a com
modity, hence also the writing of history. It is part of its
being, of its condition for existence, to falsify all goods: it
falsified the writing of history. And the best-paid historio
graphy is that which is best falsified for the purposes of the
bourgeoisie” (see p. 304). t
Engels considered the English liberal Goldwin Smith’s
Irish History and Irish Character a typically chauvinist
interpretation of Irish history. In his “Notes”, published in
this volume, Engels shows that Smith’s conception reflects
the tendency characteristic of the English bourgeoisie to
justify the colonial enslavement of Ireland. “The apologetic
intentions of this English bourgeois professor are concealed
behind a cloak of objectivity,” comments Engels about Smith
(see p. 356). Engels exposes Smith’s attempt at whitewashing
the English invaders by specious explanations of their sup
posedly civilising mission, claiming that they cared about
“the flowering of the country”. Concerning Smith’s discourse
about the “spirit of patience” and “liberal ideas” that sup
posedly motivated the policies of England’s ruling classes
towards Ireland and her other colonies, Engels writes: “And
this when the English have been engaged in conquests
throughout the century! ” (see p. 370). A bitter opponent of
Irish independence who would not shrink from any argument
to prove the “necessity” for England to retain power over the
Irish people, Smith, as Engels emphasised, strove in every
way to discredit the Irish national movement and present it
as a futile undertaking causing fruitless sedition. Using
Smith’s book as an example, Engels noted that another trait
of liberal historiographers was their abhorrence of revolu
tionary actions by the popular masses. “No trace of objectivi
ty remains here,” he wrote, describing in particular Smith’s
retrograde attacks on the French Revolution of the end of
the eighteenth century which had given a powerful push to,
and led to an upsurge of, the liberation struggle in Ireland
(see p. 365).
The treatment by Marx and Engels of some of the key
problems of Irish history is a credit to their scholarship. They
created an essentially new conception of Irish history based
26 INTRODUCTION
on the analytical method of historical materialism. Regret

tably, neither published a complete study, elucidating the
results of their investigation. We are compelled to glean their
conclusions from handwritten notes and fragments, some of
which first saw light only recently, and from their references
to Ireland in articles and letters. Taken as a whole, however,
these provide the basis of a scientific interpretation of the
history of Ireland, defining its main periods and explaining at
least the most important from antiquity to modem times.
They likewise demonstrated the close interconnection of Irish
and English history, the links between events on either side
of St. George’s Channel. True, many archaeological and
historical discoveries have been made since Marx’s and
Engels’s time, some facts clarified and many new sources
published. But their general observations and judgments—and
not only those of method, but many of purely historical
significance—are still entirely valid, since the new material has
corroborated them, adding to their value.
Permanently valid, for example, is Engels’s assessment, in
his History o f Ireland (1870), of the main sources of
knowledge about the early periods of Irish history, and
equally so is his characterisation of the social and political
system of the Celts in Ireland, their customs and culture. He
exposed the chauvinist content of the argument that the Irish
were culturally backward and incapable of running a state of
their own. He demonstrated the significant contribution to
Europe’s culture made in the early Middle Ages by Irish
Christian missionaries and scholars, among whom he makes
special mention of the philosopher Johannes Scotus Erigena,
whose doctrine, he wrote, “was very bold for the time”, and
led “close to Pantheism” (see p. 295). Irish history before the
Anglo-Norman conquest, too, Engels stressed, abounded in
heroic resistance to foreign invaders—the Vikings, culminat
ing in the Irish victory over the Norsemen at Clontarf in
1014.
Engels’s study of the survivals of clan relationships among
the Irish Celts enabled him to anticipate in 1870 some of the
conclusions about primitive societies drawn by Lewis Henry
Morgan, the distinguished American ethnologist, whose book
Ancient Society did not appear until 1877. Engels used the
INTRODUCTION
results of his investigations o f Irish history in his book, The

Origin o f the Family, Private Property and the State,
published in 1884. In his appraisal of the degree of social
development of Ireland in early feudal times, he recorded
traits typical of that period (political disunity, feudal
decentralisation, etc.), which made it relatively qasy for the
Anglo-Norman conquerors, representatives of a more
developed feudal society, to invade Ireland in the latter half
of the twelfth century.
In Marx’s notes for a report on Ireland dated December
16, 1867, in his work “Ireland from the American Revolu
tion to the Union of 1801. Extracts and Notes”, in Engels’s
fragments and notes for his History of Ireland, in Engels’s
letter to Marx’s daughter Jenny dated February 24, 1881,
and in other works in this collection, we find an account of
the main stages of the colonial subjection of Ireland, showing
how, over the centuries, from the day the English base later
known as the Pale was established in the south-eastern part of
the island until the subjugation of the entire island in the
16th-17th centuries, Ireland became a colony of English
landlords and capitalists, the “bulwark”, as Marx put it, “of
English landlordism” (see p. 253). Destructive wars were
fought to conquer Ireland, national risings were brutally
suppressed, the clan system forcibly exterminated, and land
confiscated and appropriated by aliens. The tragic conse
quences are shown in bold relief. “The more I study the
subject, the clearer it is to me,” Engels wrote to Marx on
January 19, 1870, “that Ireland has been stunted in her
development by the English invasion and thrown cen
turies back. And this ever since the 12th century” (see
p. 400).
The decisive phase in the conquest of Ireland, Marx and
Engels stressed, came at the time of English absolutism and
the 17th-century bourgeois revolution, when the capitalist
system gradually expanded and the feudal barriers to its
growth were tom down. Ireland then fell prey to the rising
bourgeoisie and the gentry who were turning bourgeois. Marx
and Engels demonstrated that every change in England in
that stormy age—the Tudor and early Stuart era, the English
revolution and Cromwell’s protectorate, the Stuart Restora
28 INTRODUCTION
tion, and the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688—was for Ireland

an intensification of suppression, a new phase in which her
colonial ravishers used the most bloody methods for the
purposes of “primitive accumulation”, forcible redivision of
estates among the invaders and consolidation and expansion
of English landlordism. “The Irish people were completely
crushed by Elizabeth, James I, Oliver Cromwell and William
of Orange, their landholdings robbed and given to English
invaders, the Irish people outlawed in their own land and
transformed into a nation of outcasts,” Engels wrote (see
p. 383).
Marx and Engels studied the forms of English colonial
rule in the subsequent periods. For them the penal laws
issued at the end of the seventeenth century on the pretext
of combating Catholic plots, and enforced almost throughout
the eighteenth century, were a tool for the final expropria
tion and enslavement of the Irish people, robbing them of
political and civil rights, rooting out their national culture,
customs and traditions. In his excerpts and notes about one
of the most dramatic periods in Irish history—from the mid
seventies to the end of the eighteenth century—Marx very
clearly exposes the colonial oppression imposed by the
English ruling classes. Public life in Ireland developed in that
period under the influence of two revolutionary events of
world-historical importance—the American War of Independ
ence of 1775-83 and the French bourgeois revolution of
1789-94. In order to avoid having their rule overthrown by
the powerful Irish national liberation movement, England’s
ruling circles resorted in those years to an especially vicious
and crafty policy. Marx’s manuscript casting light on the
particularities of this policy is a document of exceptional
accusatory force. Marx shows in it that the colonialists’
arsenal already then contained a whole series of both
economic and political means of oppression: police arbitrari
ness, provocations, spying, persecution of patriots in law
courts, use of mercenaries and. terrorist groups, and, in
critical moments, of back-tracking, hypocritical promises,
and temporary concessions for show only. Marx emphasised
that, acting on the ancient Roman conquerors’ principle of
“divide and rule”, England’s statesmen went out of their way
INTRODUCTION 29
to carry dissent into the Irish national camp, playing on

social contradictions, making wide use of bribery, firing
religious fanaticism and sowing discord between the Pro
testants and Catholics. It was by these methods that the Irish
people had thrust on them the forced union of Great Britain
(England and Scotland) and Ireland. ^
Marx and Engels demonstrated the colonialist nature of
the Act of Union of 1801, and stressed that it was a sequel to
the suppression of the Irish rising of 1798, the military
occupation and the pressure brutally brought to bear on the
Irish Parliament. The Union robbed the Irish of the gains
made during the national revival in the latter decades of the
eighteenth century, when the English Government was
compelled, under pressure of the American and French
revolutions to grant important concessions, to repeal most of
the penal laws and to recognise Irish parliamentary
autonomy. The Union abolished the Irish Parliament and
ushered in a new phase in Britain’s colonial rule. The protec
tive tariffs passed by the Irish Parliament were lifted as a
result, and Ireland’s budding industries were crippled.
Farming became practically the only activity to which the
local population could apply itself. “The people had now
before them,” Marx wrote, “the choice between the occupa
tion of land, at any rent, or starvation” (see p. 142).
LThe Union established a system of plunder of the Irish
peasants by landlords and middlemen (Marx called it a
“system of rack-renting”) which combined the worst features
of capitalist exploitation with appropriation, by semi-feudal
methods, of the surplus (and all too often the necessary)
product. This is shown by Marx in Capital (Vol. Ill) and by
Engels in his letter to N. F. Danielson of June 10, 1890. The
English ruling classes, Marx wrote in his article, “The Indian
Question—Irish Tenant Right”, created in Ireland “those
abominable ‘conditions of society’ which enable a small caste
of rapacious lordlings to dictate to the Irish people the terms
on which they shall be allowed to hold the land and to live
upon it” (see p. 71).
This system of exploitation of the small tenant reduced
the Irish population to appalling poverty, described in
Engels’s The Condition o f the Working-Class in England and
30 INTRODUCTION
in other works of the founders of Marxism. Recurrent crop

failures resulted in periodic famines. That of 1845-47 sur
passed, however, anything that had been previously ex
perienced. The almost total failure of the potato crop was
rendered immeasurably more disastrous by the continued
export of grain that was the basis of the landlords’ rent. No
event has so impressed itself on the memory of the Irish
people. “The Irish population,” Marx wrote, “decreased by
two millions, some of whom starved, while others fled across
the Atlantic” (see p. 105).
In the mid-19th century the Irish were struck by a new
disaster, in part precipitated by the famine. Landowners
began to refuse to rent out the small strips of land customari
ly sown to grain or potatoes. Instead, they took up large-scale
grazing, to the accompaniment of wholesale evictions.
Marx and Engels saw this process as a fresh source of
acute social and national contradictions. They demonstrated
the causes, nature and consequences of the agrarian upheaval,
showing that it was pursued in the interest of the big land
lords, big tenant farmers and the English bourgeoisie who,
after the repeal of the corn laws in 1846 and the fall in bread
prices, wanted cheaper animal products. For the bulk of the
Irish nation, however, the agrarian change meant loss of
livelihood, even of hearth and home. Marx described it as
“quiet business-like extinction” (see p. 133), marking the
beginning of a continuous decline in the population of
Ireland mainly by forced emigration. As Marx’s daughter
Eleanor put it, Ireland became the Niobe of the nations, a
country that was losing her children.
“In 1855-66,” Marx wrote, “1,032,694 Irishmen were
displaced by 996,877 head of cattle.” The most urgent need
was to end the forcible eviction of peasants and to stop the
landlords, backed by the English authorities, from robbing
the Irish farmers of their livelihood. This, Marx and Engels
stressed, must be the first objective for the Irish national
liberation movement.
They focussed their attention on the Irish fight for
emancipation, tracing it back to the stout resistance of the
clans to the invasion of the Anglo-Norman feudal knights in
the Middle Ages, which was repeated at the time of Britain’s
INTRODUCTION 31
16th- and 17th-century colonial expansion. Thus, in 1641-52

and 1689-91, Ireland was the scene of general insurrections
against English rule. The national resurgence at the end of the
eighteenth century was another important landmark,
culminating in the 1798 rising. Marx and Engels wrote in
glowing terms of the Irish revolutionaries of that period, the
founders of the patriotic Society of United Îrishmen, Wolfe
Tone, Edward Fitzgerald and others.
The works of Marx and Engels provide something of a
chronicle of the Irish national liberation movement. Its main
features are closely examined in the light of their scien
tific outlook. Thus, for example, in his above-mentioned
manuscript “Ireland from the American Revolution to the
Union of 1801” Marx traces in detail the course of the Irish
people’s liberation struggle. The author gives a profound
explanation of the social roots and motive forces of the
national movement at that time and clearly shows the posi
tions of the various classes of Irish society, the role played in
it by the peasant masses and the urban poor. A researcher
with a perfect grasp of the dialectical method, Marx
examined the Irish movement in its developriient, revealed
the main stages of its evolution, and exposed the antagonistic
tendencies within it, pointing out which of these gained the
upper hand at various stages. Marx considered the main
characteristic of this process to be the growth of the struggle
for parliamentary autonomy—a struggle led in the main
within a constitutional framework under the aegis of liberal
elements in the Irish nobility and bourgeoisie who stood at
the head of the armed patriotic organisation of Irish
Volunteers—into a genuinely revolutionary struggle for the
country’s independence. Progressive elements of the national
bourgeoisie gradually came to the fore in this movement.
They expressed the interests of the popular masses and the
moderate national programme was replaced by a radical one:
the call for autonomy became a call for an independent
republic along the lines of that proclaimed in France in 1792.
The demand for Catholics to be given equal rights with
Protestants was interpreted as meaning the liberation of the
Catholic peasant masses from semi-feudal slavery, while the
orientation on parliamentary methods of struggle gave way to
32 INTRODUCTION
calls for national resistance—up to and including an armed
rebellion. Marx considered that the Rubicon in these changes
was the formation in 1791 of the United Irishmen Society.
“From this moment,” he wrote, “the movement of the
Volunteers merges into that of the United Irishmen. The
Catholic question became that of the Irish people. The ques
tion was no longer to remove disabilities from the Catholic
upper and middle classes, but to emancipate the Irish
peasant, for the vast part Catholic. The question became
social as to its matter, assumed French political principles, as
to its form, remained national” (see p. 175).
The highest stage of the development of the liberation
struggle came, as Marx noted, in 1795 when the Left wing of
the United Irishmen society took the revolutionary path,
giving the movement a profoundly democratic character. The
popular uprising of 1798 crowned the heroic efforts of the
progressive strata of Irish society to liberate the country from
colonial dependence and open the doors to the unavoidable
bourgeois-democratic reforms. In explaining the weaker sides
of the United Irishmen movement and the reasons for its
defeat, Marx at the same time stressed the historical signific
ance of the Irish revolutionary events at the end of the
eighteenth century, their role in deepening and consolidating
the Irish people’s traditions of freedom. His work demon
strates the importance of analysing the lessons to be drawn
from these events for an understanding of the conditions
under which oppressed people may be liberated and the
necessity for the struggle to be both for the national interests
of the enslaved nation and for satisfying the social needs of
the mass of the people. Marx considered the United
Irishmen’s revolutionary legacy—their striving to over
come the discord between Protestants and Catholics and
achieve national consolidation of the Irish people’s pro
gressive forces on a democratic basis—to be very valuable.
Marx’s and Engels’s works and letters give an assessment
of the revolutionary deeds of the Irish peasantry (Whiteboys,
Ribbonism, etc.); the movement for repeal of the Anglo-Irish
Union; the Irish revolutionary organisations—Young Ireland
and the Irish Confederation—which attempted insurrection in
1848; the petit-bourgeois Fenians who repeated the attempt
INTRODUCTION 33
in 1867; the Home Rule movement; the agitation of the Land
League, etc.
Their account of the Fenian movement is particularly
thorough. Marx maintained that it “took root only in the
mass of the people, the lower orders” (see p. 136), expressing
the farmers’ protest against evictions and the nation’s craving
for national independence and social emancipation. Marx and
Engels alike praised the bourgeois Home Rule Confederation
and its leader, Charles Stewart Parnell (whose work is
examined in many of Marx’s and Engels’s letters of the late
seventies and early eighties and by Engels after Marx’s death),
who, at the height of the movement, sought contact with the
Irish masses. They praised Parnell for his part in founding the
Land League. It was popular support, indeed, that helped the
champions of Home Rule to gain their impressive political
strength and to profit by the contradictions between the
English ruling parties.
Marx and Engels admired the freedom-loving traditions of
the Irish. Moreover, they believed that the Irish people’s
struggle had a fruitful influence on the English public mind.
“The Irish are teaching our leisurely John Bull to get a move
on,” Engels wrote to one of his correspondents (see p. 450).
And in “The English Elections”, an article written in 1874,
he described the fighting Irish and the demonstrations of the
English workers as the “motive forces of English political
development” (see p. 428).
At the same time, they were far from idealising the
national movement in Ireland, or anywhere else, for they
were always keenly aware of its weak sides at different stages
of its growth and of its heterogeneous class composition. In a
letter to Eduard Bernstein dated June 26, 1882, Engels
observed that the Irish movement consisted of two trends:
the radical agrarian that erupted into spontaneous peasant
actions and was represented by democrats and revolu
tionaries, on the one hand, and the “liberal-national opposi
tion of the urban bourgeoisie” (see p. 451), on the other. The
sympathies of Marx and Engels lay naturally with the radical
wing which was oriented towards the revolutionary liberation
of Ireland and expressed the social demands of the people.
The policy of the Irish liberals (their narrow national
2-226
34 INTRODUCTION
programme, their fear of setting loose the revolutionary
energy of the people, their appeals for moderation, their love
of conciliation and of deals with the English ruling classes)
evoked severe criticism, which was, indeed, often extremely
sharp, as in the case of Daniel O’Connell.
But the class narrowness of the radicals, whose illusions
and errors Marx and Engels criticised, did not escape them
either. They disapproved of the Fenian leaders’ adventurist
plotting, their inability to pick the right tactical means suited
to a given situation, their national narrowness, typical of so
many other Irish leaders, and their refusal to understand the
importance of contacts with the English democratic, especial
ly proletarian, movement. Engels wrote scathingly that “to
these gentry the whole labour movement is pure heresy and
the Irish peasant must not on any account be allowed to
know that the socialist workers are his sole allies in Europe”
(see p. 397).
The rising Irish proletariat must, of course, play a
prominent role in the country’s national liberation move
ment. Marx and Engels welcomed the early signs of its
awakening as a class and, among other things, its participa
tion in the Land and Labour League founded in the autumn
of 1869 on the initiative of the General Council of the Inter
national. They welcomed the establishment of Irish sections
of the International Working Men’s Association in Ireland,
Great Britain and the United States, and gave rebuff to the
attempts of the reformists from the British Federal Council
to gain control over these sections. They cultivated the
friendship of Joseph Patrick MacDonnell, Corresponding
Secretary of the General Council for Ireland. Their contacts
with him continued after he settled in the United States,
where he was active among the Irish immigrant workers.
In the late eighties and early nineties Engels was keenly
interested in the fact that Irish workers were joining the
Union of Gasworkers and General Labourers, one of the new
trade unions with branches in Ireland. He censured the
leaders of the Social-Democratic Federation and the In
dependent Labour Party for their sectarian disregard of the
national interests of the Irish workers.
Marx and Engels were untiring in their exposure of
INTRODUCTION 35
English police brutality against Irish revolutionaries. Their

public statements, together with the articles of Jenny, Marx’s
elder daughter, and those of other leaders of the Inter
national denouncing English reprisals against Irish freedom
fighters, inhuman treatment in English jails and the humiliat
ing conditions imposed by the English authorities as the price
for amnesty, etc., were, in effect, a scathing indictment of
English rule. There were rigid police control and coercion
laws, on the one hand, and petty half-hearted reforms, on the
other, designed to distract attention from the crying need for
more fundamental changes. These were coupled with small
concessions to the upper crust of Irish society—the Irish
bourgeoisie, landowners and top Catholic clergy—designed to
split and weaken the national camp. Gross brutality was
accompanied by demagogy and half-measures that did little
to alleviate the lot of the Irish people. Thus Marx and Engels
assessed the agrarian and other English-sponsored reforms in
Ireland, particularly the Land Acts of 1870 and 1881. “But
something had to be done to pull the wool over the eyes of
the public. It was essential to appear to be doing something
for Ireland,” Marx wrote (see p. 260).
The only solution consistent with the basic interests of
the Irish people and the principles of true democracy is
contained in documents written by Marx and Engels. Their
programme for Ireland’s national liberation and social revival
was based on recognition of the right to self-determination of
the Irish and other oppressed peoples. It demanded repeal of
the forcibly imposed union of Great Britain and Ireland, and
independence for Ireland including the right of secession. As
Marx and Engels saw it, those should have been the slogans of
the English labour movement. They did not rule out a future
voluntary and free federation of Ireland and England in the
event of propitious radical social and political changes in the
latter country. But they insisted that the choice of the
appropriate form of relationship between the two countries
should rest with the oppressed nation. The duty of the
English workers, they pointed out, was to back the right of
the Irish to this choice and to support the Irish fight for
independence, working for the elimination in Ireland of all
forms of national oppression and coercion. Lenin described
2*
36 INTRODUCTION
this as “a splendid example of the attitude the proletariat of
the oppressor nations should adopt towards national move
ments, an example which has lost none of its immense
practical importance.” (Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 442.)
Marx’s recommendations are still valid. He pointed out
that the struggle for Ireland’s national independence should
fuse with that for the revolutionary remaking of the agrarian
system (he spoke of it as “agrarian revolution”, see p. 158),
stressing that political independence in itself, necessary
though it is, cannot guarantee that the former colony is
relieved of every element of dependence on the former
metropolitan country. To be genuinely independent it must
achieve economic independence. Marx advised the Irish to
introduce protective tariffs against the destructive competi
tion of English industry (see Marx’s letter to Engels,
November 30, 1867, p. 158).
The liberation of colonial and dependent countries in
recent years, and the subsequent history of Ireland, bear out
these views of Marx and Engels. Their orientation towards
revolutionary methods is proved correct by the experience of
the colonial and dependent peoples who have shaken off
their oppressors. And so is the idea that the struggle for
independence must be combined with internal social recon
struction in the interest of the masses, sweeping away the
social and economic consequences of colonial rule and build
ing up an independent economy.
In their writings on Ireland, Marx and Engels demonstrat
ed the essential connection between the national liberation
movement and the workers’ struggle for the socialist recon
struction of the world. They called on the English workers
and the fighters for Ireland’s independence to join hands.
Engels, for example, advocated close bonds between the
Chartists and the Irish liberation movement as early as in the
1840s (see his articles, “The Coercion Bill for Ireland and the
Chartists” and “Feargus O’Connor and the Irish People”). At
the time of the First International, Marx told the English
workers time and time again that “/or them the natioval
emancipation of Ireland is no question of abstract justice or
humanitarian sentiment, but the first condition of their own
social emancipation” (see p. 408). Marx and Engels emphasised
INTRODUCTION 37
the ruinous effects on the workers of the chauvinist ideology

and national strife that the capitalists were eager to cultivate
among them. They demonstrated—graphically in the case of
Anglo-Irish relations—that colonial oppression was a brake on
the progressive development of the oppressor nation as well,
because it strengthened the hand of the ruling exploiting
class. Looking back, they showed, among otfter things, that
the plunder of Irish land and the implantation of the new
English aristocracy in Ireland under Oliver Cromwell paved
the way for the Stuart Restoration. “By engaging in the
conquest of Ireland, Cromwell threw the English Republic
out the window,” Marx wrote (see p. 138). “England’s dist
ress” is how Marx evaluated the consequences for the English
people of the colonising Act of Union of 1801, having in
mind the intensification as a result of its passage of the
oligarchic regime in the parent state itself (see p. 177). The
Union, he pointed out, gave the English aristocracy and
upper bourgeoisie an excuse for increasing the size of the
standing army and the police machine used to suppress the
working people on both islands. “Any nation that oppresses
another forges its own chains,” was how he worded one of
his key postulates that show the importance for the work
ers to adopt an internationalist position in national co
lonial matter (see Marx’s “Confidential Communication”,
p. 255).
For Marx and Engels the national liberation movement
was an ally of the working-class struggle against the system of
exploitation. They saw the interaction of the liberative
processes in the colonies and the metropolitan countries. The
working class, as they saw it, was the decisive factor in the
emancipation of the human race from all exploitation, but it
must ally itself with the peasants in the fight against feudal
and capitalist oppression and with the national liberation
movement in freeing the oppressed peoples.
Ireland’s fight for independence was to have a revolu
tionising effect on the English workers, rousing them to
action. Whereas in the forties and fifties Marx had held that
Ireland would gain her freedom through the victory of the
English working class, in the sixties he considered it more
probable that Irish victory would spark off the English
38 INTRODUCTION
workers’ fight for socialism (see above-mentioned letter by
Marx to Engels, December 10, 1869). Once Ireland was lost,
Marx wrote to Paul and Laura Lafargue on March 5, 1870,
“the class war in England, till now somnolent and chronic,
will assume acute forms” (see p. 404).
Lenin explained the reasons for the change in Marx’s
viewpoint as follows: “At first Marx thought that Ireland
would not be liberated by the national movement of the
oppressed nation, but by the working-class movement of the
oppressor nation....
“However, it so happened that the English working class
fell under the influence of the liberals for a fairly long time,
became an appendage to the liberals, and by adopting a
liberal-labour policy left itself leaderless. The bourgeois
liberation movement in Ireland grew stronger and assumed
revolutionary forms. Marx reconsidered his view and correct
ed it. ‘What a misfortune it is for a nation to have subjugated
another.’ The English working class will never be free until
Ireland is freed from the English yoke. Reaction in England is
strengthened and fostered by the enslavement of Ireland (just
as reaction in Russia is fostered by her enslavement of a
number of nations! ).” (Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 440.)
While allowing for the inevitable variety in the forms and
course of the revolutionary processes by which the oppressed
peoples would liberate themselves—for these depend on
varying situations—Marx and Engels were convinced that the
internationalist unity of the working class and the fighters for
national independence was essential in all cases. They
championed the idea of fraternal union between the Irish
working people and the English workers, a union between
them and all the workers of the world as a condition for a
free, progressive future for England, as well as Ireland.
SH * *
The works included in this collection are arranged chro

nologically. At the end of each are indicated the date of its
first publication, the language of the original from which the
English translation was made and, wherever the text was
INTRODUCTION 39
originally English, the edition here reproduced. The collec

tion is supplied with notes, and with name and subject
indexes, though some minor characters mentioned m the
“Chronology of Ireland” are not listed.
Explanatory notes in square brackets have been added to
the text by the editors in the places where the manuscript is
damaged or illegible. Certain abbreviations afe given in full by
the same method. The titles supplied by the editors for the
various works and fragments left untitled by their authors are
also given in square brackets. In the cases where the authors
themselves used square brackets, these have been changed to
cursive.
This edition is an enlarged version of the first, which was
printed twice, in 1971 and 1974. Marx’s manuscript “Ireland
from the American Revolution to the Union of 1801” and
Engels’s “Notes on Goldwin Smith’s Irish History and Irish
Character” have been added in the present collection. The
former work was for a long time preserved in the personal
archives of the descendants of Marx’s eldest daughter, Jenny
Longuet, and has only recently come into the hands of
researchers. Both works were first published in 1975 in an
additional volume (Vol. 45) to the second Russian edition of
the Collected Works of Marx and Engels. Engels’s “Varia on
the History of the Irish Confiscations”, previously included
in this collection, is now reprinted in accordance with the
text in Vol. 45. In view of the changed contents, the In
troduction and reference material in this edition have been
revised.
L. I. Golman
Moscow
KARL MARX
AND
FREDERICK ENGELS
Ireland
and the Irijsh Question
Frederick Engels
LETTERS FROM LONDON 1
One hears nothing now but talk about O’Connell and the
Irish Repeal (abolition of the Union of Ireland and En
gland ).2 O’Connell, the cunning old lawyer, who during the
Whig government sat calmly in the House of Commons and
helped to pass “liberal” measures in order to be rejected by
the House of Lords, O’Connell has suddenly left London and
absented himself from the parliamentary debates and is now
raising again his old question of repeal. No one was thinking
about it any more; and then Old Dan* turns up in Dublin and
is again raking up the stale obsolete lumber. It is not surpris
ing that the old yeast is now producing remarkable air-
bubbles. The cunning old fox is going from town to town,
always accompanied by a: bodyguard such as no king ever
had—two hundred thousand people always surround him!
How much could have been done if a sensible man possessed
O’Connell’s popularity or if O’Connell had a little more
understanding and a little less egoism and vanity! Two
hundred thousand menând what men! People who have
nothing to lose, two-thirds of whom are clothed in rags,
genuine proletarians and sansculottes and, moreover, Irish
men, wild, headstrong, fanatical Gaels. One who has never
seen Irishmen cannot know them. Give me two hundred
thousand Irishmen and I will overthrow the entire British
monarchy. The Irishman is a carefree, cheerful, potato-eating
child of nature. From his native heath, where he grew up,
under a broken-down roof, on weak tea and meagre food, he
* Daniel O’Connell.—Ed.
44 FREDERICK ENGELS
is suddenly thrown into our civilisation. Hunger drives him to

England. In the mechanical, egoistic, ice-cold hurly-burly of
the English factory towns, his passions are aroused. What
does this raw young fellow—whose youth was spent playing
on moors and begging at the roadside—know of thrift? He
squanders what he earns, then he starves until the next pay
day or until he again finds work. He is accustomed to going
hungry. Then he goes back, seeks out the members of his
family on the road where they had scattered in order to beg,
from time to time assembling again around the teapot, which
the mother carries with her. But in England the Irishman saw
a great deal, he attended public meetings and workers’
associations, he knows what Repeal is and what Sir Robert
Peel stands for, he quite certainly has often had fights with
the police and could tell you a great deal about the heartless
ness and disgraceful behaviour of the “Peelers” (the police).
He has also heard a lot about Daniel O’Connell. Now he once
more returns to his old cottage with its bit of land for
potatoes. The potatoes are ready for harvesting, he digs them
up, and now he has something to live on during the winter.
But here the principal tenant3 appears, demanding the rent.
Good God, where’s the money to come from? The principal
tenant is responsible to the landowner for the rent, and there
fore has his property attached. The Irishman offers resistance
and is thrown into goal. Finally, he is set free again, and soon
afterwards the principal tenant or someone else who took
part in the attachment of the property is found dead in a
ditch.
That is a story from the life of the Irish proletarians
which is of daily occurrence. The half-savage upbringing
and later the completely civilised environment bring the
Irishman into contradiction with himself, into a state of
permanent irritation, of continually smouldering fury,
which makes him capable of anything. In addition he bears
the burden of five centuries of oppression with all its
consequences. Is it surprising that, like any other half
savage, he strikes out blindly and furiously on every
opportunity, that his eyes burn with a perpetual thirst for
revenge, a destructive fury, for which it is altogether a
matter of indifference what it is directed against, so long as
it can strike out and destroy? But that is not all. The
violent national hatred of the Gaels against the Saxons, the
orthodox Catholic fanaticism fostered by the clergy against
Protestant-episcopal arrogance--with these elements anyth
ing can be accomplished. And all these elements are in
O’Connell’s hands. And what a multitude of people are at
his disposal! The day before yesterday fin Cork—150,000
men, yesterday in Nenaph—200,000, today in Kilkenny-
400,000, and so it goes on. A triumphal procession lasting
a fortnight, a triumphal procession such as no Roman
emperor ever had. And if O’Connell really had the welfare
of the people in view, if he were really concerned to
abolish poverty—if his miserable, petty juste-milieu4 aims
were not behind all the clamour and the agitation for
Repeal—I should truly like to know what Sir Robert Peel
could refuse him if he demanded it while at the head of
such a force as he now has. But what does he achieve with
all his power and his millions of valiant and desperate
Irishmen? He is unable to accomplish even the wretched
Repeal of the Union; of course solely because he is not
serious about it, because he is misusing the impoverished,
oppressed Irish people in order to embarrass the Tory
Ministers and to put back into office his juste-milieu
friends. Sir Robert Peel, too, knows this well enough, and
hence 25,000 soldiers are quite enough to keep all Ireland
in check. If O’Connell were really the man of the people* if
he had sufficient courage and were not himself afraid o f
the people, i.e., if he were not a double-faced Whig, but an
upright, consistent democrat, then the last English soldier
would have left Ireland long since, there would no longer
be any idle Protestant priest in purely Catholic districts, or
any Old-Norman baron in his castle. But there is the rub. If
the people were to be set free even for a moment, then
Daniel O’Connell and his moneyed aristocrats would soon
be just as much left high and dry as he wants to leave the
Tories high and dry. That is the reason for Daniel’s close
association with the Catholic clergy, that is why he warns
his Irishmen against dangerous socialism, that is why he
rejects the support offered by the Chartists,5 although for
appearances sake he now and again talks about de-
46 FREDERICK ENGELS
mocracy—just as Louis Philippe in his day talked about

Republican institutions—and that is why he will never
succeed in achieving anything but the political education of
the Irish people, which in the long run is to no one more
dangerous than to himself.
Published in Schweizerischer K. Marx and F. Engels,

Republikaner No. 51, Collected Works, Vol. 3,
June 27,1843 pp. 389-91
F re d e ric k Engels
THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING-CLASS

IN ENGLAND6 r
From the chapter THE GREAT TOWNS
Let us investigate some of the slums in their order.

London comes first,* and in London the famous rookery of
St. Giles which is now, at last, about to be penetrated by a
couple of broad streets. St. Giles is in the midst of the most
populous part of the town, surrounded by broad, splendid
avenues in which the gay world of London idles about, in the
immediate neighbourhood of Oxford Street, Regent Street,
of Trafalgar Square and the Strand. It is a disorderly collec
tion of tall, three or four-storied houses, with narrow,
crooked, filthy streets, in which there is quite as much life as
in the great thoroughfares of the town, except that, here,
people of the working-class only are to be seen. A vegetable
market is held in the street, baskets with vegetables and
fruits, naturally all bad and hardly fit to use, obstruct the
sidewalk still further, and from these, as well as from the
fish-dealers’ stalls, arises a horrible smell. The houses are
occupied from cellar to garret, filthy within and without, and
their appearance is such that no human being could possibly
wish to live in them. But all this is nothing in comparison
with the dwellings in the narrow courts and alleys between
the streets, entered by covered passages between the houses,
in which the filth and tottering ruin surpass all description.
* The description given below had already been written when I
came across an article in the Illuminated Magazine (October 1844)
deeding with the working-class districts in London which coincides-în
many places almost literally and everywhere in general tenor—with
what I had said. The article is entitled “The Dwellings of the Poor, from
the note-book of an M.D.”
FREDERICK ENGELS
Scarcely a whole window-pane can be found, the walls are
crumbling, door-posts and window-frames loose and broken,
doors of old boards nailed together, or altogether wanting in
this thieves’ quarter, where no doors are needed, there being
nothing to steal. Heaps of garbage and ashes lie in all direc
tions, and the foul liquids emptied before the doors gather in
stinking pools. Here live the poorest of the poor, the worst
paid workers with thieves and the victims of prostitution
indiscriminately huddled together, the majority Irish, or of
Irish extraction, and those who have not yet sunk in the
whirlpool of moral ruin which surrounds them, sinking daily
deeper, losing daily more and more of their power to resist
the demoralising influence of want, filth, and evil surround
ings.
...But the most horrible spot (if I should describe all the
separate spots in detail I should never come to the end) lies
on the Manchester side, immediately south-west of Oxford
Road, and is known as Little Ireland. In a rather deep hole, in
a curve of the Medlock and surrounded on all four sides by
tall factories and high embankments, covered with buildings,
stand two groups of about two hundred cottages, built
chiefly back to back, in which live about four thousand
human beings, most of them Irish. The cottages are old,
dirty, and of the smallest sort, the streets uneven, fallen into
ruts and in part without drains or pavement; masses of refuse,
offal and sickening filth lie among standing pools in all direc
tions; the atmosphere is poisoned by the effluvia from these,
and laden and darkened by the smoke of a dozen tall factory
chimneys. A horde of ragged women and children swarm
about here, as filthy as the swine that thrive upon the garbage
heaps and in the puddles. In short, the whole rookery
furnishes such a hateful and repulsive spectacle as can hardly
be equalled in the worst court on the Irk. The race that lives
in these ruinous cottages, behind broken windows, mended
with oilskin, sprung doors, and rotten door-posts, or in dark,
wet cellars, in measureless filth and stench, in this atmo
sphere penned in as if with a purpose, this race must really
have reached the lowest stage of humanity. This is the
impression and the line of thought which the exterior of this
district forces upon the beholder. But what must one think
THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING-CLASS IN ENGLAND 49
when he hears that in each of these pens, containing at most

two rooms, a garret and perhaps a cellar, on the average
twenty human beings live; that in the whole region, for each
one hundred and twenty persons, one usually inaccessible
privy is provided; and that in spite of all the preachings of the
physicians, in spite of the excitement into which the cholera
epidemic plunged the sanitary police by reaSon of the condi
tion of Little Ireland, in spite of everything, in this year of
grace 1844, it is in almost the same state as in 1831! Dr.,Kay
asserts* that not only the cellars but the first floors of all the
houses in this district are damp; that a number of cellars once
filled up with earth have now been emptied and are occupied
once more by Irish people; that in one cellar the water
constantly wells up through a hole stopped with clay, the
cellar lying below the river level, so that its occupant, a hand-
loom weaver, had to bale out the water from his dwelling
every morning and pour it into the street!
From the chapter THE AGRICULTURAL PROLETARIAT
If England illustrates the results of the system of farming

on a large scale and Wales on a small one, Ireland exhibits the
consequences of overdividing the soil. The great mass of the
population of Ireland consists of small tenants who occupy a
sorry hut without partitions, and a potato patch just large
enough to supply them most scantily with potatoes through
the winter. In consequence of the great competition which
prevails among these small tenants, the rent has reached an
unheard-of height, double, treble, and quadruple that paid in
England. For every agricultural labourer seeks to become a
tenant-farmer, and though the division of land has gone so
far, there still remain numbers of labourers in competition
for plots. Although in Great Britain 32,000,000 acres of land
are cultivated, and in Ireland but 14,000,000; although Great
Britain produces agricultural products to the value of
£150,000,000, and Ireland of but £36,000,000, there are in
* Dr. Kay, loc. cit. ?
50 FREDERICK ENGELS
Ireland 75,000 agricultural proletarians more than in the

neighbouring island.* How great the competition for land in
Ireland must be is evident from this extraordinary disprop
ortion, especially when one reflects that the labourers in
Great Britain are living in the utmost distress. The conse
quence of this competition is that it is impossible for the
tenants to live much better than the labourers, by reason of
the high rents paid. The Irish people is thus held in crushing
poverty, from which it cannot free itself under our present
social conditions. These people live in the most wretched clay
huts, scarcely good enough for cattle-pens, have scant food
all winter long, or, as the report above quoted expresses it,
they have potatoes half enough thirty weeks in the year, and
the rest of the year nothing. When the time comes in the
spring at which this provision reaches its end, or can no
longer be used because of its sprouting, wife and children go
forth to beg and tramp the country with their kettle in their
hands. Meanwhile the husband, after planting potatoes for
the next year, goes in search of work either in Ireland or
England, and returns at the potato harvest to his family. This
is the condition in which nine-tenths of the Irish country
folks live. They are poor as church mice, wear the most
wretched rags, and stand upon the lowest plane of intel
ligence possible in a half-civilised country. According to the
report quoted, there are, in a population of 8 1/2 millions,
585,000 heads of families in a state of total destitution; and
according to other authorities, cited by Sheriff Alison,** there
are in Ireland 2,300,000 persons who could not live without
public or private assistance—or 27 per cent of the whole
population paupers!
The cause of this poverty lies in the existing social
conditions, especially in competition here found in the
form of the subdivision of the soil. Much effort has been
spent in finding other causes. It has been asserted that the
relation of the tenant to the landlord who lets his estate in
large lots to tenants, who again have their sub-tenants, and
* Report of the Poor Law Commission on Ireland [Parliamentary
Session of 1837].
** Archibald Alison, The Principles o f Population, and their Con
nection with Human Happiness, Vol. II, London, 1840.—Ed.
sub-sub-tenants, in turn, so that often ten middlemen come

between the landlord and the actual cultivator—it has been
asserted that the shameful law which gives the landlord the
right of expropriating the cultivator who may have paid his
rent duly, if the first tenant fails to pay the landlord, that
this law is to blame for all this poverty. But all this
determines only the form in which theipoverty manifests
itself. Make the small tenant a landowner himself and what
follows? The majority could not live upon their holdings
even if they had no rent to pay, and any slight improve
ment which might take place would be lost again in a few
years in consequence of the rapid increase of population.
The children would then live to grow up under the
improved conditions who now die in consequence of
poverty in early childhood. From another side comes the
assertion that the shameless oppression inflicted by the
English is the cause of the trouble. It is the cause of the
somewhat earlier appearance of this poverty, but not of the
poverty itself. Or the blame is laid on the Protestant
Church forced upon a Catholic nation; but divide among
the Irish what the Church takes from them, and it does not
reach six shillings a head. Besides, tithes are a tax upon
landed property, not upon the tenant, though he may
nominally pay them; now, since the Commutation Bill of
1838,8 the landlord pays the tithes directly and reckons so
much higher rent, so that the tenant is none the better off.
And in the same way a hundred other causes of this
poverty are brought forward., all proving as little as these.
This poverty is the result of our social conditions; apart
from these, causes may be found for the manner in which
it manifests itself, but not for the fact of its existence.
That poverty manifests itself in Ireland thus and not
otherwise, is owing to the character of the people, and to
their historical development. The Irish are a people related
in their whole character to the Latin nations, to the
French, and especially to the Italians. The bad features of
their character we have already had depicted by Carlyle.9
Let us now hear an Irishman, who at least comes nearer to
the truth than Carlyle, with his prejudice in favour of the
Teutonic character:
52 FREDERICK ENGELS
“They are restless, yet indolent, clever and indiscreet, stormy,

impatient, and improvident; brave by instinct, generous without much
reflection, quick to revenge and forgive insults, to make and to
renounce friendships, gifted with genius prodigally, sparingly with
judgement” *
With the Irish, feeling and passion predominate; reason
must bow before them. Their sensuous, excitable nature
prevents reflection and quiet, persevering activity from
reaching development—such a nation is utterly unfit for
manufacture as now conducted. Hence they held fast to
agriculture, and remained upon the lowest plane even of
that. With the small subdivisions of land, which were not
here artificially created, as in France and on the Rhine, by
the division of great estates,** but have existed from time
immemorial, an improvement of the soil by the investment
of capital was not to be thought of; and it would,
according to Alison, require 120 million pounds sterling to
bring the soil up to the not very high state of fertility
already attained in England. The English immigration,
which might have raised the standard of Irish civilisation,
has contented itself with the most brutal plundering of the
Irish people; and while the Irish, by their immigration into
England, have furnished England a leaven which will
produce its own results in the future, they have little for
which to be thankful to the English immigration.
The attempts of the Irish to save themselves from their
present ruin, on the one hand, take the form of crimes.
These are the order of the day in the agricultural districts,
and are nearly always directed against the most immediate
enemies, the landlords’ agents, or their obedient servants,
the Protestant intruders, whose large farms are made up of
the potato patches of hundreds of ejected families. Such
crimes are especially frequent in the South and West. On
* The State o f Ireland, London, 1807; 2nd ed., 1821. Pamphlet.
** Mistake. Small-scale agriculture had been the prevailing form of
farming ever since the Middle Ages. Thus the small peasant farm existed
even before the Revolution. The only thing the latter changed was its
ownership; that it took away from the feudal lords and transferred,
directly or indirectly, to the peasants. [Added by Engels in the German
edition o f 1892. ]
the other hand, the Irish hope for relief by means of the
agitation for the repeal of the Legislative Union with
England.10 From all the foregoing, it is clear that the
uneducated Irish must see in the English their worst enemies;
and their first hope of improvement in the conquest of
national independence. But quite as clear is it, too, that Irish
distress cannot be removed by any Act of Repeal. Such an
Act would, however, at once lay bare the fact that the cause
of Irish misery, which now seems to come from abroad, is
really to be found at home. Meanwhile, it is an open question
whether the accomplishment of repeal will be necessary to
make this clear to the Irish. Hitherto, neither Chartism nor
Socialism has had marked success in Ireland.
I close my observations upon Ireland at this point the
more readily, as the Repeal Agitation of 1843 and O’Con
nell’s trial11 have been the means of making the Irish distress
more and more known in Germany.
P ublished in the book: Printed according

Friedrich Engels, Die Lage to the authorised
der arbeitenden Klasse English edition,
in England, Leipzig, 1845 London, 1892
F rederick Engels
From [THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND-

THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT-IRELAND1 2] *
In the meantime starving Ireland is writhing in the most

terrible convulsions. The workhouses are overflowing with
beggars, the ruined property owners are refusing to pay the
Poor Tax, and the hungry people gather in their thousands to
ransack the bams and cattle-sheds of the farmers and even of
the Catholic priests, who were still sacred to them a short
time ago.
It looks as though the Irish will not die of hunger as
calmly next winter as they did last winter. Irish immigration
to England is getting more alarming each day. It is estimated
that an average of 50,000 Irish arrive each year; the number
so far this year is already over 220,000. In September, 345
were arriving daily and in October this figure increased to
511. This means that the competition between the workers
will become stronger, and it would not be at all surprising if
the present crisis caused such an uproar that it compelled the
government to grant reforms of a most important nature.
Published in the newspaper K. Marx and F. Engels,

La Reforme, Collected Works, Vol. 6,
October 26, 1847 Moscow, 1976, p. 309
* Headings set in square brackets have been provided by the Insti

tute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow.—Ed.
Frederick Engels
[THE COERCION BILL FOR IRELAND

AND THE CHARTISTS] r
The Irish Coercion Bill13 came into force last Wednes

day. The Lord Lieutenant was not slow in taking advantage
of the despotic powers with which this new law invests him;
the Act has been applied all over the counties of Limerick
and Tipperary and to several baronies in the counties of
Clare, Waterford, Cork, Roscommon, Leitrim, Cavan,
Longford and King’s County. 14
It remains to be seen what the effect of this odious
measure will be. In this connection we already have the
opinion of the class in whose interests the measure was
taken, namely, the Irish landowners. They announce to the
world in their organs that the measure will have no effect
whatsoever. And in order to achieve this a whole country is
being placed in a state of siege! To achieve this nine-tenths
of the Irish representatives have deserted their country!
This is a fact. The desertion has been a general one.
During the discussion of the Bill the O’Connell family itself
became divided: John and Maurice, two of the deceased
“Liberator’s”* sons, remained faithful to their homeland,
whereas their cousin,** Morgan O’Connell, not only voted
for the Bill, but also spoke in its support on several occasions.
There were only eighteen members who voted for the
outright rejection of the Bill, and only twenty supported the
amendment put forward by Mr. Wakley, the Chartist member
for a borough on the outskirts of London, who demanded
* Daniel O’Connell.—Ed.
** A mistake in La Refor me; it should read “brother”.—Ed.
56 FREDERICK ENGELS
that the Coercion Bill should also be accompanied by

measures aimed at reducing the causes of the crimes which it
was proposed to repress. And among these eighteen and
twenty voters there were also four or five English Radicals
and two Irishmen representing English boroughs, meaning
that out of the hundred members which Ireland has in Parlia
ment there were only a dozen who put up serious opposition
to the Bill.
This was the first discussion on an important question
affecting Ireland which had been held since the death of
O’Connell. It was to decide who would take the place of the
great agitator in leading Ireland. Up to the opening of Parlia
ment Mr. John O’Connell had been tacitly acknowledged in
Ireland as his father’s successor. But it soon became evident
after the debate had begun that he was not capable of leading
the party and, what is more, that he had found a formidable
rival in Feargus O’Connor. This democratic leader about
whom Daniel O’Connell said, “We are happy to make the
English Chartists a present of Mr. F. O’Connor”, put himself
at the head of the Irish party in a single bound. It was he who
proposed the outright rejection of the Coercion Bill; it was he
who succeeded in rallying all the opposition behind him; it
was he who opposed each clause, who held up the voting
whenever possible; it was he who in his speeches summed up
all the arguments of the opposition against the Bill; and
finally it was he who for the first time since 1835 reintro
duced the motion for Repeal of the Union,15 a motion
which none of the Irish members would have put forward.
The Irish members accepted this leader with a bad grace.
As simple Whigs in their heart of hearts they fundamentally
detest the democratic energy of Mr. O’Connor. He will not
allow them to go on using the campaign for repeal as a means
for overthrowing the Tories in favour of the Whigs and to
forget the very word “repeal” when the latter come to
power. But the Irish members who support repeal cannot
possibly do without a leader like O’Connor and, although
they are trying to undermine his growing popularity in
Ireland, they are obliged to submit to his leadership in Parlia
ment.
When the parliamentary session is over O’Connor will
probably go on a tour of Ireland to revive the agitation for

repeal and to found an Irish Chartist party. There can be no
doubt that if O’Connor is successful in doing this he will be
the leader of the Irish people in less than six months. By
uniting the democratic leadership of the three kingdoms16 in
his hands, he will occupy a position which no agitator, not
even O’Connell, has held before him. f
We will leave it to our readers to judge the importance of
this future alliance between the peoples of the two islands.
British democracy will advance much more quickly when its
ranks are swelled by two million brave and ardent Irish, and
poverty-stricken Ireland will at last have taken an important
step towards her liberation.
Published in the newspaper K. Marx and F. Engels

La Reforme, Collected Works, Vol. 6 ,
January 8, 1848 Moscow, 1976, pp. 445—47
Frederick Engels
FEARGUS O’CONNOR AND THE IRISH PEOPLE17
The first issue of The Northern Star1 8 for 1848 contains

an address to the Irish people by Feargus O’Connor, the well-
known leader of the English Chartists and their representative
in Parliament. This address deserves to be read from begin
ning to end and carefully considered by every democrat, but
our restricted space prevents us from reproducing it in full.
We would, however, be remiss in our duty if we were to
pass it over in silence. The consequences of this forceful
appeal to the Irish people will very soon be strongly felt and
seen. Feargus O’Connor, himself of Irish descent, a Protestant
and for over ten years a leader and main pillar of the great
labour movement in England, must henceforth be regarded as
the virtual chief of the Irish Repealers19 and advocates of
reform. His speeches in the House of Commons against the
recently published disgraceful Irish Coercion Bill have given
him the first claim to this status, and the subsequently con
tinued agitation for the Irish cause shows that Feargus
O’Connor is just the man Ireland needs.
O’Connor is indeed seriously concerned about the well
being of the millions in Ireland. Repeal—the abolition of the
Union, that is, the achievement of an independent Irish
Parliament—is not an empty word, not a pretext for obtain
ing posts for himself and his friends and for making profit
able private business transactions.
In his address he shows the Irish people that Daniel
O’Connell, that political juggler, led them by the nose and
deceived them for thirteen years by means of the word
“Repeal”.
FEARGUS O’CONNOR AND THE IRISH PEOPLE 59
He shows in its true light the conduct of John O’Connell,

who has taken up his father’s political heritage and who like
his father is prepared to sacrifice millions of credulous
Irishmen for the sake of his personal ventures and interests.
All .O’Connell’s speeches at the Dublin Conciliation Hall20
and all his hypocritical protestations and beautiful phrases
will not obliterate the disrepute he has brought upon himself
earlier and in particular now in the House of Commons
during the debates on the Irish Coercion Bill.
The Irish people must and will see how things stand, and
then it will kick out the entire gang of so-called Repealers,
who under cover of this cloak laugh up their sleeves and in
their purses and John O’Connell, the fanatical papist and
political rogue, will be kicked out first of all.
If this were all the address contained, we should not have
especially mentioned it. But it is of much wider importance.
For Feargus O’Connor speaks in it not only as an Irishman
but also, and primarily, as an English democrat, as a Chartist.
With a lucidity which cannot escape even the most obtuse
mind, O’Connor shows that the Irish people must fight with
all their might and in close association with the English
working classes and the Chartists in order to win the six
points of the People’s Charter—annual parliaments, universal
suffrage, vote by ballot, abolition of the property qualifica
tion for members of Parliament, payment of M.P.s and the
establishment of equal electoral districts. Only after these six
points are won will the achievement of the Repeal have any
advantages for Ireland.
Furthermore O’Connor points out that justice for Ireland
has already been demanded earlier by the English workers in
a petition which received 3V2 million signatures,21 and that
now the English Chartists have again protested against the
Irish Coercion Bill in numerous petitions and that the
oppressed classes in England and Ireland must at last fight
together and conquer together or continue to languish under
the same oppression and live in the same misery and depend
ence on the privileged and ruling capitalist class.
There can be no doubt that henceforth the mass of the
Irish people will unite ever more closely with the English
Chartists and will act with them according to a common plan.
FREDERICK ENGELS
As a result the victory of the English democrats, and hence

the liberation of Ireland, will be hastened by many years.
That is the significance of O’Connor’s address to the Irish
people.
Published in Deutsche-Briisseler- K. Marx and F. Engels,

-Zeitung No. 3, January 9, 1848 Collected Works, Vol. 6 ,
Moscow, 1976, p. 448-49
Karl Marx
From [THE SPEECH ON THE POLISH QUESTION,

FEBRUARY 2 2 , 18482 2] r
The Cracow revolution has given a glorious example to

the whole of Europe, by identifying the national cause with
the democratic cause and the emancipation of the oppressed
class.
If this revolution has been stifled for the moment by the
bloody hands of hired assassins it is now rising gloriously and
triumphantly in Switzerland and Italy. It sees the confirma
tion of these principles in Ireland, where the narrowly
nationalist party has gone to its grave with O’Connell, and
where the new national party is above all reforming and
democratic. 2 3
Published in the collection K. Marx and F, Engels,

Celebration, a Bruxelles, Collected Works, Vol. 6,
du deuxieme anniversaire Moscow, 1976, p. 549
de la Revolution Polonaise
du 22 Fevrier 1846,
Bruxelles, 1848
Frederick'Engels
From COLOGNE IN DANGER2 4
Cologne, June 10. The lovely holiday of Whitsuntide had

arrived, the fields were green, the trees were blossoming and
as far as there are people who confuse the dative with the
accusative, preparations were made to pour out the holy
spirit of reaction over all lands in a single day.2 5
The moment is well chosen. In Naples guard lieutenants
and Swiss mercenaries have succeeded in drowning the young
liberty in the people’s blood. In France, an assembly of
capitalists fetters the Republic by means of Draconic laws
and appoints General Perrot, who ordered the shooting at the
Hotel Guizot on February 23, commandant of Vincennes. In
England and Ireland masses of Chartists and Repealers are
thrown into gaol and unarmed meetings are dispersed by
dragoons.26 In Frankfurt the National Assembly itself now
appoints the triumvirate which the blessed Federal Diet
proposed and the Committee of Fifty27 rejected. In Berlin
the Right is winning blow by blow through numerical
superiority and drumming, and the Prince of Prussia declares
the revolution null and void by moving back into the
“property of the entire nation”.2 8
Published in the K. Marx and F. Engels,

Neue Rheinische Zeitung Collected Works, Vol. 7,
No. 11, June 11, 1848 Moscow, 1976, p. 68
Karl Marx
From ELECTIONS—FINANCIAL CLOUDS* i

THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND AND SLAVERY2 9
r
The process of clearing estates which, in Scotland, we

have just now described, was carried out in England in the
16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Thomas Morus already com
plains of it in the beginning of the 16th century. It was
performed in Scotland in the beginning of the 19th, and in
Ireland it is now in full progress. The noble Viscount Palmer
ston, too, some years ago cleared of men his property in
Ireland, exactly in the manner described above.
If of any property it ever was true that it was robbery, it
is literally true of the property of the British aristocracy.
Robbery of Church property, robbery of commons, fraudu-
lous transformation, accompanied by murder, of feudal and
patriarchal property into private property—these are the titles
of British aristocrats to their possessions. And what services
in this latter process were performed by a servile class of
lawryers, you may see from an English lawyer of the last
century, Dalrymple, who, in his History o f Feudal Pro
perty very naively proves that every law or deed concern
ing property was interpreted by the lawyers, in England,
, 3 0
when the middle class rose in wealth, in favour of the middle

class—in Scotland, where the nobility enriched themselves, in
favour of the nobility—in either case it was interpreted in a
sense hostile to the people.
Published in The New- York, Printed according to the text
Daily Tribune No. 3687, of The New-York Daily Tribune
February 9, 1853, and in and verified with the text
The People’s Paper No. 45, of The People’s Paper
March 12, 1853
Karl Marx
From FORCED EMIGRATION—KOSSUTH AND

MAZZINI—THE REFUGEE QUESTION-ELECTION
BRIBERY IN ENGLAND—MR.COBDEN
From the accounts relating to trade and navigation for

the years 1851 and 1852, published in Feb. last, we see that
the total declared value of exports amounted to £68,531,601
in 1851, and to £71,429,548 in 1852; of the latter amount,
£47,209,000 go to the export of cotton, wool, linen and silk
manufactures. The quantity of imports for 1852 is below
that for the year 1851. The proportion of imports entered
for home consumption not having diminished, but rather
increased, it follows that England has re-exported, instead of
the usual quantity of colonial produce, a certain amount of
gold and silver.
The Colonial Land Emigration Office gives the following
return of the emigration from England, Scotland, and
Ireland, to all parts of the world, from Jan. 1, 1847 to June
3 0 ,1852i
Year English Scotch Irish Total
1847 ................. 34,685 8,616 214,969 258,270
1848 ................. 58,865 11,505 177,719 248,089,
1849 ................. 73,613 17,127 208,758 299,498
1850 ................. 57,843 15,154 207,852 280,849
1851 ................. 69,557 18,646 247,763 335,966
1852 (till June) 40,767 11,562 143,375 195,704
T o ta l............ 335,330 82,610 1,200,436 1,618,376
FORCED EMIGRATION, ETC. 65
“Nine-tenths,” remarks the Office, “of the emigrants from Liver

pool are assumed to be Irish. About three-fourths of the emigrants from
Scotland are Celts, either from the Highlands, or from Ireland through
Glasgow.”
Nearly four-fifths of the whole emigration are, accord
ingly, to be regarded as belonging to the Celtic population of
Ireland and of the Highlands and islands tbf Scotland. The
London Economist says of this emigration:
“It is consequent on the breaking down of the system of society
founded on small holdings and potato cultivation”; and adds: “The
departure of the redundant part of the population of Ireland and the
Highlands of Scotland is an indispensable preliminary to every kind of
improvement.... The revenue of Ireland has not suffered in any degree
from the famine of 1846-47, or from the emigration that has since
taken place. On the contrary, her net revenue amounted in 1851 to
£4,281,999, being about £184,000 greater them in 1843.”
Begin with pauperising the inhabitants of a country, and
when there is no more profit to be ground out of them, when
they have grown a burden to the revenue, drive them away,
and sum up your Net Revenue! Such is the doctrine laid
down by Ricardo in his celebrated work, The Principles of
Political Economy The annual profits of a capitalist
amounting to £ 2, 000, what does it matter to him whether he
. 3 1
employs 100 men or 1,000 men? “Is not,” says Ricardo,

“the real income of a nation similar? ” The net real income
of a nation, rents and profits, remaining the same, it is no
subject of consideration whether it is derived from ten mil
lions of people or from twelve millions. Sismondi, in his
Nouveaux principes d’economie p o l i t i q u e answers, that,
according to this view of the matter, the English nation
would not be interested at all in the disappearance of the
whole population, the King (at that time it was no Queen,
but a King*) remaining alone in the midst of the island,
supposing only that automatic machinery enabled him to
procure the amount of Net Revenue now produced by a
population of twenty millions. Indeed, that grammatical
entity, “the national wealth”, would in this case not be
diminished.
* George III.—Ed.
3-226
66 KARL MARX
In a former letter I have given an instance of the clearing
of estates in the Highlands of Scotland. That emigration con
tinues to be forced upon Ireland by the same process you
may see from the following quotation from The Galway
Mercury:
“The people are fast passing away from the land in the West of
Ireland. The landlords of Connaught are tacitly combined to weed out
all the smaller occupiers, against whom a regular systematic war of
extermination is being waged.... The most heart-rending cruelties are
daily practised in this province, of which the public are not at all
aware.”
But it is not only the pauperised inhabitants of Green
Erin* and of the Highlands of Scotland that are swept away
by agricultural improvements, and by the “breaking down of
the antiquated system of society”. It is not only the able-
bodied agricultural labourers from England, Wales, and
Lower Scotland, whose passages are paid by the Emigration
Commissioners. The wheel of “improvement” is now seizing
another class, the most stationary class in England. A start
ling emigration movement has sprung up among the smaller
English farmers, especially those holding heavy clay soils,
who, with bad prospects for the coming harvest, and in want
of sufficient capital to make the great improvements on their
farms which would enable them to pay their old rents, have
no other alternative but to cross the sea in search of a new
country and of new lands. I am not speaking now of the
emigration caused by the gold mania,33 but only of the
compulsory emigration produced by landlordism, concentra
tion of farms, application of machinery to the soil, and
introduction of the modem system of agriculture on a great
scale.
In the ancient States, in Greece and Rome, compulsory
emigration, assuming the shape of the periodical establish
ment of colonies, formed a regular link in the structure of
society. The whole system of those States was founded on
certain limits to the numbers of the population, which could
not be surpassed without endangering the condition of
antique civilisation itself. But why was it so? Because the
* Ireland.—Ed.
FORCED EMIGRATION, ETC.
application of science to material production was utterly
unknown to them. To remain civilised they were forced to
remain few. Otherwise they would have had to submit to the
bodily drudgery which transformed the free citizen into a
slave. The want of productive power made citizenship
dependent on a certain proportion in numbers not to be
disturbed. Forced emigration was the only rerrfedy.
It was the same pressure of population on the powers of
production, that drove the barbarians from the high plains of
Asia to invade the Old World. The same cause acted there,
although under a different form. To remain barbarians they
were forced to remain few. They were pastoral, hunting, war-
waging tribes, whose manner of production required a large
space for every individual, as is now the case with the Indian
tribes in North-America. By augmenting in numbers they
curtailed each other’s field of production. Thus the surplus
population was forced to undertake those great adventurous
migratory movements which laid the foundation of the
peoples of ancient and modem Europe.
But with modem compulsory emigration the case stands
quite opposite. Here it is not the want of productive power
which creates a surplus population; it is the increase of
productive power which demands a diminution of popula
tion, and drives away the surplus by famine or emigration. It
is not population that presses on productive power; it is
productive power that presses on population.
Now I share neither in the opinion of Ricardo, who
regards “Net Revenue” as the Moloch to whom entire
populations must bfe sacrificed, without even so much as
complaint, nor in the opinion of Sismondi, who, in his
hypochondriacal philanthropy, would forcibly retain the
superannuated methods of agriculture and proscribe science
from industry, as Plato expelled poets from his Republic.34
Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be
submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human
existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the
houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to
master the new conditions of life, must give way. But can
there be anything more puerile, more short-sighted, than the
views of those Economists who believe in all earnest that this
68 KARL MARX
woeful transitory state means nothing but adapting society to
the acquisitive propensities of capitalists, both landlords and
money-lords? In Great Britain the working of that process is
most transparent. The application of modern science to
production clears the land of its inhabitants, but it con
centrates people in manufacturing towns.
“No manufacturing workmen,” says The Economist, “have been
assisted by the Emigration Commissioners, except a few Spitalfields and
Paisley hand-1 oom weavers, and few or none have emigrated at their own
expense.”
The Economist knows very well that they could not
emigrate at their own expense, and that the industrial middle
class would not assist them in emigrating. Now, to what does
this lead? The rural population, the most stationary and
conservative element of modem society, disappears while the
industrial proletariat, by the very working of modern produc
tion, finds itself gathered in mighty centres, around the great
productive forces, whose history of creation has hitherto
been the martyrology of the labourers. Who will prevent
them from going a step further, and appropriating these
forces, to which they have been appropriated before? Where
will be the power of resisting them? Nowhere! Then, it will
be of no use to appeal to the “rights of property”. The
modem changes in the art of production have, according to
the Bourgeois Economists themselves, broken down the
antiquated system of society and its modes of appropriation.
They have expropriated the Scotch clansman, the Irish
cottier and tenant, the English yeoman, the hand-loom
weaver, numberless handicrafts, whole generations of factory
children and women; they will expropriate, in due time, the
landlord and the cotton-lord.
On the Continent heaven is fulminating, but in England
the earth itself is trembling. England is the country where the
real revulsion of modern society begins.
Published in The New-York Printed according to the text
Daily Tribune No. 3722, o i The New-York Daily Tribune
March 22, 1853, and and verified with the text
in The People*s Paper No. 50, of The People’s Paper
April 16, 1853
Karl Marx
THE INDIAN QUESTION-IRISH TENANT RIGHT

r
London, June 28, 1853
The debate on Lord Stanley’s motion with respect to

India commenced on the 23rd, continued on the 24th, and
adjourned to the 27th inst., has not been brought to a close.
When that shall at length have arrived, I intend to resume my
observations on the Indian question.35
As the Coalition Ministry36 depends on the support of
the Irish party, and as all the other parties composing the
House of Commons so nicely balance each other that the
Irish may at any moment turn the scales which way they
please, some concessions are at last about to be made to the
Irish tenants. The “Leasing powers (Ireland) Bill”, which
passed the House of Commons on Friday last, contains a
provision that for the improvements made on the soil and
separable from the soil, the tenant shall have, at the termina
tion of his lease, a compensation in money, the incoming
tenant being at liberty to take them at the valuation, while
with respect to improvements in the soil, compensation for
them shall be arranged by contract between the landlord and
the tenant.37
A tenant having incorporated his capital, in one form or
another, in the land, and having thus effected an improve
ment of the soil, either directly by irrigation, drainage,
manure, or indirectly by construction of buildings for agri
cultural purposes, in steps the landlord with demand for
increased rent. If the tenant concede, he has to pay the
interest for his own money to the landlord. If he resist, he
will be very unceremoniously ejected, and supplanted by a
new tenant, the latter being enabled to pay a higher rent by
70 KARL MARX
the very expenses incurred by his predecessors, until he also,

in his turn, has become an improver of the land, and is
replaced in the same way, or put on worse terms. In this easy
way a class of absentee landlords has been enabled to pocket,
not merely the labour, but also the capital, of whole genera
tions, each generation of Irish peasants sinking a grade lower
in the social scale, exactly in proportion to the exertions and
sacrifices made for the raising of their condition and that of
their families. If the tenant was industrious and enterprising,
he became taxed in consequence of his very industry and
enterprise. If, on the contrary, he grew inert and negligent, he
was reproached with the “aboriginal faults of the Celtic
race”. He had, accordingly, no other alternative left but to
become a pauper—to pauperise himself by industry, or to
pauperise by negligence. In order to oppose this state of
things, “Tenant Right” was proclaimed in Ireland—a right of
the tenant, not in the soil but in the improvements of the soil
effected at his cost and charges. Let us see in what manner
The Times, in its Saturday’s leader, attempts to break down
this Irish “Tenant Right”38:
“There are two general systems of farm occupation. Either a tenant
may take a lease of the land for a fixed number of years, or his holding
may be terminable at any time upon certain notice. In the first of these
events, it would be obviously his course to adjust and apportion his
outlay so that all, or nearly all the benefit would find its way to him
before the expiration of his term. In the second case it seems equally
obvious that he should not run the risk of the investment without a
proper assurance of return.”
Where the landlords have to deal with a class of large
capitalists who may, as they please, invest their stock in
commerce, in manufactures or in farming, there can be no
doubt but that these capitalist farmers, whether they take
long leases or no time leases at all, know how to secure the
“proper” return of their outlays. But with regard to Ireland
the supposition is quite fictitious. On the one side you have
there a small class of land monopolists, on the other, a very
large class of tenants with very petty fortunes, which they
have no chance to invest in different ways, no other field of
production opening to them, except the soil. They are, there
fore, forced to become tenants-at-will. Being once tenants-at-
THE INDIAN QUESTION-IRISH TENANT RIGHT 71
will, they naturally run the risk of losing their revenue,

provided they do not invest their small capital. Investing it, in
order to secure their revenue, they run the risk of losing their
capital, also.
“Perhaps,” continues The Times, “it may be saki, that in any case a
tenantry could hardly expire without something being left upon the
ground, in some shape or another, representing the tenant’s own
property, and that for this compensation should be forthcoming. There
is some truth in the remark, but the demand thus created ought, under
proper conditions of society, to be easily adjusted between landlord
and tenant, as it might, at any fate, be provided for in the original
contract. We say that the conditions of society should regulate these
arrangements, because we believe that no Parliamentary enactment can
be effectually substituted for such an agency.”
Indeed, under “proper conditions of society”, we should
want no more Parliamentary interference with the Irish land-
tenant, as we should not want, under “proper conditions of
society”, the interference of the soldier, of the policeman,
and of the hangman. Legislature, magistracy and armed force,
are all of them but the offspring of improper conditions of
society, preventing those arrangements among men which
would make useless the compulsory intervention of a third
supreme power. Has, perhaps, The Times been converted into
a social revolutionist? Does it want a social revolution,
reorganising the “conditions of society” and the “arrange
ments” emanating from them, instead of “Parliamentary
enactments”? England has subverted the conditions of Irish
society. At first it confiscated the land, then it suppressed the
industry39 by “Parliamentary enactments”, and lastly, it
broke the active energy by armed force. And thus England
created those abominable “conditions of society” which
enable a small caste of rapacious lordlings to dictate to the
Irish people the terms on which they shall be allowed to hold
the land and to live upon it. Too weak yet for revolutionising
those “social conditions”, the people appeal to Parliament,
demanding at least their mitigation and regulation. But “No”,
says The Times; if you don’t live under proper conditions of
society, Parliament can’t mend that. And if the Irish people,
on the advice of The Timesy tried tomorrow to mend their
conditions of society, The Times would be the first to appeal
to bayonets, and to pour out sanguinary denunciations of the
72 KARL MARX
“aboriginal faults of the Celtic race”, wanting the Anglo-

Saxon taste for pacific progress and legal amelioration.
“If a landlord,” says The Times, “deliberately injures one tenant, he
will find it so much the harder to get another, and whereas his occupa
tion consists in letting land, he will find his land all the more difficult
to let.”
The case stands rather differently in Ireland. The more a
landlord injures one tenant, the easier he will find it to
oppress another. The tenant who comes in, is the means of
injuring the ejected one, and the ejected one is the means of
keeping down the new occupant. That, in due course of time,
the landlord, beside injuring the tenant, will injure himself
and ruin himself, is not only a probability, but the very fact,
in Ireland—a fact affording, however, a very precarious source
of comfort to the ruined tenant.
“The relations between the landlord and tenant are those between
two traders,” says The Times.
This is precisely the petitio principii which pervades the
whole leader of The Times. The needy Irish tenant belongs to
the soil, while the soil belongs to the English lord. As well
you might call the relation between the robber who presents
his pistol, and the traveller who presents his purse, a relation
between two traders.
“ But,” says The Times, “in point of fact, the relation between Irish
landlords and tenants will soon be reformed by an agency more potent
than that of legislation. The property of Ireland is fast passing into new
hands, and, if the present rate of emigration continues, its cultivation
must undergo the same transfer.”
Here, at least, The Times has the truth. British Parliament
does not interfere at a moment when the worked-out old
system is terminating in the common ruin, both of the thrifty
landlord and the needy tenant, the former being knocked
down by the hammer of the Encumbered Estates Commis
sion, and the latter expelled by compulsory emigration. This
reminds us of the old Sultan of Morocco. Whenever there was
a case pending between two parties, he knew of no more
“potent agency” for settling their controversy, than by kill
ing both parties.
“Nothing could tend,” concludes The Times with regard to Tenant

Right, “to greater confusion than such a communistic distribution o f
ownership. The only person with any right in the land, is the landlord.”
The Times seems to have been the sleeping Epimenides of
the past half century, and never to have heard of the hot
controversy going on during all that time $pon the claims of
the landlord, not among social reformers and Communists,
but among the very political economists of the British middle
class. Ricardo, the creator of modem political economy in
Great Britain, did not controvert the “right” of the landlords,
as he was quite convinced that their claims were based upon
fact, and not on right, and that political economy in general
had nothing to do with questions of right; but he attacked
the land-monopoly in a more unassuming, yet more scien
tific, and therefore more dangerous manner. He proved that
private proprietorship in land, as distinguished from the
respective claims of the labourer, and of the farmer, was a
relation quite superfluous in, and incoherent with, the whole
framework of modem production; that the economical
expression of that relationship and the rent of land, might,
with great advantage, be appropriated by the State; and
finally that the interest of the landlord was opposed to the
interest of all other classes of modem society. It would
be tedious to enumerate all the conclusions drawn
from these premises by the Ricardo School against the
landed monopoly. For my end, it will suffice to quote
three of the most recent economical authorities of Great
Britain.
The London Economist, whose chief editor, Mr. J. Wil
son, is not only a Free Trade oracle,40 but a Whig one,
too, and not only a Whig, but also an inevitable Treasury-,
appendage in every Whig or composite ministry, has contend
ed in different articles that exactly speaking there can exist
no title authorising any individual, or any number of indi
viduals, to claim the exclusive proprietorship in the soil of a
nation.
Mr. Newman, in his Lectures on Political Economy,
London, 1851, professedly written for the purpose of refut
ing socialism, tells us:
74 KARL MARX
“No man has, or can have, a natural right to land except so long as
he occupies it in person. His right is to the use, and to the use only. All
other right is the creation of artificial law” (or Parliamentary enact
ments as The Times would call it).... “If, at any time, land becomes
needed to live upon, the right of private possessors to withhold it comes
to an end.”
This is exactly the case in Ireland, and Mr. Newman
expressly confirms the claims of the Irish tenantry, and in
lectures held before the most select audiences of the British
aristocracy.
In conclusion let me quote some passages from Mr. fler-
bert Spencer’s work, Social Statics, London, 1851, also,
purporting to be a complete refutation of communism, and
acknowledged as the most elaborate development of the Free
Trade doctrines of modern England.
“No one may use the earth in such a way as to prevent the rest
from similarly using it. Equity, therefore, does not permit property in
land, or the rest would live on the earth by sufferance only. Tlie land
less men might equitably be expelled from the earth altogether.... It can
never be pretended, that the existing titles to such property are
legitimate. Should anyone think so let him look in the Chronicles. The
original deeds were written with the sword, rather than with the pen.
Not lawyers but soldiers were the conveyancers: blows were the current
coin given in payment; and for seals blood was used in preference to
wax. Could valid claims be thus constituted? Hardly. And if not, what
becomes of the pretensions of all subsequent holders of estates so
obtained? Does sale or bequest generate a right where it did not
previously exist? ... If one act of transfer can give no title, can many? ...
At what rate per annum do invalid claims become valid? ... The right of
mankind at large to the earth’s surface is still valid, all deeds, customs
and laws notwithstanding. It is impossible to discover any mode in
which land can become private property.... We daily deny landlordism
by our legislation. Is a canal, a railway, or a turnpike road to be made?
We do not scruple to seize just as many acres as may be requisite. We do
not wait for consent... The change required would simply be a change
of landlords.... Instead of being in the possession of individuals, the
country would be held by the great corporate body—society. Instead of
leasing his acres from an isolated proprietor, the farmer would lease
them from the nation. Instead of paying his rent to the agent of Sir
John, or His Grace, he will pay to an agent, or deputy-agent of the
community. Stewards would be public officials, instead of private ones,
and tenantry the only land tenure.... Pushed to its ultimate conse
quences, a claim to exclusive possession of the soil involves landowning
despotism.”
Thus, from the very point of view of modem English

political economists, it is not the usurping English landlord
but the Irish tenants and labourers, who have the only right
in the soil of their native country, and The Times, in oppos
ing the demands of the Irish people, places itself into direct
antagonism to British middle-class science.
Published in The New- York Printed according to the text

Daily Tribune No. 3816, of the newspaper
July 11, 1853
Karl Marx
From FINANCIAL FAILURE OF GOVERNMENT-

CABS—IRELAND—THE RUSSIAN QUESTION
Like the world in general, we are assured that Ireland in

particular is becoming a paradise for the labourer, in conse
quence of famine and exodus.41 Why then, if wages really
are so high in Ireland, is it that Irish labourers are flocking in
such masses over to England to settle permanently on this
side of the “pond”,* while they formerly used to return after
every harvest? If the social amelioration of the Irish people is
making such progress, how is it that, on the other hand,
insanity has made such terrific progress among them since
1847, and especially since 1851? Look at the following data
from “the Sixth Report on the District Criminal and Private
Lunatic Asylums in Ireland”:
1851—Sum total of admissions in Lunatic Asylums 2,584
(1,301 males and 1,283 females.)
1852 .......................................................................................... 2,662
March, 1853 ................................................................................. 2,870
And this is the same country in which the celebrated
Swift, the founder of the first Lunatic Asylum in Ireland,42
doubted whether 90 madmen could be found.
August 12, 1853
* Marx means here the Irish Sea.—Ed.
\
Karl Marx
From THE WAR QUESTION-BRITISH POPULATION

and TRADE RETURNS—DOINGS OF PARLIAMENT
r
In its sitting of Aug. 9, the House of Lords had to decide

on the fate of three Ireland Bills, carried through the Com
mons after ten months’ deliberation, viz.: the Landlord and
Tenant Bill, removing the laws concerning mortgages, which
form at present an insuperable bar to the effective sale of the
smaller estates not falling under the Encumbered Estates
Act43; the Leasing Powers Bill, amending and consolidating
more than sixty acts of Parliament which prohibit leases to
be entered into for 21 years, regulating the tenant’s com
pensation for improvements in all instances where contracts
exist, and preventing the system of subletting; lastly, the
Tenant’s Improvement Compensation Bill, providing com
pensation for improvements effected by the tenant in the
absence of any contract with the landlord, and containing a
clause for the retrospective operation of this provision. The
House of Lords could, of course, not object to parliamentary
interference between landlord and tenant, as it has laden the
statute book from the time of Edward IV to the present day,
with acts of legislation on landlord and tenant, and as its very
existence is founded on laws meddling with landed property,
as for instance the Law o f Entail This time, the noble lords
sitting as judges on their own cause, allowed themselves to
run into a passion quite surprising in that hospital of invalids.
“Such a bill,” exclaimed the Earl of Clanricarde, “as the Tenants*
Compensation Bill, such a total violation and disregard of all contracts,
was never before, he believed, submitted to Parliament, nor had he ever
heard of any government having ventured to propose such a measure as
was carried out in the retrospective clauses of the bill.”
78 KARL MARX
The Lords went as far as to threaten the Crown with the

withdrawal of their feudal allegiance, and to hold out the
prospect of a landlord rebellion in Ireland.
“The question/’ remarked the same nobleman, “touched nearly the
whole question o f the loyalty and confidence of the landed proprietors
in Ireland in the Government of this country. If they saw landed prop
erty in Ireland treated in such a way, he would like to know what was
to secure their attachment to the Crown, and their obedience to its
supremacy ? ”
Gently, my lord, gently! What was to secure their
obedience to the supremacy of the Crown? One magistrate
and two constables. A landlord rebellion in Great Britain!
Has there ever been uttered a more monstrous anachronism?
But for a long time the poor Lords have only lived upon
anachronisms. They naturally encourage themselves to resist
the House of Commons and public opinion.
“Let not their lordships,” said old Lord St. Leonards, “for the sake
of preventing what was called a collision with the other House, or for
the sake of popularity, or on account of a pressure from without, pass
imperfect measures like these.” “I do not belong to any party,” ex
claimed the Earl of Roden, “but I am highly interested in the welfare of
Ireland.”
That is to say, his lordship supposes Ireland to be highly
interested in the welfare of the Earl of Roden. “This is no
party question, but a Lords’ question,” was the unanimous
shout of the House; and so it was. But between both parties,
Whig Lords and Tory Lords, Coalition Lords44 and Opposi
tion Lords, there has existed from the beginning a secret
understanding to throw the bills out, and the whole impas
sioned discussion was a mere farce, performed for the benefit
of the newspaper reporters.
This will be evident when we remember that the bills
which formed the subject of so hot a controversy were
originated, not by the Coalition Cabinet, but by Mr. Napier,
the Irish Attorney-General under the Derby Ministry, and
that the Tories at the last elections in Ireland appealed to the
testimony of these bills introduced by them. The only
substantial change made by the House of Commons in the
measures introduced by the Tory Government was the ex
cluding of the growing crops from being distrained upon.
WAR QUESTION—BRITISH POPULATION AND TRADE RETURNS 79
“The bills are not the same,” exclaimed the Earl of Mal
mesbury, asking the Duke of Newcastle whether he did not
believe him. “Certainly not,” replied the Duke. “But whose
assertion would you then believe? ” “That of Mr. Napier,”
answered the Duke. “Now,” said the Earl, “here is a letter
from Mr. Napier, stating that the bills are not the same.”
“There,” said the Duke, “is another letter cjf Mr. Napier, stat
ing that they are.”
If the Tories had remained in, the Coalition Lords would
have opposed the Ireland Bills. The Coalition being in, on the
Tories fell the task of opposing their own measures. The
Coalition having inherited these bills from the Tories and
having introduced the Irish party info their own cabinet,
could, of course, not oppose the bills in the House of Com
mons; but they were sure of their being burked in the House
of Lords. The Duke of Newcastle made a faint resistance but
Lord Aberdeen declared himself contented with the bills
passing formally through a second reading, and being really
thrown out for the session. This accordingly was done. Lord
Derby, the chief of the late ministry, and Lord Lansdowne,
the nominal President of the present ministry, yet at the
same time one of the largest proprietors of land in Ireland,
managed, wisely, to be absent from indisposition.

August 24, 1853
From LORD PALMERSTON45
Let us now look at his exertions for Catholic Emancipa

tion ,46 one of his great “claims,, on the gratitude of the Irish
people. I shall not dwell upon the circumstances, that, having
declared himself for Catholic Emancipation, when a member
of the Canning Ministry, he entered, nevertheless, the Wel
lington Ministry, avowedly hostile to that emancipation.
Perhaps Lord Palmerston considered religious liberty as one
of the Rights of Man, not to be intermeddled with by the
Legislature. He may answer for himself;
“Although I wish the Catholic claims to be considered, I never will
admit those claims to stand upon the ground of right.... If I thought the
Catholics were asking for their right, I, for one, would not go into the
committee.” (House o f Commons, March 1, 1813.)
And why is he opposed to their asking their right?
“ Because the Legislature of a country has the right to impose such
political disabilities upon any class of the community, as it may deem
necessary for the safety and the welfare of the whole.... This belongs to
the fundamental principles on which civilised government is founded.”
(House o f Commons, March 1, 1813.)
There you have the most cynic confession ever made,
that the mass of the people have no rights at all, but that
they may be allowed that amount of immunities, the
Legislature—or, in other words, the ruling class—may deem fit
to grant them. Accordingly, Lord Palmerston declared in
plain words, “Catholic Emancipation to be a measure of
grace and favour”. (House o f Commons, Feb. 10, 1829.)
It was then entirely upon the ground of expediency that
he condescended to discontinue the Catholic disabilities. And
what was lurking behind this expediency?
LORD PALMERSTON 81
Being himself one of the great Irish proprietors, he want

ed to entertain the delusion, that other remedies for Irish
evils than Catholic Emancipation are impossible, that it
would cure absenteeism, and prove a substitute for Poor
Laws. [House o f Commons, March 18, 1829.)
The great philanthropist, who afterwards cleared his Irish
estates of their Irish natives, could not altow Irish misery to
darken, even for a moment, with its inauspicious clouds, the
bright sky of the landlords and moneylords.*
“It is true,” he said, “that the peasantry of Ireland do not enjoy all
the comforts which are enjoyed by all the peasantry of England” (only
think of all the comforts enjoyed by a family at the rate of 7s. a week).
Still, he continues, “still, however, the Irish peasant has his comforts.
He is well supplied with fuel, and is seldom” (only four days out of six)
“at a loss for food.”
What a comfort! But this is not all the comfort he has—
“he has a greater cheerfulness of mind than his English fellow-
sufferer! ” [House o f Commons, May 7, 1829.)
As to the extortions of Irish landlords, he deals with
them in as pleasant a way as with the comforts of the Irish
peasantry.
“It is said th^t the Irish landlord insists on the highest possible rent
that can be extorted. Why, Sir, I believe that is not a singular circumst
ance; certainly in England the landlord does the same thing.” [House o f
Commons, March 7, 1829.)
Are we then to be surprised that the man^ so deeply
initiated in the mysteries oi the “glories of the English con
stitution”, and the “comforts of her free institutions”,
should aspire at spreading them all over the Continent?
Published in The People's Printed according to the text
Paper No. 77, October 22, 1853, of The People's Paper and
and in The New-York Daily verified with The New-York
Tribune No. 3902, Daily Tribune
October 19, 1853
* In the version of this article which appeared in The New-York
Daily Tribune of October 19, 1853, Marx worded the end of the
sentence as follows : “The bright sky over the Parliament of landlords
and moneylords.”—Ed.
Karl Marx
From [THE BLUE BOOKS—PARLIAMENTARY

DEBATES OF FEBRUARY 6...-r
THE IRISH BRIGADE]
Mr. L Butt, in yesterday’s sitting of the Commons, gave

notice
“that to-morrow he should move that there should be read by the
clerk, at the table of the House, an article published in The Times of
to-day, and the previous statements of The Dublin Freeman’s Journal,
imputing to the [/m /i] members of the House a trafficking in places for
money. He should also move for a Select Committee to inquire into the
allegations of such trafficking as contained in these publications”.
Why Mr. Butt is indignant only at the trafficking for
money will be understood by those who remember that the
legality of any other mode of trafficking was settled during
last session. Since 1830 Downing-st. has been placed at the
mercy of the Irish Brigade.47 It is the Irish members who
have created and kept in place the Ministers to their mind. In
1834 they drove from the Cabinet Sir J. Graham and Lord
Stanley. In 1835 they compelled William IV to dismiss the
Peel Ministry and to restore the Melbourne Administration.
From the general election of 1837 down to that of 1841,
while there was a British majority in the Lower House op
posed to that Administration, the votes of the Irish Brigade
were strong enough to turn the scale and keep it in office. It
was the Irish Brigade again who installed the Coalition
Cabinet. With all this power of Cabinet-making, the Brigade
have never prevented any infamies against their own country
nor any injustice to the English people. The period of
their greatest power was at the time of O’Connell, from
1834-1841. To what account was it turne/3? The Irish agita
tion was never anything but a cry for the Whigs against the
BLUE BOOKS—PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES OF FEBRUARY 6.. 83
Tories, in order to extort places from the Whigs. Nobody

who knows anything about the so-called Lichfield-House
Contract,48 will differ from this opinion—that contract by
which O’Connell was to vote /or, but licensed to spout
against, the Whigs on condition that he should nominate his
own Magistrates in Ireland. It is time for the Irish Brigade to
put off their patriotic airs. It is time fortthe Irish people to
put off their dumb hatred of the English and call their own
representatives to an account for their wrongs.
Published in The New- York Printed according to the text

February 21, 1854
Karl Marx
IRELAND’S REVENGE49
London, March 13. Ireland has revenged herself upon

England, socially—by bestowing an Irish quarter on every
English industrial, maritime or commercial town of any size,
and politically—by furnishing the English Parliament with an
“Irish Brigade”. In 1833, Daniel O’Connell decried the Whigs
as “base, bloody and brutal”. In 1835, he became the most
efficient tool of the Whigs; although the English majority was
opposed to the Melbourne Administration, it remained in
office from April 1835 to August 1841 because of the
support it received from O’Connell and his Irish Brigade.
What intervened between O’Connell of 1833 and O’Connell
of 1835? An agreement, known as the Lichfield-House
Contract, according to which the Whig Cabinet granted
O’Connell government “patronage” in Ireland, and O’Connell
promised the Whig Cabinet the votes of the Irish Brigade in
Parliament. “King Dan’s” Repeal agitation5 0 began immedia
tely the Whigs were overthrown, but as soon as the Tories
were defeated “King Dan” sank again to the level of a com
mon advocate. The influence of the Irish Brigade by no
means came to an end with O’Connell’s death. On the
contrary, it became evident that this influence did not
depend on the talent of one person, but was a result of the
general state of affairs. The Tories and Whigs, the big tradi
tional parties in the English Parliament, were more or less
equally balanced. It is thus not suprising that the new,
numerically small factions, the Manchester School5 1 and the
Irish Brigade, which took their seats in the reformed parlia
ment, should play a decisive role and be able to turn the
scale. Hence the importance of the “Irish quarter” in the
IRELAND’S REVENGE 85
English Parliament. After O’Connell left the scene it was no

longer possible to stir the Irish masses with the “Repeal”
slogan. The “Catholic” problem, too, could be used only
occasionally. Since the Catholic Emancipation5 2 it could no
longer serve as a permanent propaganda theme. Thus the Irish
politicians were compelled to do what O’Connell had always
avoided and refused to do, that is, to explofe the real cause
of the Irish malady and to make the relations of landed prop
erty and their reform the election slogan, in other words a
slogan that would help them to get into the House of Com
mons. But having taken their seats in the House, they used
the rights of the tenants, etc.—just as formerly the Repeal—as
a means to conclude a new Lichfield-House Contract.
The Irish Brigade had overthrown the Derby ministry and
had obtained a seat, even though a minor one, in the coali
tion government. How did it use its position? It helped the
coalition to burke measures designed to reform landed
ownership in Ireland. The Tories themselves, having taken the
patriotism of the Irish Brigade for granted, had decided to
propose these measures in order to gain the support of the
Irish M. P.s Palmerston, who is an Irishman by birth and
knows his “Irish quarter”, has renewed the Lichfield-House
Contract of 1835 on an all-embracing basis. He has appointed
Keogh, the chief of the Brigade, Attorney-General of Ireland,
Fitzgerald, also a liberal Catholic M.P. for Ireland, has been
made Solicitor-General, and a third member of the Brigade
has become legal counsel to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
so that the juridical general staff of the Irish government is
now composed entirely of Catholics and Irishmen. Monsell,
the Clerk of Ordnance in the coalition government, has been
reappointed by Palmerston after some hesitation, although—
as Muntz, deputy for Birmingham and an arms manufacturer,
rightly observed—Monsell cannot distinguish a musket from a
needle-gun. Palmerston has advised the lieutenants of the
counties always to give preference to the proteges of Irish
priests close to the Irish Brigade when nominating colonels
and other high-ranking officers in the Irish militia. That
Palmerston’s policy is already exerting an influence is evident
from the fact that Sergeant Shee has gone over to the govern
ment side, and also from the fact that the Catholic Bishop of
86 KARL MARX
Athlone has pushed through the re-election of Keogh and
that moreover the Catholic clergy has promoted the re-elec
tion of Fitzgerald. Wherever the lower ranks of the Catholic
clergy have taken their “Irish patriotism” seriously and have
stood up to those members of the Irish Brigade who deserted
to the government, they have been rebuked by their bishops
who are well aware of the diplomatic secret.
A protestant Tory newspaper bemoans the “complete congruity
existing between Lord Palmerston and the Irish clergy. When Pal
merston hands over Ireland to the priests, the priests will elect M.P.s
who will hand over England to Lord Palmerston.”
The Whigs use the Irish Brigade to dominate the English
Parliament and they toss posts and salaries to the Brigade; the
Catholic clergy permits the one to buy and the other to sell
on condition that both acknowledge the power of the clergy
and help to extend and strengthen it. It is, however, a very
remarkable phenomenon that in the same measure as the
Irish influence in the political sphere grows in England, the
Celtic influence in the social sphere decreases in Ireland. Both
the “Irish quarter” in Parliament and the Irish clergy seem to
be equally unaware of the fact that behind their back the
Irish society is being radically transformed by an Anglo-
Saxon revolution. In the course of this revolution the Irish
agricultural system is being replaced by the English system,
the system of small tenures by big tenures, and the modem
capitalist, is taking the place of the old landowner.
The chief factors which prepared the ground for this
transformation are: 1847, the year of famine,53 which killed
nearly one million Irishmen; emigration to America and
Australia, which removed another million from the land and
still carries off thousands; the unsuccessful insurrection of
1848,54 which finally destroyed Ireland’s faith in herself;
and lastly the Act of Parliament which exposed the estates of
the debt-ridden old Irish aristocrats to the hammer of the
auctioneer or bailiff,55 thus driving them from the land just
as starvation drove away their small tenants, subtenants and
cottagers.
Published in Neue Oder-Zeitung Translated from the German
No. 127, March 16, 1855
Karl Marx
[FROM PARLIAMENT]
[Excerpt]
For two years Parliament, as is well known, has been

considering three bills designed to regulate the relations of
Irish landowners and tenants. One of the bills determines the
amount of compensation which the tenant should be entitled
to claim for the improvements he made on the land, in the
event of the landowner terminating the lease. Hitherto, all
improvements made by Irish tenants—most of whom hold a
temporary lease concluded for one year—have merely enabled
the landowner to demand a higher rent on the expiration of
the existing lease. Thus the tenant either loses the farm, if he
does not wish to renew the lease under less favourable condi
tions, and with the farm he loses the capital he has invested
in the improvements, or he is compelled to pay the landlord,
in addition to the original rent, interest on the improvements
made with his (the tenant’s) capital. Support for the earlier
mentioned bills was one of the arrangements with which the
coalition cabinet purchased the votes of the Irish Brigade. In
1854, therefore, they were passed by the House of Com
mons, but the House of Lords with the connivance of the
Ministers shelved them till the next session (in 1855) and
then amended them in such a way that their point was
blunted, sending them back to the House of Commons in this
distorted form. There the main clause of the Compensation
Bill was sacrificed on the altar of landed property last
Thursday, and the Irish were astonished to see that the scales
had been turned against them partly by the votes of members
of the government and partly by the votes of those directly
associated with them. Sergeant Shee’s furious attack on
88 KARL MARX
Palmerston threatened to unleash a riot in the “Irish quarter”
which at this moment could have serious consequences.
Palmerston therefore negotiated with the help of Sadleir, an
ex-member of the coalition and middleman of the Irish
Brigade. He arranged for a deputation of 18 Irish M.P.s to
visit him the day before yesterday to enquire whether he was
willing to use his influence to have the parliamentary vote
rescinded and to carry the clause through the House of
Commons in another division. Palmerston, of course, is ready
to promise anything in order to secure the support of the
Irish Brigade during the vote on the no-confidence motion.
The premature exposure of this intrigue in the House of
Commons gave rise to one of those scandalous scenes typical
of the decline of the oligarchic parliament. The Irish have
105 votes, but it became known that the majority of M.P.s
had not authorised the- deputation of 18. Altogether,
Palmerston is no longer able to use the Irish during govern
ment crises in quite the same way as in O’Connell’s time.
Along with the dissolution of the old established parlia
mentary factions, the “Irish quarter”, too, crumbles and
disintegrates. In any case, the incident shows how Palmerston
makes use of the time won to influence the various cliques.
At the same time he waits for some favourable news from the
theatre of war, some small incident which can be exploited in
the parliamentary sphere, if not in the military. The
submarine telegraph has wrenched the direction of the war
from the hands of the generals and made it dependent on the
amateurish astrological whims of Bonaparte and on parlia
mentary and diplomatic intrigues. Hence the inexplicable
and quite unparalleled character of the second Crimean
campaign.56
Published in Neue Oder-Zeitung Translated from the German
No. 325, July 16, 1855
Karl Marx
From LORD JOHN RUSSELL5 7

r
IV
London, August 4. With the outbreak of the anti-Jacobin

war,5 8 the influence of the Whigs in England began to ebb
lower and lower. They therefore turned to Ireland, decided
to throw her into the scales and wrote Irish Emancipation on
their party standard. When they temporarily stepped into
office in 1806, they introduced a small Irish Emancipation
Bill and carried it through the second reading in the House of
Commons, but then they withdrew it to flatter the bigot
idiocy of George III. In 1812, they sought, though in vain, to
thrust themselves on the Prince Regent (later George IV) on
the ground that only they could bring about a reconciliation
with Ireland. Before and during the Reform agitation they
fawned upon O’Connell, and the “hopes raised in Ireland”
were for them merely powerful instruments to be used for
party purposes. Yet their first act at the first meeting of the
reformed parliament was a declaration of war against Ireland,
a “brutal and bloody measure”, the Irish Coercion Bill,59
which imposed martial law on Ireland.* The Whigs fulfilled
their old promise with “fire, imprisonment, transportation
and even with death”. O’Connell was prosecuted for sedi
tion .60 But they introduced and carried the Coercion Bill
only on the express stipulation that they would bring in an
Irish Church Bill, with a clause stipulating that a certain
* The last part of the sentence reads as follows in The New-York
Daily Tribune : a declaration of civil war against Ireland, a ‘brutal and
bloody measure’, the Irish Coercion ‘Red-Coat Tribunal Bill’, according
to which men were to be tried in Ireland by military officers, instead of
by Judges and Juries.”—Ed.
90 KARL MARX
portion of the revenue of the Established Church in Ireland
should be placed at the disposal of Parliament and that Parlia
ment was to use it for the benefit of Ireland. The importance
of this clause flows from the fact that it acknowledges the
principle that Parliament has the power to expropriate the
Established Church, a principle Lord John Russell certainly
ought to be convinced of since the whole immense property
of his family consists of church plunder. As soon as the
Coercion Bill had been passed, the Whigs, though they had
engaged to stand or fall by the Church Bill, hastened—on the
ground of avoiding a collision with the Lords—to take out
that very clause, the only part of the Bill of any value at all.
They then voted against and defeated their own measure.
This happened in 1834. But towards the end of the year the
Whigs’ sympathies for the Irish were aroused again as if by an
electric shock. For Sir Robert Peel came into office in the
autumn of 1834 and the Whigs had to retire to the Opposi
tion benches. And immediately we see our John Russell
busily engaged in working on reconciliation with Ireland. He
was the principal agent in bringing about, in January 1835,
the Lichfield-House Compact, 6 * through which the Whigs
surrendered to O’Connell the Irish patronage (the right to
distribute offices, etc.), and O’Connell secured to them the
Irish votes, both inside Parliament and out of it. But a
pretext for ejecting the Tories from Downing Street was
needed. With characteristic “impudence”, Russell chose the
Ecclesiastical Revenues of Ireland as the battlefield and used
the very clause—it became notorious under the name
“appropriation clause”—which he and his colleagues in the
Reform Ministry had withdrawn and abandoned a short time
ago, as a war-cry. Under the slogan of the “appropriation
clause” Peel was defeated. The Melbourne Cabinet was
formed, and Lord John Russell became Home Secretary and
Leader of the House of Commons. He now began to boast on
the one hand of his mental firmness, for although now in
office he still adhered to his views on the appropriation
clause, and on the other hand of his moral moderation in not
acting upon those view's. He never acted upon them. In 1846,
when he was Prime Minister, his moral moderation overcame
his mental firmness to such an extent that he renounced his
LORD JOHN RUSSELL 91
“views” too. He professed that he could not conceive of a
more fatal measure than those endangering the revenues, the
essential root of the Established Church.
In February 1833, John Russell as a member of the
Reform Ministry denounced Irish Repeal, and stated in the
House of Commons that the real object of the agitation was
“to overturn at once United Parliament, and tctestablish, in place of
King, Lords, and Commons of the United Kingdom, some parliament of
which Mr. O’Connell was to be the leader and the chief”.
In February 1834, the Repeal agitation was again
denounced in the King’s Speech, and the Reform Ministry
proposed an address
“to record in the most solemn manner the fixed determination of
Parliament to maintain unimpaired and undisturbed the legislative
union”.
Immediately on being shifted to the Opposition benches,
the very same John Russell declared that
“with respect to the Repeal o f the Union, the subject was open to
amendment or question, like any other act of the legislature”,
that is, neither more nor less than any Bill dealing with beer.
In March 1846, Lord John Russell in alliance with the
Tories, then burning with the passion to punish Peel for the
repeal of the Corn Laws,62 broke up Peel’s administration.
The pretext was Peel’s Irish Arms Bill, against which the
morally outraged Lord John Russell resolutely protested..He
became Premier, and his first act was an attempt to renew
that same Bill. But he exposed himself to ridicule without
achieving any result. O’Connell had just conjured up huge
protest meetings against Peel’s Bill and had obtained 50,000
signatures to petitions—he was in Dublin where he brought all
the means of agitation into play. King Dan (as Daniel
O’Connell was generally called) would have lost empire and
revenue if at this moment he appeared as Russell’s accom
plice. He therefore angrily told the little man to withdraw his
Arms Bill immediately. Russell withdrew it. Despite his secret
association with the Whigs, O’Connell added humiliation to
the defeat, and in this he was a past master. To make it quite
92 KARL MARX
obvious who had ordered the retreat, O’Connell announced

the withdrawal of the Arms Bill to the Repealers at the Con
ciliation Hall in Dublin on August 17, that is, on the very day
John Russell announced it in the House of Commons. In
1844, Russell had charged Sir Robert Peel with “having filled
Ireland with troops, and with not governing but militarily
occupying that country”. In 1848, Russell occupied Ireland
militarily, passed the Felony Acts, proclaimed the suspension
of the Habeas Corpus Act,63 and bragged about the
“vigorous measures” of Clarendon.64 This display of energy,
too, was a pretence. In Ireland there were on the one side the
O’Connellites and priests acting in collusion with the Whigs,
and on the other side Smith O’Brien and his followers.65 The
latter were simply dupes who took the Repeal game serious
ly, and hence came to a comic end. The “vigorous measures”
taken by the Russell Government and the brutality employed
were thus not demanded by the circumstances. Their aim
was, not the maintenance of the English rule in Ireland, but
the prolongation of the Whig regime in England.
Published in Neue Oder-Zeitung Translated from the German,

No. 365, August 8, 1855. but analogous passages from
A shortened English version the English version
was published in The New- York have been used
Daily Tribune of August 28,
1855
ENGELS TO MARX
May 23, 1856
Dear Marx,
During our tour in Ireland66 we came from Dublin to
Galway on the west coast, then twenty miles north inland,
then to Limerick, down the Shannon to Tarbert, Tralee,
Killarney and back to Dublin—a total of about 450 to 500
English miles inside the country itself, so that we have seen
about two-thirds of the whole of it. With the exception of
Dublin, which bears the same relation to London as Diis-
seldorf does to Berlin and has quite the character of a small
one-time capital, all English-built, too, the look of the entire
country, and especially of the towns, is as if one were in
France or Northern Italy. Gendarmes, priests, lawyers,
bureaucrats, country squires in pleasing profusion and a total
absence of any industry at all, so that it would be difficult to
understand what all these parasitic growths live on if the
distress of the peasants did not supply the other half of the
picture. “Strong measures” are visible in every comer of the
country, the government meddles with everything, of so-
called self-government there is not a trace. Ireland may be
regarded as England’s first colony and as one which, because
of its proximity, is still governed exactly in the old way, and
one can already notice here that the so-called liberty of
English citizens is based on the oppression of the colonies. I
have never seen so many gendarmes in any country, and the
sodden look of the bibulous Prussian gendarme is developed
to its highest perfection here among the constabulary, who
are armed with carbines, bayonets and handcuffs.
Characteristic of this country are its ruins, the oldest
dating from the fifth and sixth centuries, the latest from the
94 ENGELS TO MARX. May 23, 1856
nineteenth—with every intervening period. The most ancient
are all churches; after 1100, churches and castles; after 1800,
houses of peasants. The whole of the west, especially in the
neighbourhood of Galway, is covered with ruined peasant
houses, most of which have only been deserted since 1846. I
never thought that famine could have such tangible reality.67
Whole villages are devastated, and there among them lie the
splendid parks of the lesser landlords, who are almost the
only people still living there, mostly lawyers. Famine, emigra
tion and clearances together have accomplished this. There
are not even cattle to be seen in the fields. The land is an
utter desert which nobody wants. In County Clare, south of
Galway, it is somewhat better. Here there are at least cattle,
and the hills towards Limerick are excellently cultivated,
mostly by Scottish farmers, the ruins have been cleared away
and the country has a bourgeois appearance. In the south
west there are a lot of mountains and bogs but there is also
wonderfully luxuriant forest land; beyond that again fine
pastures, especially in Tipperary, and towards Dublin there is
land which, one can see, is gradually coming into the hands
of big farmers.
The country was completely ruined by the English wars
of conquest from 1100 68 to 1850 (for in reality both the
wars and the state of siege lasted as long as that). It has been
established as a fact that most of the ruins were produced by
destruction during the wars. The people itself has got its
peculiar character from this, and for all their national Irish
fanaticism the fellows feel that they are no longer at home in
their own country. Ireland for the Saxon! That is now being
realised. The Irishman knows that he cannot compete with
the Englishman, who comes equipped with means superior in
every respect; emigration will go on until the predominantly,
indeed almost exclusively, Celtic character of the population
is gone to the dogs. How often have the Irish started out to
achieve something, and every time they have been crushed,
politically and industrially. By consistent oppression they
have been artificially converted into an utterly impoverished
nation and now, as everyone knows, fulfil the function of
supplying England, America, Australia, etc., with prostitutes,
casual labourers, pimps, pickpockets, swindlers, beggars and
ENGELS TO MARX. May 23, 1856 95
other rabble. Impoverishment characterises the aristocracy
too. The landowners, who everywhere else have become
bourgeoisified, are here reduced to complete poverty. Their
country-seats are surrounded by enormous, amazingly
beautiful parks, but all around is waste land, and where the
money is to come from it is impossible to see. These fellows
are droll enough to make your sides burst with laughing. Of
mixed blood, mostly tall, strong, handsome chaps, they all
wear enormous moustaches under colossal Roman noses, give
themselves the false military airs of retired colonels, travel
around the country after all sorts of pleasures, and if one
makes an inquiry, they haven’t a penny, are laden with debts,
and live in dread of the Encumbered Estates Court.69
Concerning the ways and means by which England rules
this country—repression and corruption—long before
Bonaparte attempted this, I shall write shortly if you won’t
come over soon. How about it?
Yours, F.E.
Published in Der Briefwechsel Translated from the German

zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx,
Bd. II, Stuttgart, 1913
Karl Marx
From THE QUESTION OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS70
According to his oracle in Printing-House Square,7 1 he

grasps after colonies only in order to educate them in the
principles of public liberty; but, if we adhere to facts, the
Ionian Islands, like India and Ireland, prove only that to be
free at home, John Bull must enslave abroad. Thus, at this
very moment, while giving vent to his virtuous indignation
against Bonaparte’s spy system at Paris, he is himself
introducing it at Dublin.
P ublished in The New- York Printed according to the text

January 6, 1859
Karl Marx
THE EXCITEMENT IN IRELAND

r
London, Dec. 24, 1858
A Government, representing, like the present British

Ministry, a party in decay, will always better succeed in
getting rid of its old principles, than of its old connections.
When installing himself at Downing Street, Lord Derby,
doubtless, made up his mind to atone for the blunders which
in times past had converted his name into a byword in
Ireland; and his versatile Attorney-General for Ireland,
Mr. Whiteside, would not one moment hesitate flinging to the
wind the oaths that bound him to the Orange Lodges.' 2 But,
then, Lord Derby’s advent to power gave, simultaneously, the
signal for one coterie of the governing class to rush in and fill
the posts just vacated by the forcible ejection of the other
coterie. The formation of the Derby Cabinet involved the
consequence that all Government places should be divided
among a motley crew still united by a party name which has
become meaningless, and still marching under a banner torn
to tatters, but in fact having nothing in common save
reminiscences of the past, club intrigues, and, above all, the
firm resolution to share together the loaves and fishes of
office. Thus, Lord Eglinton, the Don Quixote who wanted to
resuscitate the tournaments of chivarly in money-mongering
England, was to be enthroned Lord Lieutenant at Dublin
Castle,73 and Lord Naas, notorious as a reckless partisan of
Irish landlordism, was to be made his First Minister. The
worthy couple, arcades ambo, on leaving London, were, of
course, seriously enjoined by their superiors to have done
with their crotchets, to behave properly, and by no capri-
4-226
98 KARL MARX
cious pranks to upset their own employers. Lord Eglinton’s

path across the channel was, we do not doubt, paved with
good intentions, the vista of the Vice-royal baubles dancing
before his childish mind; while Lord Naas, on his arrival at
Dublin Castle, was determined to satisfy himself that the
wholesale clearance of estates, the burning down of cottages,
and the merciless unhousing of their poor inmates were
proceeding at the proper ratio. Yet as party necessities had
forced Lord Derby to instal wrong men in the wrong place,
party necessities falsified at once the position of those men,
whatever their individual intentions might be. Orangeism had
been officially snubbed for its intruding loyalty, the Govern
ment itself had been compelled to denounce this organisation
as illegal, and very unceremoniously it was told that it was no
longer good for any earthly purpose, and that it must vanish.
The mere advent of a Tory Government, the mere occupancy
of Dublin Castle by an Eglinton and a Naas revived the hopes
of the chop-fallen Orangemen. The sun shone again on the
“true blues”; they would again lord it over the land as in the
days of Castlereagh, and the day for taking their revenge had
visibly dawned. Step by step, they led the bungling, weak,
and, therefore, temerarious representatives of Downing street
from one false position to the other, until one fine morning
at last, the world was startled by a proclamation of the Lord
Lieutenant, placing Ireland (so to say) in a state of siege, and
turning, through the means of £100 and £50 rewards, the
trade of the spy, the informer, the perjurer, and the agent
provocateur into the most profitable trade in Green Erin. The
placards announcing rewards for the detection of secret
societies were hardly posted, when an infamous fellow,
named O’Sullivan, an apothecary’s apprentice at Killarney,
denounced his own father and some boys of Killarney,
Kenmare, Bantry, Skibbereen, as members of a formidable
conspiracy which, in secret understanding with filibusters
from the other side of the Atlantic, intended not only, like
Mr. Bright, to “Americanise English institutions”, but to
annex Ireland to the model Republic. Consequently, detec
tives busied themselves in the Counties of Kerry and Cork,
nocturnal arrests took place, mysterious informations went
on; from the south-west the conspiracy hunting spread to the
THE EXCITEMENT IN IRELAND 99
north-east, farcical scenes occurred in the County of

Monaghan, and alarmed Belfast saw some dozen of school
masters, attorneys’ clerks and merchants’ clerks paraded
through the streets and locked up in the jails. What rendered
the thing worse was the veil of mystery thrown over the
judicial proceedings. Bail was declined inwall cases, midnight
surprises became the order of the day, all the inquisitions
were kept secret, copies of the informations on which the
arbitrary arrests had been made were regularly refused, the
stipendiary magistrates were whirling up and down from their
judicial seats to the ante-chambers of Dublin Castle, and of
all Ireland might be said, wThat Mr. Rea, the counsel for the
defendants at Belfast, remarked with respect to that place, “I
believe the British Constitution has left Belfast this last
week.”
Now, through all this hubbub and all this mystery, there
transpires more and more the anxiety of the Government,
that had given way to the pressure of its credulous Irish
agents, who, in their turn, were mere playthings in the hands
of the Orangemen, how to get out of the awkward fix
without losing at once their reputation and their places. At
first, it was pretended that the dangerous conspiracy, extend
ing its ramifications from the south-west to the north-east
over the whole surface of Ireland, issued from the American
ising Phoenix Club.74 Then it was a revival of Ribbonism75 5
but now it is something quite new, quite unknown, and the
more awful for all that. The shifts the Government is driven
to may be judged from the manoeuvres of The Dublin Daily
Express, the Government organ, which day by day treats its
readers, to false rumours of murders committed, armed men
ma luding, and midnight meetings taking place. To its
intense disgust, the men killed return from their graves, and
protest in its own columns against being so disposed of by
the editor.
There may exist such a thing as a Phoenix Club, but at all
events, it is a very small affair, since the Government itself
has thought fit to stifle this Phoenix in its own ashes. As to
Ribbonism, its existence never depended upon secret con
spirators. When, at the end of the eighteenth century, the
Protestant Peep-o’-Day boys combined to wage war against
100 KARL MARX
the Catholics in the north of Ireland, the opposing society of

the Defenders76 sprang up. When, in 1791, the Peep-o’-
Day boys merged into Orangeism, the Defenders trans
formed themselves into Ribbonmen. When, at last, in our
own days, the British Government disavowed Orangeism,
the Ribbon Society, having lost its condition of life,
dissolved itself voluntarily. The extraordinary steps taken
by Lord Eglinton may, in fact, revive Ribbonism, as may
the present attempts of the Dublin Orangemen to place
English officers at the head of the Irish Constabulary, and
fill its inferior ranks with their own partisans. At present
there exist no secret societies in Ireland except agrarian
societies. To accuse Ireland of producing such societies
would be as judicious as to accuse woodland of producing
mushrooms. The landlords of Ireland are confederated for
a fiendish war of extermination against the cotters; or, as
they call it, they combine for the economical experiment
of clearing the land of useless mouths. The small native
tenants are to be disposed of with no more ado than
vermin is by the housemaid. The despairing wretches, on
their part, attempt a feeble resistance by the formation of
secret societies, scattered over the land, and powerless for
effecting anything beyond demonstrations of individual
vengeance.
But if the conspiracy hunted after in Ireland is a
mere invention of Orangeism, the premiums held out by
the Government may succeed in giving shape and body to
the airy nothing. The recruiting sergeant is no more sure
to press with his shilling and his gin some of the Queen’s
mob into the Queen’s service, than a reward for the
detection of Irish secret societies is sure to create the
societies to be detected. From the entrails of every
county there rise immediately blacklegs who, transforming
themselves into revolutionary delegates, travel through the
rural districts, enrol members, administer oaths, denounce
the victims, swear them to the gallows, and pocket the
blood-money. To characterise this race of Irish informers
and the effect on them of Government rewards, it will
suffice to quote one passage from a speech delivered by
Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons:
THE EXCITEMENT IN IRELAND 101
“When I was Chief Secretary of Ireland, a murder was commit

ted between Carriek-on-Suir and Clonmel. A Mr.----had a deadly re
venge toward a Mr.-— , and he employed four men at two guineas each
to murder him. There was a road on each side of the River Suir, from
Carrick to Clonmel; and placing two men on each road, the escape of
his victim was impossible. He was, therefore, foully murdered, and the
country was so shocked by this heinous crime, that the Government
offered a reward of £500 for the discovery df each of the murderers.
And can it be believed, the miscreant who bribed the four murderers
was the very man who came and gave the information which led to
their execution, and with these hands I paid in my office in Dublin
Castle the sum of £2,000 to that monster in human shape.”

January 11, 1859
Ka r l Ma r x
From POPULATION, CRIME AND PAUPERISM
There must be something rotten in the very core of a

social system which increases its wealth without diminishing
its misery, and increases in crimes even more rapidly than in
numbers. It is true enough that, if we compare the year 1855
with the preceding years, there seems to have occurred a
sensible decrease of crime from 1855 to 1858. The total
number of people committed for trial, which in 1854
amounted to 29,359, had sunk down to 17,855 in 1858; and
the number of convicted had also greatly fallen off, if not
quite in the same ratio. This apparent decrease of crime,
however, since 1854, is to be exclusively attributed to some
technical changes in British jurisdiction; to the Juvenile
Offenders’ Act' 7 in the first instance, and, in the second
instance, to the operation of the Criminal Justice Act of
1855, which authorises the Police Magistrates to pass
sentences for short periods, with the consent of the prisoners.
Violations of the law are generally the offspring of econom
ical agencies beyond the control of the legislator, but, as the
working of the Juvenile Offenders’ Act testifies, it depends to
some degree on official society to stamp certain violations of
its rules as crimes or as transgressions only. This difference of
nomenclature, so far from being indifferent, decides on the
fate of thousands of men, and the moral tone of society. Law
itself may not only punish crime, but improvise it, and the
law of professional lawyers is very apt to work in this direc
tion. Thus, it has been justly remarked by an eminent
historian, that the Catholic clergy of the medieval times, with
its dark views of human nature, introduced by its influence
POPULATION, CRIME AND PAUPERISM 103
into criminal legislation, has created more crimes than for

given sins.
Strange to say, the only part of the United Kingdom in
which crime has seriously decreased, say by 50, and even by
75 per cent, is Ireland. How can we harmonise this fact with
the public-opinion slang of England, according to which Irish
nature, instead of British misrule, is fesponsible for Irish
shortcomings? It is, again, no act on the part of the British
ruler, but simply the consequence of a famine,7 8 an exodus,
and a general combination of circumstances favourable to the
demand for Irish labour, that has worked this happy change
in Irish nature. However that may be, the significance of
the following tabular statements cannot be misunder
stood.
I.—Crimes in Ireland.
—Committed for Trial—
Years Males Females Total Convicted

1844 .............. 14,799 4,649 19,448 8,042
1845 ...... 12,807 3,889 16,696 7,101
1846 .............. 14,204 4,288 18,492 8,639
1847 .............. 23,552 7,657 31,209 15,233
1848 .............. 28,765 9,757 38,522 18,206
1849 .............. 31,340 10,649 41,989 21,202
1850 ............... 22,682 3,644 31,326 17,108
1851 . ............ 17,337 7,347 24,684 14,377
1852 .............. 12,444 5,234 17,678 10,454
1853 .............. 10,260 4,884 15,144 8,712
1854 .............. 7,937 3,851 11,788 7,051
1855 .............. 6,019 2,993 9,012 5,220
1856 .............. 5,097 2,002 7,099 4,024
1857 .............. 5,458 1,752 7,210 3,925
1858 .............. 4,708 1,600 6,308 1 3,3/50
104 KARL MARX
II.—Paupers in Ireland.
Years No. of No. of

Parishes Paupers Years Parishes Paupers
1849 .. 880 82,357 1854 ... 883 78,929
1850 .. 880 79,031 1855 ... 883 79,887
1851 .. 881 76,906 1856 ... 883 79,973
1852 .. 882 75,111 1857 ... 883 79,217
1853 .*. 882 75,437 1858 ... 883 79,199

September 16, 1859
Karl Marx
From THE CRISIS IN ENGLAND79

r
Today, as fifteen years ago, England faces a catastrophe

which threatens to undermine the foundation of her entire
economic system. Potatoes as is known were almost the only
food of the Irish and of a considerable part of the English
working population when the potato blight of 1845 and
1846 struck the Irish root of life with rot. The results of that
big catastrophe are well known. The Irish population
decreased by two millions, some of whom starved, while
others fled across the Atlantic. At the same time; this
enormous calamity promoted the victory of the English Free-
Trade party; the English landed aristocracy was compelled to
sacrifice one of its most profitable monopolies, and the
Repeal of the Corn Laws80 ensured a wider and sounder
basis for the reproduction and maintenance of the working
millions.
What the potato was to Irish agriculture, cotton is to the
dominant branch of Great Britain’s industry. On its process
ing depends the subsistence of a mass of the population
which is greater than the whole population of Scotland or
two-thirds of the present population of Ireland. According to
the 1861 census, the population of Scotland was 3,061,117,
and that of Ireland only 5,764,543, while more than four
million people in England and Scotland live directly or
indirectly on the cotton industry. True, the cotton plant has
not contracted any disease. Neither is its production the
monopoly of a few areas of the world. On the contrary, no
other plant providing material for clothing thrives on such
extensive areas in America, Asia and Africa. The cotton
106 KARL MARX
monopoly of the slave-owning states of the American Union
is not natural, but historically shaped. It grew and developed
simultaneously with the monopoly of the English cotton
industry on the world market....
Suddenly the American Civil War threatens this mainstay
of English industry. While the Union blockades the ports of
the Southern States to prevent the export of this year’s
cotton harvest and thereby cut off the secessionists’ main
source of income, the Confederation imparts compulsive
force to this blockade merely by its decision not to export a
single bale of cotton voluntarily and, moreover, to force
England to come and fetch cotton herself from the southern
ports. England is to be driven to break through the blockade
by force, to declare war on the Union, and thus to throw her
sword on the scales in favour of the slave-owning states.
Published in Die Presse No. 305, Translated from the German

November 6 , 1861
Karl Marx
From ENGLISH HUMANISM AND AMERICA
This time it is the ladies from New Orleans, yellow beau

ties, tastelessly adorned with jewels and comparable in a way
to the wives of the old Mexicans, except that they do not eat
up their slaves in natura, who provide the occasion for a
display of British aristocratic humanism—formerly it was the
ports of Charleston. The English women who starve in
Lancashire (but then they are not ladies and own no slaves)
have not so far set any parliamentarian lips in motion; the
cries of distress of the Irish women, who, because of the
progressive concentration of small tenancies in Green Erin,
are thrown half-naked into the streets and chased from house
and home as if there were a Tatar invasion, have as yet
elicited a single echo from Lords, Commons and Her
Majesty’s Government—homilies on the absolute rights of
landownership.81 But the ladies of New Orleans! That is
quite a different matter. These ladies were far too enlight
ened to take part in the turmoil of war like the goddesses of
Olympus, or to throw themselves into the flames like the
women of Saguntum.82 They have invented a new and safe
kind of heroism, a kind that could have been invented only
by women slave-owners, and at that by women slave-owners
in a land where the free portion of the population consists of
shop-keepers, cotton or sugar or tobacco merchants, who do
not keep slaves as the cives of antiquity did. When their
husbands had run away from New Orleans or hidden in their
back-rooms, these ladies ran out into the streets to spit in the
face of the victorious Unionist troops,83 to stick out their
tongues at them or, generally, like Mephistopheles, to make
108 KARL MARX
“obscene gestures” accompanied with invectives. These
megaeras thought they would be allowed to be insolent “with
impunity*’.
That was their heroism. General Butler issued a proclama
tion in which he announced that they would be treated like
street-walkers if they continued to behave like street-walkers.
Butler, though a lawyer by profession, does not seem to have
studied English Statute Law properly.84 Otherwise, by
analogy with the laws imposed on Ireland under Cast-
lereagh,85 he would have prohibited them to set foot in the
streets at all. Butler’s warning to the “ladies” of New Orleans
has made the Earl of Carnarvon, Sir J. Walsh (who played a
ridiculous and odious role in Ireland), and Mr. Gregory, who
demanded the recognition of the Confederation already a
year ago, so morally indignant, that the Earl in the Upper
House, and the knight and man “without a handle to his
name” in the Lower House have questioned the government
on what steps it intended to take in the name of affronted
“humanism”.. Both Russell and Palmerston chastised Butler,
and both expected him to be disavowed by the Government
of Washington, and the very sensitive Palmerston, who, for
“humane” admiration only, recognised the coup d’etat of
December 185186 (on which occasion some “ladies” were
even shot dead and others were raped by the Zouaves87)
behind the Queen’s back and without previous knowledge by
his colleagues, that same sensitive Viscount declared that
Butler’s warning was an “infamy”. Indeed, ladies, moreover
ladies who even own slaves, should not even be allowed to
vent their wrath and their spite on ordinary Unionist troops,
peasants, artisans, and other rabble with impunity! It is
“infamous”.
Published in Die Presse No. 168, Translated from the German

June 20, 1862
Karl Marx
From CHAPTER XXV OF CAPITAL, VOLUME I88

r
Section 5. Illustrations of the General Law
of Capitalist Accumulation
(f.) Ireland
In concluding this section, we must travel for a moment
to Ireland. First, the main facts of the case.
The population of Ireland had, in 18.41, reached
8,222,664; in 1851, it had dwindled to 6,623,985; in 1861,
to 5,850,309; in 1866, to 51/2 millions, nearly to its level in
1801. The diminution began with the famine year, 1846, so
that Ireland, in less than twenty years, lost more than 5/i 6 ths
of its people.* Its total emigration from May, 1851, to July,
1865, numbered 1,591,487: the emigration during the years
Table A
LIVE-STOCK
Horses Cattle
Year Total Total
Number Decrease Number Decrease Increase
1860 . . 619,811 g< ' ~ 3,606,374 iig jl n
1861 . . 614,232 5,579 3,471,688 134,686

1862 . . 602,894 11,338 3,254,890 216,798 I ;
— ’
1863 . . 579,978 22,916 3,144,231 110,659 (Mfc*

1864 . . 562,158 17,820 3,262,294 — 118,063
1865 , . 547,867 14,291 3,493,414 :
) — . 231,120
* Population of Ireland, 1801, 5,319,867 persons; 1811, 6,084,996;

1821, 6,869,544; 1831, 7,828,347; 1841, 8,222,664.
110 KARL MARX
Continued
Sheep Pigs
Year Total Total
number Decrease Increase number Decrease Increase
1860 3,542,080 ;__ 1,271,072 _
1861 3,556,050 13,970 1,102,042 169,030 ,'— 4
1862 3,456,132 99,918 SB 1,154,324 52,282
1863 3,308,204 147,928 n 1,067,458 86,866 f Kg.
1864 3,366,941 — 58,737 1,058,480 8,978
1865 3,688,742 321,801 1,299,893 — 241,413
1861-1865 was more than half-a-million. The number of

inhabited houses fell, from 1851-1861, by 52,990. From
1851-1861, the number of holdings of 15 to 30 acres
increased 61,000, that of holdings over 30 acres, 109,000,
whilst the total number of all farms fell 120,000, a fall, there
fore, solely due to the suppression of farms under 15 acres—
i.e., to their centralisation.
The decrease of the population was naturally accompa
nied by a decrease in the mass of products. For our purpose,
it suffices to consider the 5 years from 1861-1865 during
which over half-a-million emigrated and the absolute number
of people sank by more than */3 of a million.
From the above table it results:-^
Horses Cattle Sheep Pigs
Absolute Absolute Absolute Absolute
Decrease Decrease Increase Increase
71,944 112,960 146,662 28,821*
Let us now turn to agriculture, which yields the means of
subsistence for cattle and for men. In the following table is
* The result would be found yet more unfavourable if we went
further back. Thus: Sheep in 1865, 3,688,742, but in 1856, 3,694,294.
Pigs in 1865, 1,299,893, but in 1858, 1,409,883.
CAPITAL, VOL. I, CH. XXV 111
Table B
INCREASE OR DECREASE IN THE AREA UNDER CROPS
AND GRASS IN ACREAGE
Cereal Green Crops Grass and Flax Total Culti
Crops Clover vated Land
Year
De De In- De- In- Dr In- De In
crease crease; creas e crease cre< se crease crease crease crease
Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres
1861 15,701 36,974 V —! 47,969 _ _ . 19,271 81,373
1862 72,734 74,785 6,623 — 2,055 138,841 —
144,719 19,358 g H — 7,724
— —
1863 ■ 63,922 92,431 •ila iS

1864 122,437 2,317 I -a .— 47,486 — 87,761 L0,493
1865 72,450 25,241 1 frr 68,970 50,159 1 HH 28,398
1861- 428,041 108,193 — 82,834 — 122,850 330,550 —
65
calculated the decrease or increase for each separate year, as

compared with its immediate predecessor. The Cereal Crops
include wheat, oats, barley, rye, beans, and peas; the Green
Crops, potatoes, turnips, mangolds, beet-root, cabbages, car
rots, parsnips, vetches, &c.
In the year 1865, 127,470 additional acres came under
the heading “grass land”, chiefly because the area under
the heading of “bog and waste unoccupied”, decreased by
101,543 acres. If we compare 1865 with 1864, there is a
decrease in cereals of 246, 667 qrs., of which 48,999 were
wheat, 166,605 oats, 29,892 barley, &c.: the decrease in
potatoes was 446,398 tons, although the area of their cultiva
tion increased in 1865. [See Table C.]
From the movement of population and the agricultural
produce of Ireland, we pass to the movement in the purse of
its landlords, larger farmers, and industrial capitalists. It is
reflected in the rise and fall of the Income-tax. It may be
remembered that Schedule D. (profits with the exception of
those of farmers), includes also the so-called “professional”
profits—i.e., the incomes of lawyers, doctors, &c.; and the
Schedules C. and E., in which no special details are given,
include the incomes of employes, officers, State sinecurists,
State fundholders, &c.
112 KARL MARX
INCREASE OR DECREASE IN THE AREA UNDER CULTIVATION,

PRODUCT
Acres of Cultivated Increase or
Land Decrease, 1865 Product per Acre
Product
1864 1865 1864 1865
Wheat. . . 276,483 266,989 9,494 Wheat, 13.3 13.0

cwt.
Oats. . . . 1,814,886 1,745,228 69,658 Oats, cwt. 12.1 12.3
Barley . . 172,700 177,102 4,402 Barley, 15.9 14.9
cwt.
Bere. . . (Bere, cwt. 16.4 14.8
8,894 10,091 1,197
Ry e . . . . (Rye, cwt. 8.5 10,4
Potatoes 1,039,724 1,066,260 26,536 Potatoes, 4.1 3.6
tons
Turnips 337,355 334,212 3,143 Turnips, 10.3 9.9
tons
Mangold-
wurzel . 14,073 14,389 316 Mangold- 10.5 13.3
wurzel,
tons
Cabbages 31,821 33,622 1,801 Cabbages, 9.3 10.4
tons
Flax. . . . 301,693 251,433 50,260 Flax, st. (141b) 25.2
34.2
Hay. . . . 1,609,569 1,678,493 68,924 Hay, tons 1.6 1.8
* The data of the text are put together from the materials of the
“ Agricultural Statistics, Ireland, General Abstracts, Dublin”, for the
years 1860, et seq., and “ Agricultural Statistics, Ireland. Tables showing
the estimated average produce, Dublin, 1866”. These statistics are
official, and laid before Parliament annually. [Note to 2nd edition. The
official statistics for the year 1872 show, as compared with 1871, a
decrease in area under cultivation of 134,915 acres. An increase oc
curred in the cultivation of green crops, turnips, mangold-wurzel, and
Table C
PER ACRE, AND TOTAL PRODUCT OF 1865 COMPARED WITH 1864
Increase or
Decrease, Total Product
1865 r
1864 1865 Increase or Decrease,
1865
Qrs. Qrs.
0.3 875,782 », 826,783 w 48,999 qrs.
0.2 7,826,332 »» 7,659,727 99
166,605 ”
1.0 761,909 »» 732,017 99
29,892 f
1.6 15,160 »» 13,989 99
1,171 ”
1.9 12,680 a ,• 18,364 . 99
5,684 qrs.
0.5 4,312,388 ts. 3,865,990 ts. 446,398 ts.
0.4 3,467,659 »» 3,301,683 i **i . 165,976 ”
2.8 147,284 , 191,937 99

44,653 ts.
1.1 297,375 ,» 350,252 99

52,877 ”
9.0 64,506 st. 39,561 st. 24,945 st.*
0.2 2,607,153 ts. 3,068,707 ts. 461,554”
the like; a decrease in the area under cultivation for wheat of 16,000
acres; oats, 14,000; barley and rye, 4,000; potatoes, 66*632; flax,
34,667; grass, clover, vetches, rape-seed, 30,000. The soil under cultiva
tion for wheat shows for the last 5 years the following stages of
decrease:—1868, 285,000 acres; 1869, 280,000; 1870, 259,000,1871,
244,000; 1872, 228,000. For 1872 we find, in round numbers, an
increase of 2,600 horses, 80,000 homed cattle, 68,609 sheep, and a
decrease of 236,000 pigs.]
114 KARL MARX
Table D
THE INCOME-TAX ON THE SUBJOINED INCOMES IN POUNDS STERLING
1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865
Sched
ule A.
Rent of
Land 12,893,829 13,003,554 13,398,93* 13,494,091 13,470,700 13,801,616
Sched
ule B.
Farmers
Profits 2,765,387 2,773,644 2,937,899 2,938,923 2,930,874 2 946,072
Sched
ule D.
Indust
rial,
&c.,
Profits 4,891,652 4,836,203 4,858,800 4,846,497 4,546,147 4,850,199
Total
Sched
ules
A. to E. 22,962,885 22,998,394 23,597,574 23,658,631 23,236,298 23,930,340*
Under Schedule D. the average annual increase of income

from 1853-1864 was only 0.93; whilst, in the same period,
in Great Britain, it was 4.58. The following table shows
the distribution of the profits (with the exception of those
of farmers) for the years 1864 and 1865:—[See
Table £.]
England, a country with fully developed capitalist pro
duction, and pre-eminently industrial, would have bled to
death with such a drain of population as Ireland has suffered.
But Ireland is at present only an agricultural district of
England, marked off by a wide channel from the country to
which it yields corn, wool, cattle, industrial and military
recruits.
The depopulation of Ireland has thrown much of the land
out of cultivation, has greatly diminished the produce of the
* Tenth Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. London,

1866 .
Table E
SCHEDULE D. INCOME FROM PROFITS (OVER £60) IN IRELAND
1864 1865
£ £
Total yearly in
come o f................. 4,368,610 divided among 4,669^79 divided among
17,467 persons. 18,081 persons.
Yearly income
over £60 and *9 5,015 »» 4,703 ”
under £ l 00. . . . 238,726 222,575
Of the yearly to »» 11,321, *» 2,028,571 »» 12,184 ”
tal income . . . . 1,979,066
Remainder of the
total yearly in *» 1,131 «• 2,418,833 »» 1,194 ”
come .................... 2,150,818 »♦ W »♦ 1,044 ”
1,073,906 *» 1,010 1,097,927 »» 150 ”
fl,076,912 »» 121 ** 1,320,906 »» 122 ”
Of these ................. ) 430,535 »» 95 584,458 »»
[ 646,377 »» 26 ** 736,448 »» 28 ”
262,819 3 274,528 3* ”
soil,** and, in spite of the greater area devoted to cattle-

breeding, has brought about, in some of its branches, an
absolute diminution, in others, an advance scarcely worthy of
mention, and constantly interrupted by retrogressions. Never
theless, with the fall in numbers of the population, rents and
farmers’ profits rose, although the latter not as steadily as the
former. The reason of this is easily comprehensible. On the
one hand, with the throwing of small holdings into large
ones, and the change of arable into pasture land, a larger part
of the whole produce was transformed into surplus-produce.
The surplus-produce increased, although the total produce, of
* The total yearly income under Schedule D. is different in this
table from that which appears in the preceding ones, because of certain
deductions allowed by law.
* If the product also diminishes relatively per acre, it must not be
forgotten that for a century and a half England has indirectly exported
the soil of Ireland, without as much as allowing its cultivators the
means for making up the constituents of the soil that had been exhaust
ed.
116 KARL MARX
which it formed a fraction, decreased. On the other hand, the
money-value of this surplus-produce increased yet more
rapidly than its mass, in consequence of the rise in the
English market-price of meat, wool, &c., during the last 20,
and especially during the last 10, years.
The scattered means of production that serve the produc
ers themselves as means of employment and of subsistence,
without expanding their own value by the incorporation of
the labour of others, are no more capital than a product
consumed by its own producer is a commodity. If, with the
mass of the population, that of the means of production
employed in agriculture also diminished, the mass of the
capital employed in agriculture increased, because a part of
the means of production that were formerly scattered, was
concentrated and turned into capital.
The total capital of Ireland outside agriculture, employed
in industry and trade, accumulated during the last two
decades slowly, and with great and constantly recurring
fluctuations; so much the more rapidly did the concentration
of its individual constituents develop. And, however small its
absolute increase, in proportion to the dwindling population
it had increased largely.
Here, then, under our own eyes and on a large scale, a
process is revealed, than which nothing more excellent could
be wished for by orthodox economy for the support of its
dogma: that misery springs from absolute surplus-population,
and that equilibrium is re-established by depopulation. This is
a far more important experiment than was the plague in the
middle of the 14th century so belauded of Malthusians.89
Note further: If only the naivete of the schoolmaster could
apply, to the conditions of production and population of the
nineteenth century, the standard of the 14th, this naivete,
into the bargain, overlooked the fact that whilst, after the
plague and the decimation that accompanied it, followed on
this side of the Channel, in England, enfranchisement and
enrichment of the agricultural population, on that side, in
France, followed greater servitude and more misery.*
* As Ireland is regarded as the promised land of the “principle of
population”, Th. Sadler, before the publication of his work on popula
The Irish famine of 1846 killed more than 1,000,000

people, but it killed poor devils only. To the wealth of the
country it did not the slightest damage. The exodus of the
next 20 years, an exodus still constantly increasing, did not,
as, e.g., the Thirty Years’ War,90 decimate, along with the
human beings, their means of production. Irish genius discov
ered an altogether new way of spiriting a poop people thou
sands of miles away from the scene of its misery. The exiles
transplanted to the United States, send home sums of money
every year as travelling expenses for those left behind. Every
troop that emigrates one year, draws another after it the
next. Thus, instead of costing Ireland anything, emigration
forms one of the most lucrative branches of its export trade.
Finally, it is a systematic process, which does not simply
make a passing gap in the population, but sucks out of it
every year more people than are replaced by the births, so
that the absolute level of the population falls year by year.*
What were the consequences for the Irish labourers left
behind and freed from the surplus-population? That the
relative surplus-population is to-day as great as before 1846;
that wages are just as low, that the oppression of the labour
ers has increased, that misery is forcing the country towards a
new crisis. The facts are simple. The revolution in agriculture
has kept pace with emigration. The production of relative
surplus-population has more than kept pace with the absolute
depopulation. A glance at Table C shows that the change of
arable to pasture land must work yet more acutely in Ireland
than in England. In England the cultivation of green crops
increases with the breeding of cattle; in Ireland, it decreases.
Whilst a large number of acres, that were formerly tilled, lie
idle or are turned permanently into grass-land, a great part of
the waste land and peat bogs that were unused formerly,
tion, issued his famous book, “Ireland, its Evils and their Remedies”,
2nd edition, London, 1829. Here, by comparison of the statistics of the
individual provinces, and of the individual counties in each province, he
proves that the misery there is not as Malthus would have it, in propor
tion to the number of the population, but in inverse ratio to this. [Note
to the French edition of 1872-75.—Ed.]
* Between 1851 and 1874, the total number of emigrants amount
ed to 2,325,922. [Note to the French edition of 1872-75.—Ed. ]
118 KARL MARX
become of service for the extension of cattle-breeding. The
smaller and medium farmers—I reckon among these all who
do not cultivate more than 100 acres—still make up about
8/10 ths of the whole number.* They are, one after the other,
and with a degree ot torce unknown before, crushed by the
competition of an agriculture managed by capital, and there
fore they continually furnish new recruits to the class of
wage-labourers. The one great industry of Ireland, linen-
manufacture, requires relatively few adult men and only
employs altogether, in spite of its expansion since the price
of cotton rose in 1861-1866, a comparatively insignificant
part of the population. Like all other great modern
industries, it constantly produces, by incessant fluctuations, a
relative surplus-population within its own sphere, even with
an absolute increase in the mass of human beings absorbed by
it. The misery of the agricultural population forms the
pedestal for gigantic shirt-factories, whose armies of labourers
are, for the most part, scattered over the country. Here, we
encounter again the system described above of domestic
industry,91 which in underpayment and over-work, possesses
its own systematic means for creating supernumerary labour
ers. Finally, although the depopulation has not such destruc
tive consequences as would result in a country with fully
developed capitalistic production, it does not go on without
constant reaction upon the home-market. The gap which
emigration causes here, limits not only the local demand for
labour, but also the incomes of small shopkeepers, artisans,
tradespeople generally. Hence the diminution in incomes
between £60 and £100 in Table E.
A clear statement of the condition of the agricultural
labourers in Ireland is to be found in the Reports of the Irish
Poor Law Inspectors (1870).** Officials of a government
which is maintained only by bayonets and by a state of siege,
* [Note to 2nd edition.] According to a table in Murphy’s

“Ireland Industrial, Political and Social”, 1870, 94.6 per cent of the
holdings do not reach 100 acres, 5.4 exceed 100 acres.
** Reports from the Poor Law Inspectors on the Wages of Agricul
tural Labourers in Ireland”, Dublin, 1870. See also “Agricultural
Labourers (Ireland). Return, etc.”, 8th March, 1861. [The text based
now open, now disguised, they have to observe all the precau
tions of language that their colleagues in England disdain. In
spite of this, however, they do not let their government
cradle itself in illusions. According to them the rate of wages
in the country, still very low, has within the last 20 years
risen 50-60 per cent., and stands now, on the average, at 6s.
to 9s. per week. But behind this apparent Fise, is hidden an
actual fall in wages, for it does not correspond at all to
the rise in price of the necessary means of subsistence
that has taken place in the meantime. For proof, the
following extract from the official accounts of an Irish
workhouse.
A V E R A G E W EEKLY CO ST PER H EA D
Year Provisions Clothing Total

ended and Neces
saries
29th Sept.,
1849 Is. 3# d. 3d. Is. 6*4 d.
29th Sept.
1869 2s. VA d. 6d. 3s. VA d.
The price of the necessary means of subsistence is there

fore fully twice, and that of clothing exactly twice, as much
as they were 20 years before.
Even apart from this disproportion, the mere comparison
of the rate of wages expressed in gold would give a result far
from accurate. Before the famine, the great mass of agri
cultural wages were paid in kind, only the smallest part in
money; to-day, payment in money is the rule. From this it
follows that, whatever the amount of the real wage, its
money rate must rise.
on the first source and references to it (sec pp. 118-22) are added
to the French edition of 1872-75.—Ed. ]
120 KARL MARX
“Previous to the famine, the labourer enjoyed his cabin ... with a
rood, or half-acre or acre of land, and facilities for ... a crop of pota
toes. He was able to rear his pig and keep fowl.... But they now have to
buy bread, and they have no refuse upon which they can feed a pig or
fowl, and they have consequently no benefit from the sale of a pig,
fowl, or eggs.” *
In fact, formerly, the agricultural labourers were but the
smallest of the small farmers, and formed for the most part a
kind of rearguard of the medium and large farms on which
they found employment. Only since the catastrophe of 1846
have they begun to form a fraction of the class of purely
wage-labourers, a special class, connected with its wage-
masters only by monetary relations.
We know what were the conditions of their dwellings in
1846. Since then they have grown yet worse. A part of the
agricultural labourers which, however, grows less day by day,
dwells still on the holdings of the farmers in overcrowded
huts, whose hideousness far surpasses the worst that the
English agricultural labourers offered us in this way. And this
holds generally with the exception of certain tracts of Ulster;
in the south, in the counties of Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny,
&c.; in the east, in Wicklow, Wexford, &c.; in the centre of
Ireland, in King’s and Queen’s County, Dublin, &c.; in the
north, in Down, Antrim, Tyrone, &c.; in the west, in Sligo,
Roscommon, Mayo, Galway, &c. “The agricultural labourers’
huts,” an inspector cries out, “are a disgrace to the Christiani
ty and to the civilisation of this country.”** In order to
increase the attractions of these holes for the labourers, the
pieces of land belonging thereto from time immemorial, are
systematically confiscated.
“The mere sense that they exist subject to this species of ban, on
the part of the landlords and their agents, has ... given birth in the
minds of the labourers to corresponding sentiments of antagonism and
dissatisfaction towards those by whom they are thus led to regard
themselves as being treated as ... a proscribed race.***
The first act of the agricultural revolution was to sweep
*/. c., pp. 29, 1.
** /. C.y P. 12.
*** /. c., p. 12.
away the huts situated on the field of labour. This was done
on the largest scale, and as if in obedience to a command
from on high. Thus many labourers were compelled to seek
shelter in villages and towns. There they were thrown like
refuse into garrets, holes, cellars and corners, in the worst
back slums. Thousands of Irish families, who according to the
testimony of the English, eaten up as these ftre with national
prejudice, are notable for their rare attachment to the
domestic hearth, for their gaiety and the purity of their
home-life, found themselves suddenly transplanted into
hotbeds of vice. The men are now obliged to seek work of
the neighbouring farmers and are only hired by the day, and
therefore under the most precarious form of wage. Hence
“they sometimes have long distances to go to and from work, often
get wet, and suffer much hardship, not unfrequently ending in sickness,
disease and want.”*
“The towns have had to receive from year to year what
was deemed to be the surplus-labour of the rural division”**;
and then people still wonder “there is still a surplus of labour
in the towns and villages, and either a scarcity or a threatened
scarcity in some of the country divisions”.*** The truth is
that this want only becomes perceptible “in harvest-time, or
during spring, or at such times as agricultural operations are
carried on with activity; at other periods of the year many
hands are idle”****; that “from the digging out of the main
crop of potatoes in October until the early spring following
... there is no employment for them”*****; and further, that
during the active times they “are subject to broken days and
to all kinds of interruptions”.******
These results of the agricultural revolution—i.e., the
change of arable into pasture land, the use of machinery, the
most rigorous economy of labour, &c., are still further
aggravated by the model landlords, who, instead of spending
* Lc., p. 25.
** Lc., p. 27.
** *<Lc., p. 26.
***** l.c,*pp. 31,32
****** Lc., p. 25.
122 KARL MARX
their rents in other countries, condescend to live in Ireland
on their demesnes. In order that the law of supply and
demand may not be broken, these gentlemen draw their
“labour-supply ... chiefly from their small tenants, who are obliged
to attend when required to do the landlord’s work, at rates of wages, in
many instances, considerably under the current rates paid to ordinary
labourers, and without regard to the inconvenience or loss to the tenant
of being obliged to neglect his own business at critical periods of sowing
or reaping”.*
The uncertainty and irregularity of employment, the
constant return and long duration of gluts of labour, all
these symptoms of a relative surplus-population, figure there
fore in the reports of the Poor Law administration, as so
many hardships of the agricultural proletariat. It will be
remembered that we met, in the English agricultural prole
tariat, with a similar spectacle. But the difference is that in
England, an industrial country, the industrial reserve recruits
itself from the country districts, whilst in Ireland, an agri
cultural country, the agricultural reserve recruits itself from
the towns, the cities of refuge of the expelled agricultural
labourers. In the former, the supernumeraries of agriculture
are transformed into factory operatives; in the latter, those
forced into the towns, whilst at the same time they press on
the wages in towns, remain agricultural labourers, and are
constantly sent back to the country districts in search of
work.
The official inspectors sum up the material condition of
the agricultural labourer as follows:
“Though living with the strictest frugality, his own wages are barely
sufficient to provide food for an ordinary family and pay his rent, and
he depends upon other sources for the means of clothing himself, his
wife, and children.... The atmosphere of these cabins, combined with
the other privations they are subjected to, has made this class parti
cularly susceptible to low fever and pulmonary consumption/***
After this, it is no wonder that, according to the unani
mous testimony of the inspectors, a sombre discontent runs
through the ranks of this class, that they long for the return
* lc ., p. 30.
** lc ., pp. 21,13.
of the past, loathe the present, despair of the future, give

themselves up “to the evil influence of agitators”, and have
only one fixed idea, to emigrate to America. This is the land
of Cockaigne, into which the great Malthusian panacea,
depopulation, has transformed Green Erin.
What a happy life the Irish factory operative leads, one
example will show:
“On my recent visit to the North of Ireland,” says the English
Factory Inspector, Robert Baker, “I met with the following evidence of
effort in an Irish skilled workman to afford education to his children;
and I give his evidence verbatim, as I took it from his mouth. That he
was a skilled factory hand, may be understood when I say that he was
employed on goods for the Manchester market. ‘J ohnson.—I am a
beetler and work from 6 in the morning till 11 at night, from Monday
to Friday. Saturday we leave off at 6 p.m., and get three hours of it (for
meals and rest). I have five children in all. For this work I get 10s. 6d. a
week; my wife works here also, and gets 5s. a week. The oldest girl who
is 12, minds the house. She is also cook, and all the servant we have.
She gets the young ones ready for school. A girl going past the house
wakes me at half past five in the morning. My wife gets up and goes
along with me. We get nothing (to eat) before we come to work. The
child of 12 takes care of the little children all the day, and we get
nothing till breakfast at eight. At eight we go home. We get tea once a
week; at other times we get stirabout, sometimes of oat-meal, some
times of Indian meal, as we are able to get it. In the winter we get a
little sugar and water to our Indian meal. In the summer we get a few
potatoes, planting a small patch ourselves; and when they are done we
get back to stirabout Sometimes we get a little milk as it may be. So
we go on from day to day, Sunday and week day, always the same the
year round. I am always very much tired when I have done at night. We
may see a bit o f flesh meat sometimes, but very seldom. Three of our
children attend school, for whom we pay Id. a week a head. Our rent is
9d. a week. Peat for firing costs Is. 6d. a fortnight at the very
lowest.”**
Such are Irish wages, such is Irish life!
In fact the misery of Ireland is again the topic of the day
in England. At the end of 1866 and the beginning of 1867,
one of the Irish land magnates, Lord Dufferin, set about its
solution in The Times. “Wie menschlich von solch grossem
Herrn! ”
From Table E we saw that, during 1864, of £4,368,610
of total profits, three surplus-value makers pocketed only
* “ Rept. of Insp. of Fact., 31st Oct., 1866”, p. 96.
124 KARL MARX
£262,819; that in 1865, however, out of £4,669,979 total
profits, the same three virtuosi of “abstinence” pocketed
£274,528; in 1864, 26 surplus-value makers reached to
£646,377; in 1865, 28 surplus-value makers reached to
£736,448; in 1864, 121 surplus-value makers, £1,076,912; in
1865, 150 surplus-value makers, £1,320,906; in 1864,
1,131 surplus-value makers, £2,150,818, nearly half of the
total annual profit; in 1865, 1,194 surplus-value makers,
£2,418,833, more than half of the total annual profit. But
the lion’s share, which an inconceivably small number of land
magnates in England, Scotland and Ireland swallow up of the
yearly national rental, is so monstrous that the wisdom of the
English State does not think fit to afford the same statistical
materials about the distribution of rents as about the
distribution of profits. Lord Dufferin is one of those land
magnates. That rent-rolls and profits can ever be “excessive”,
or that their plethora is in any way connected with plethora
of the people’s misery is, of course, an idea as “disreputable”
as “unsound”. He keeps to facts. The fact is that, as the
Irish population diminishes, the Irish rent-rolls swell; that
depopulation benefits the landlords, therefore also benefits
the soil, and, therefore, the people, that mere accessory of
the soil. He declares, therefore, that Ireland is still over-
populated, and the stream of emigration still flows too lazily.
To be perfectly happy, Ireland must get rid of at least one-
third of a million of labouring men. Let no man imagine that
this lord, poetic into the bargain, is a physician of the school
of Sangrado, who as often as he did not find his patient
better, ordered phlebotomy and again phlebotomy, until the
patient lost his sickness at the same time as his blood. Lord
Dufferin demands a new blood-letting of one-third of a
million only, instead of about two millions; in fact, without
the getting rid of these, the millennium in Erin is not to be.
The proof is easily given.
Centralisation has from 1851 to 1861 destroyed princi
pally farms of the first three categories, under 1 and not over
15 acres. These above all must disappear. This gives 307,058
“supernumerary” farmers, and reckoning the families the low
average of 4 persons, 1,228,232 persons. On the extravagant
supposition that, after the agricultural revolution is complete
NUMBER AND EXTENT OF FARMS IN IRELAND IN 1864

....
(1) Farms not (2) Farms over 1, (3) Farms over (4) Farms over
over 1 acre. not over 5 acres. 5, not over 15, not over
15 acres^ 30 acres.
No. Acres. No. Acres. No. Acres. No. Acres.
48,653 25,394 82,037 288,916 176,368 1,836,310 136,578 3,051,343
(5) Farms over (6 ) Farms over (7) Farms over (8 ) Total

30, not over 50, not over 100 acres. area.
50 acres. 100 acres.
No. Acres. No. Acres. No. Acres. Acres.

71,961 2,906,2 74 54,247 3,983,8 $0 31,927 8,227,807 20,319,924*
one-fourth of these are again absorbable, there remain for

emigration 921,174 persons. Categories 4, 5, 6 of over 15 and
not over 100 acres, are, as was known long since in England,
too small for capitalistic cultivation of corn, and for sheep-
breeding are almost vanishing quantities. On the same sup
position as before, therefore, there are further 788,761
persons to emigrate; total, 1,709,532. And as l’appetit vient
en mangeant, Rent-roll’s eyes will soon discover that Ireland,
with 3 1/2 millions, is still always miserable, and miserable
because she is over-populated. Therefore her depopulation
must go yet further, that thus she may fulfil her true destiny,
that of an English sheep-walk and cattle-pasture.**
Like all good things in this bad world, this profitable
method has its drawbacks. With the accumulation of rents in
* The total area includes also peat bogs and waste land.
* * [Note to the 2nd edition.] How the famine and its consequences
have been deliberately made the most of, both by the individual land
lords and by the English legislature, to forcibly carry out the agri
cultural revolution and to thin the population of Ireland down to the
proportion satisfactory to the landlords, I shall show more fully in
Vol. Ill of this w 6rk, in the section on landed property. There also I
126 KARL MARX
Ireland, the accumulation of the Irish in America keeps pace.
The Irishman, banished by sheep and ox, re-appears on the
other side of the ocean as a F e n i a n , 9 2 and face to face with
the old queen of the seas rises, threatening and more threa
tening, the young giant Republic:
Acerba fata Romanos agunt
Scelusque fratemae necis. *
Published in the book: Printed according to the text
Karl Marx, Das Kapital. of the English edition of
Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. Capital, Vol. I, Moscow, 1965,
Erster Band. Hamburg, 1867 which follows the fourth
German edition of 1890
return to the condition of the small farmers and the agricultural labour
ers. At present, only one quotation. Nassau W. Senior says, with other
things, in his posthumous work, “Journals, Conversations and Essays
relating to Ireland”, 2 vols. London, 1968; Vol. II., p. 282. “ Well,” said
Dr. G., “we have got our Poor Law and it is a great instrument for
giving the victory to the landlords. Another, and a still more powerful
instrument is emigration.... No friend to Ireland can wish the war to be
prolonged [between the landlords and the small Celtic farmers]—still
less, that it should end by the victory of the tenants. The sooner it is
over—the sooner Ireland becomes a grazing country, with the comparat
ively thin population which a grazing country requires, the better for all
classes.” The English Com Laws of 1815 secured Ireland the monopoly
of the free importation of com into Great Britain. They favoured artifi
cially, therefore, the cultivation of com. With the abolition of the Com
Laws in 1846, this monopoly was suddenly removed. Apart from all
other circumstances, this event alone was sufficient to give a great
impulse to the turning of Irish arable into pasture land, to the concen
tration of farms, and to the eviction of small cultivators. After the
fruitfulness of the Irish soil had been praised from 1815 to 1846, and
proclaimed loudly as by Nature herself destined for the cultivation of
wheat, English agronomists, economists, politicians, discover suddenly
that it is good for nothing but to produce forage. M. Leonce de Laver-
gne has hastened to repeat this on the other side of the Channel. It
takes a “serious” man, a la Lavergne, to be caught by such childishness.
* Horace, Epod 7.—Ed.
Karl Marx
From CHAPTER XXXVII OF CAPITAL\ VOLUME III9 3

r
We are not speaking now of conditions in which ground-
rent, the manner of expressing landed property in the capital
ist mode of production, formally exists without the existence
of the capitalist mode of production itself, i.e., without the
tenant himself being an industrial capitalist, nor the type of
his management being a capitalist one. Such is the case, e.g.,
in Ireland. The tenant there is generally a small farmer. What
he pays to the landlord in the form of rent frequently
absorbs not merely a part of his profit, that is, his own
surplus-labour (to which he is entitled as possessor of his own
instruments of labour), but also a part of his normal wage,
which he would otherwise receive for the same amount of
labour. Besides, the landlord, who does nothing at all for the
improvement of the land, also expropriates his small capital,
which the tenant for the most part incorporates in the land
through his own labour. This is precisely what a usurer would
do under similar circumstances, with just the difference that
the usurer would at least risk his own capital in the opera
tion. This continual plunder is the core of the dispute over
the Irish Tenancy Rights Bill. The main purpose of this Bill is
to compel the landlord when ordering his tenant off the land
to indemnify the latter for his improvements on the land, or
for his capital incorporated in the land.94 Palmerston used to
wave this demand aside with the cynical answer:
“The House of Commons is a house of landed proprietors.”
Karl Marx, Das Kapital. of the English edition of
Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. Capital, Vol. Ill,
Dritter Band. Herausgegeben Moscow, 1966
von Friedrich Engels
Karl Marx
THE FENIAN PRISONERS AT MANCHESTER AND THE

INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION95
At a special meeting of the General Council of the LW.A.

held at the office 16, Castle Street, East, W., on Wednesday
evening the following memorial was adopted:
“Memorial of the General Council of the International
Working Men’s Association.
“To the Right Hon. Gathome-Hardy, her Majesty’s
Secretary of State.
“The memorial of the undersigned, representing working
men’s associations in all parts of Europe, showeth:
“That the execution of the Irish prisoners condemned to
death at Manchester will greatly impair the moral influence
of England upon the European Continent. The Execution of
the four prisoners resting upon the same evidence and the
same verdict which, by the free pardon of Maguire, have been
officially declared, the one false, the other erroneous, will
bear the stamp not of a judicial act, but of political revenge.
But even if the verdict of the Manchester jury and the
evidence it rests upon had not been tainted by the British
Government itself, the latter would now have to choose
between the blood-handed practices of old Europe and the
magnanimous humanity of the young Transatlantic Re
public.96
FENIAN PRISONERS AT MANCHESTER 129
“The commutation of the sentence for which we pray
will be an act not only of justice, but of political wisdom.
“By order of the General Council of the I.W. Association,
“JOHN WESTON, Chairman

R. SHA W, Secretary for America
EUGENE DUPONT, Secretary for France
KARL MARX, Secretary for Germany
HERMANN JUNG, Secretary for Switzerland
P. LAFARGUE, Secretary for Spain
ZABICKI, Secretary for Poland
DERKINDEREN, Secretary for Holland
BESSON, Secretary for Belgium
G. ECCARIUS, General Secretary.”
November 20, 1867
Published in Le courrier Printed according to the text

frangais No. 163, of the book The General Council
November 24, 1867 o f the First International.
1866-1868. Minutes, Moscow
Karl Marx
[NOTES FOR AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH

ON IRELAND] 9 7
I. EXORDIUM. THE EXECUTION
Since our last meeting the object of our discussion, Fe-

nianism, has entered a new phase. It has been baptised in
blood by the English Government. The Political Executions
at Manchester remind us of the fate of John Brown at Har
pers Ferry.* They open a new period in the struggle between
Ireland and England. The whole Parliament and liberal press
responsible. Gladstone.
Reason: to keep up the hypocrisy that this was no poli
tical, but a common criminal affair. The effect produced
upon Europe quite the contrary. They seem anxious to keep
up the Act of the Long Parliament.98 English [have] a divine
right to fight the Irish on their native soil, but every Irish
fighting against the British Government in England to be
treated as an outlaw. Suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act.99 State of siege. Facts from the Chronicle. Govern
mental organisation of “Assassination and Violence” .100
Case of Bonaparte.101
II. THE QUESTION

What is Fenianism?
* Here the following text is crossed out in the manuscript: “But the
slaveholders have at least treated John Brown as a rebel, not as common
felon.”—Ed.
NOTES FOR AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH ON IRELAND 131
III. THE LAND QUESTION
Decrease of Population
1846
1841: 8,222,664
1866: 5,571,971 1 in 25 Jahren* 1 $ 01 : 5,319,867
2,650,693 2,650,693
J
1855:
1866: l
6,604,665 I in 11 years
5,571,971 1 1,032,694
1,032,694J
Population not only decreased, but the number of the
deaf-mutes, the blind, the decrepit, the lunatic, and idiotic
increased relatively to the numbers of the population.
Increase of Live-Stock from 1855 to 1866
In the same period from 1855 to 1866 [the ] number of
the live-stock increased as follows: cattle by 178,532, sheep
by 667,675, pigs by 315,918. If we take into account the
simultaneous decrease of horses by 20,656, and equalise 8
sheep to 1 horse total increase of live-stock: 996,877, about
one million.
Thus 1,032,694 Irishmen have been displaced by about
one million cattle, pigs, and sheep. What has become of
them? The emigration list answers.
Emigration
From 1st May 1851 to 31 December 1866: 1,730,189.
Character of that emigration.
The process has been brought about and is still function
ing upon an always enlarging scale by the throwing together
or consolidation of farms (eviction) and by the simultaneous
conversion of tillage into pasture.
From 1851-1861 [the] total number of farms decreased
by 120,000, while simultaneously the number of farms of
* Years.—Ed.
132 KARL MARX
15-30 acres increased by 61,000, that of 30 acres by 109,000
(together 170,000). The decrease was almost exclusively
owed to the extinction of farms from less than one to less
than 15 acres. Lord Dufferin.* The increase means only that
amongst the decreased number of farms there is a larger
portion of farms of large dimension.
How the Process Works
a) The People.
The situation of the mass of the people has deteriorated,
and their state is verging to a crisis similar to that of 1846.
The relative surplus population now as great as before the
famine.
Wages have not risen more than 20%, since the potato
famine. The price of potatoes has risen nearly 200%; the
necessary means of life on an average by 100%. Professor
Cliffe Leslie, in the London Economist dated February 9,
1867, says:
“After a loss of 2/5 of the population in 21 years, throughout most
of the island, the rate of wages is now only Is. a day; a shilling does not
go further than 6d. did 21 years ago. Owing to this rise in his ordinary
food the labourer is worse off than he was 10 years ago.”
b) The Land.
1) Decrease o f land under crops.
Decrease in cereal crops: Decrease in green crops:
1861-66: 470,917, acres 1861-66: 128,061, acres
2) Decrease per statute acre of every crop. There has been
decrease of yield in wheat, but greater 1847 to 1865 per
cent; the exact .decrease: oats 16.3, flax 47.9, turnips 36.1,
potatoes 50%. Some years would show a greater decrease, but
on the whole it has been gradual since 1847.
Since the exodus, the land has been underfed and over
worked, partly from the injudicious consolidation of farms,
and, partly, because, under the com-acre system,102 the
farmer in a great measure trusted to his labourers to manure
the land for him. Rents and profits may increase, although
the profit of the soil decreases. The total produce may
* See pp. 123-24.-E d.
diminish, but that part of it, which is converted into surplus
produce, falling to landlord and greater farmers, instead of to
the labourer. And the price of the surplus produce has risen.
So result: gradual expulsion of the natives, gradual dete
rioration and exhaustion of the source of national life, the
soil.
Process of Consolidation r
This process has only begun; it is going on in rapid
strides. The consolidation has first attacked the farms of
under one to under 15 acres. It will be far from having
reached the English point of consolidation, if all farms under
100 acres have disappeared. Now the state was this in 1864:
The total area o f Ireland, including bogs and waste land:
20,319,924 acres. O f those 31^,^12,092,117 acres, form still
farms from under 1 to under 100 acres, and are in the hands
of 569,844 farmers; 2/5 =8,227,807, form farms from 100 till
over 500 acres, and are in the hands of 31,927 persons. Thus
to be cleared off 2,847,220, if we number only the farmers
and their families.
This system [is a] natural offspring of the famine of
1846, accelerated by the abolition of com-laws,103 and the
rise in the price of meat and wool, now systematic.
Clearing of the estate o f Ireland, transforming it in an
English agricultural district, minus its resident lords and their
retainers, separated from England by a broad water ditch.
Change o f Character o f the English Rule in Ireland
State only tool of the landlords. Eviction, also employed
as means of political punishment. (Lord Abercom.* England.
Gaels: in the Highlands o f Scotland.104) Former English
policy: displacing the Irish by English (Elizabeth), round
heads105 (Cromwell). Since Anne 18th-century politico-
economical character only again in the protectionist measures
of England against her own Irish colony; within that colony
making religion a proprietary title. After the Union106 [the]
system of rack-renting and middlemen, but left the Irish,
however ground to the dust, holder of their native soil.
* See pp. 153-54.—Ed.
134 KARL MARX
Present system, quiet business-like extinction, and govern
ment only instrument of landlords (and usurers).
From this altered state:

1) Distinguishing character o f Fenianism: Socialist, lower-
class movement.
2) Not Catholic movement
Priests leaders as long as Catholic Emancipation and their
leader, Daniel O’Connell, remained leader of the Irish move
ment. Ridiculous Popishism of the English. High Catholic
priests against Fenianism.
3) No representative leader in the British Parliament
Character of O’Connell’s physical force movement.107 Ex
tinction of Irish party in Parliament.
4) Nationality. Influence of European movement, and
English phraseology.
5) America, Ireland, England—three fields of action, lead
ership of America.
6) Republican, because America republic.
I have now given the characteristics of Fenianism.
IV. THE ENGLISH PEOPLE

A cause of humanity and right, but above all a specific
English question.
a) Aristocracy and Church and Army. (France, Algiers.)
b) Irish in England. Influence on wages, etc. Lowering the
character of the English and Irish. The Irish Character.
Chastity of Irishmen. Attempts at education in Ireland.
Diminution of crimes.
Convicted in Ireland
Committed for trial:: Convicted:
1852 . 17,678 10,454
1866 . 4,326 2,418
The decrease in the numbers of persons committed for

trial in England and Wales, since 1855, is partly due to the
Criminal Justice A ct of 1855, authorising Justices to pass
sentences for short periods with the consent of the prisoners,
instead of committing for trial to the sessions.
Birmingham. Progress of the English people. Infamy of
the English press. r
c) The Foreign Policy. Poland, etc. Castlereagh. Palmer-
ston .108
V. THE REMEDY
Foolishness of the minor parliamentary propositions.
Error of the Reform League.1 09
Repeal as one of the articles of the English Democratic
Party.
Published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the text

Collected Works, second of the book The General
Russian ed., Vol. 16, Council o f the First International.
Moscow, 1960 1866-1868. Minutes, Moscow
Karl Marx
[OUTLINE OF A REPORT ON THE IRISH QUESTION
TO THE COMMUNIST EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION
OF GERMAN WORKERS IN LONDON
December 16, 1867110]
I
What is distinctive of Fenianism? Actually, it originates
from the Irish Americans. They are the initiators and leaders.
But in Ireland the movement took root (and is still really
rooted) only in the mass of the people, the lower orders.
That is what characterises it. In all earlier Irish movements
the people followed the aristocracy or middle-class men, and
always the Catholic churchmen. The Anglo-Irish chiefs and
the priests during the rising against Cromwell; even James II,
King of England, in the war against William III; the Pro
testant Republicans of Ulster (Wolfe Tone, Lord Fitz
gerald)1 11 in the 1798 revolution and, finally, in this century
the bourgeois O’Connell supported by the Catholic clergy,
which also played a leading role in all earlier movements
excepting 1798. The Catholic clergy decreed a ban on
Fenianism, which it did not lift until it realised that its.
attitude would deprive it of all influence on the Irish masses.
II
Here is what baffles the English: they find the present
regime mild compared with England’s former oppression of
Ireland. So why this most determined and irreconcilable form
of opposition now? What I want to show—and what even
those Englishmen who side with the Irish, who concede them
the right to secession, do not see—is that the regime since
1846, though less barbarian in form, is in effect destructive,
leaving no alternative but Ireland’s voluntary emancipation
by England or life-and-death struggle.
OUTLINE OF REPORT ON IRISH QUESTION 137
III
Concerning past history the facts are available in any
history book. Hence, I shall give only a few, firstly, to clarify
the difference between the present and past and, secondly, to
bring out a few points about the character of those who are
now called the Irish people.
a) The English in Ireland Before the Protestant
Reformation
1172. Henry II conquered less than V2 of Ireland. It was a
nominal conquest. A gift from Pope Adrian IV, the English
man. Some 400 years later another Pope (in Elizabethan
times, 1576), Gregory XIII, took back the present from the
English (Elizabeth).112 The “English Pale”. 113 Capital:
Dublin. Mixing of English common colonists with Irish, and
of Anglo-Norman nobles with Irish chiefs. Otherwise, the war
of conquest was conducted (originally) as against Red
Indians. No English reinforcements sent to Ireland until 1565
(Elizabeth).
b) Protestant Epoch. Elizabeth. James I. Charles I.
Cromwell. Colonisation Plan (16th and 1 7th Centuries)
Elizabeth. The plan was to exterminate the Irish at least
up to the river Shannon, to take their land and settle English
colonists in their place, etc. In battles against Elizabeth the
still Catholic Anglo-Irish fought the English alongside natives.
The avowed plan of the English:
Clearing the island o f the natives, and stocking it with
loyal Englishmen. They succeeded only to plant a landown
ing aristocracy. English Protestant “adventurers” (merchants,
usurers), who obtained from the English crown the confiscat
ed lands, and “gentlemen undertakers” who were to plant the
ceded estates with native English families.
James I. Ulster. (Jacobite plantation, 1609-12.) British
undertakers, “to stock the confiscated, stolen lands with
Irish”. Not until 1613 are Irish considered English subjects;
previously they were looked upon as “outlaws” and “ene
mies”. The Irish Parliament114 governed only the Pale.
Persecution of Catholics.
138 KARL MARX
Elizabeth settled Munster, James I, Ulster, but Leinster
and Connaught have not yet been purged. Charles I tried to
purge Connaught
Cromwell. First national revolt o f Ireland, its 2nd Com
plete Conquest. Partial Re-colonisation. (1641-60.)
Irish Revolution of 1641. August 1649 Cromwell landing
in Dublin. (Followed by Ireton, Lambert, Fleetwood, Henry
Cromwell.)
In 1652 the 2nd Complete Conquest o f Ireland complet
ed. Division o f spoils: the Government itself, the “adventur
ers” who had lent £360,000 for the 11 years of war, the
officers and soldiers, by the Acts of the English Parliament,
12 August, 1652, and 26 September, 1653 Smite the
. 115
Amalekites of the Irish Nation hip and thigh, and replant the
re-devastated land with new colonies of brand-new Puritan
English.—Bloodshed, devastation, depopulation of entire
counties, removal of their inhabitants to other regions, sale of
many Irish into slavery in the West Indies.
By engaging in the conquest of Ireland, Cromwell threw
the English Republic out the window.
Thence the Irish mistrust of the English people’s party.
c) Restoration o f the Stuarts. William III.
Second Irish Revolt, and the Capitulation on Terms116
1660-1692 *
The British were then more numerous in Ireland than at
any other time. Never higher than 3/i i , never lower than %III
of the Irish population.
1684. Charles II begins to favour the Catholic interest of
Ireland, and to enlist a Catholic army.
1685. James II gives full rein to the Catholics of Ireland.
Catholic army increased and favoured. The Catholics soon
began to declare that the Acts of Settlement must be
repealed and the proprietors of 1641 re-established. James
calls some Irish regiments to England.
1689. William III in England. 12 March, 1689: James
landed at Kinsale at the head of Irish soldiers. Limerick
capitulates to William III, 1691. Shameful violation of the
* Follow ed by “ (1701) (A nne)” in the m anuscript.—Ed.
treaty, already under William III, still more under Anne.
d) Ireland Defrauded and Humbled to the Dust.
1692-July 4, 1776
a) All notions of “planting” the country with English and
Scotch yeomen or tenant farmers were discarded. Settling
German and French Protestants attempted. French Protes
tants in the towns (woollen manufacturers) flee the English
protectionist and mercantile system.
1698. The Anglo-Irish Parliament (like obedient colon
ists) passed, on the command of the mother country, a
prohibitory tax on Irish woollen goods export to foreign
countries.
1698. In the same year, the English Parliament laid a
heavy tax on the import of the home manufactures in
England and Wales, and absolutely prohibited their export to
other countries. She struck down the manufactures of
Ireland, depopulated her cities and threw the people back
upon the land.
The Williamite (imported lords) absentees. 117 Cry
against absentee landlords since 1692.
Similar legislation o f England against Irish Cattle.
1698: Molyneux pamphlet for the independence of the
Irish Parliament (i.e., the English Colony in Ireland) against
the English.118 Thus began the struggle o f the English
Colony in Ireland and the English Nation. Simultaneously,
struggle between the Anglo-Irish Colony and the Irish Nation.
William III resisted the shameful attempts of the English and
Anglo-Irish Parliaments to violate the treaties o f Limerick
and Galway.
P) Queen Anne. (1701-13; George until 1776).
Penal Code 119 built up by the Anglo-Irish Parliament
with assent of the English Parliament. Most infamous means
to make Protestant Proselytes amongst the Irish Catholics by
regulations of “Property”. A code for the transfer of “Prop
erty” from Catholics to Protestants, or to make “Anglican
ism” a proprietary title. (Education. Personal disabilities.)
(No Catholic able to be a private soldier.) To teach the
Catholic religion was a transportable felony, to convert a
Protestant to Catholicism an act of treason. To be a Catholic
140 KARL MARX
Archbishop—banishment, if returning from banishment—act
of high treason; hanged, disembowelled alive, and afterwards
quartered.
Experiment to coerce the mass o f the Irish nation into
the Anglican religion. Catholics deprived o f vote for members
o f Parliament.12^
This Penal Code intensified the hold of the Catholic
Priesthood upon the Irish people.
The poor people fell into habits o f indolence.
During the palmy days of Protestant ascendancy and
Catholic degradation, the Protestants did not encroach upon
the Catholics in numbers.
e) 1776-1801. Time of Transition
ol) Before dealing with this transition period, what was
the result of English terrorism?
English incomers absorbed into the Irish people and
Catholicised.
The towns founded by the English Irish.
No English colony (except Ulster Scotch) but English
landowners.
The North American Revolution forms the first turning-
point in Irish history.
P) 1777 the British army surrendered at Saratoga Springs
to the American “rebels”. British cabinet forced to make
concessions to the Nationalist (English) party in Ireland.
1778. Roman Catholic Relief Bill (passed by the Anglo-
Irish Parliament). (Catholics were still excluded from acquir
ing by purchase, or as tenants, any freeholds 121 interest.)
1779. Free Trade with Great Britain. Almost all restraints
put upon Irish industry swept away.
1782. The Penal Code still further released. The Roman
Catholics allowed to acquire freehold property for life, or in
fee simple, and—to open schools.
1783. Equal rights of the Anglo-Irish Parliament.
Winter 1792-93. After the French Government had an
nexed Belgium and England resolved upon French war,
another portion of the Penal Code was released. Irish could
become Colonels in Army, elective franchise for Irish Parlia
ment, etc.
Rebellion of 1798. Belfast Republicans (Wolfe Tone,

Lord Fitzgerald). Irish peasants not ripe.
Anglo-Irish House o f Commons voted for the Act of
Union passed in 1800. By the Legislature and Customs Union
of Britain and Ireland closed the struggle between the Anglo-
Irish and the English. The colony itself protested against the
illegal Act of Union.
1801-1846
a) 1801-1831. At this time (after the end of the war122)
a movement for emancipation of Catholics under way among
Irish and English (1829).
From 1783 legislative independence of Ireland, shortly
after which duties were imposed on various articles o f foreign
manufacture, avowedly with the intention of enabling
some of her people to employ some of their surplus
labour, etc.
The natural consequence was that Irish manufactur
es gradually disappeared as the Act of Union came into
effect.
Dublin
Master woollen manufacturers . 1800
»»
91 1840 12
Hands em ployed.............. 4,918 99
602
Master w oolcom bers.................... 99
30 1834 5
Hands em ployed............................. 99
230 1834 66
Carpet manufacturers • • • • • .
99
13 1841 1
Hands employed ............................. 99
720 99
0
Silk-loom weavers at work . . . . JJ.
2,500 1840 250
Kilkenny
Blanket manufacturers . . . . . . . 1800 56 1822 42
>9
3,000 99
925
Balbriggan
Calico-lo oms at w o rk .................... 1799 2,500 1841 226
Wicklow
Handlooms at work .................... 1800 1,000 1841 0
142 KARL MARX
Cork
Braid weavers ................... ••• 1800 1,000 1834 40
Worsted weavers ..................... 99 2,000 ” 90
Hosiers ....................... ” 300 ” 28
Woolcombers ................................ ” 700 ” 110
Cottonweavers .................... .. ” 2,000 ” 220
etc. The linen industry (Ulster) did not compensate for this.
“The cotton manufacture o f Dublin, which employed 14,000
operatives, has been destroyed; the 3,400 silk looms have been
destroyed; the serge manufacture, which employed 1,491 operatives,
has been destroyed; the flannel manufacture of Rathdrum, the blanket
manufacture of Kilkenny, the camlet trade of Bandon, the worsted
manufactures of Waterford, the ratteen and frieze manufactures of
Carriek-on-Suir have been destroyed. One business alone survives! ...
That fortunate business—which the Union Act has not struck down—
that favoured, and privileged, and patronised business is the Irish coffin-
makerV* (Speech o f T. F. Meagher, 1847.)
Every time Ireland was about to develop industrially, she
was crushed and reconverted into a purely agricultural land.
After the latest General Census of 1861:
Agricultural Population o f Ireland
(including all cottiers123 and farm
labourers with their families) 4,286,019
In the 798 towns (of which many
were in fact small market towns) 1,512,948
5,798,967
Therefore (1861) approximately 4/5 purely agricultural,
and actually perhaps 6/7 if market towns are also counted.
Ireland is therefore purely agricultural: “Land is life”
(Justice Blackbume). Land became the great object of pur
suit. The people had now before them the choice between
the occupation of land, at any rent, ox starvation. System of
rack-renting.
“The lord of the land was thus enabled to dictate his own terms,
and therefore it has been that we have heard of the payment of £ 5 , 6 ,
8, and even as much as £10 per acre. Enormous rents, low wages, farms
of an enonnous extent, let by rapacious and indolent proprietors to
monopolising landjobbers, to be relet by intermediate oppressors, for
five times their value, among the wretched starvers on potatoes and
water. ”
State of popular starvation.
Corn Laws in England create a monopoly to a certain
extent for the export of Irish com to England. The average
export of grain in the first 3 years following the passage of
the Act of Union about 300,000 qrs,
1820 over 1 million qrs,
1834 yearly average of 2f | million qrs^
Amount to pay rent to absentees, and interest to mort
gages (1834), over 30 million dollars (or 7 million pounds
sterling). Middlemen accumulated fortunes that they would
not invest in the improvement of land, and could not, under
the system which prostrated manufactures, invest in ma
chinery, etc. All their accumulations were sent therefore to
England for investment. An official document published by
the British Government shows that the transfers of British
securities from England to Ireland, i.e., the investment of
Irish capital in England, in the 13 years following the adop
tion of free trade in 1821, amounted to as many millions of
pounds sterling, and thus was Ireland forced to contribute
cheap labour and cheap capital to building up “the great
works of Britain”.
Many pigs and export of same.
1831-1841. Accretion of Ireland’s population from
7,767,401 to 8,175,238
In 10 years ........................................................................ 407,837
In the same period there emigrated (somewhat
more than 40,000 per y e a r )............... ..................... 450,873
The total being .................................................................. 858,710
O’Connell. Repeal Movement. Lichfield-House Contract
with Whigs.124 Partial famines. Insurrection Acts, Arms
Acts, Coercion Acts.
IV
The Period of the Last 20 Years (from 1846).
Clearing of the Estate of Ireland
Earlier, repeated cases of partial famine. Now famine was
general.
This new period was ushered in by the potato blight
(1846-47), starvation and the consequent exodus.
144 KARL MARX
Over one million die, partly from hunger, partly from
diseases, etc.. (caused by hunger). In nine years, 1847-55,
1,656,044 left the country.
The revolution of the old agricultural system was
but a natural result of the barren fields. People fled.
(Families clubbed together to send away the youngest
and most enterprising.) Hence, of course, the pooling of
small leaseholds and substitution of pasturage for crop
farming.
However, soon circumstances arose whereby this became
a conscious and deliberate system.
Firstly, the chief factor: Repeal of the Com Laws was
one of the direct consequences of the Irish disaster. As a
result, Irish com lost its monopoly on the English market
in the ordinary years. Com prices dropped. Rents could
no longer be paid. In the meantime, the price of meat,
wool and other aminal products increased steadily in the
preceding 20 years. Tremendous growth of the wool industry
in England. Pig-raising was partly connected with the old
system. Now, chiefly sheep and homed cattle. Deprived
of the English market now, as by the Act of Union of her
own.
Contributing circumstances that made this systematic:
Secondly: Reorganisation of agriculture in England.
Caricature of same in Ireland.
Thirdly: The despairing flight of starving Irish to England
filled basements, hovels, workhouses in Liverpool, Manches
ter, Birmingham, Glasgow with men, women, children in a
state almost of starvation.
Act of Parliament passed (1847-48) that Irish landlords
had to support their own paupers. (The English Pauper Law
is extended to Ireland.) Hence, the Irish (especially English)
landlords, mostly deep in debt, try to get rid of the people
and clear their estates.
Fourthly: Encumbered Estates Act (1853?.)
“The landlord was ruined, for he could collect no rents, and he was
at the same time liable for the payment of enormous taxes for the
maintenance of his poor neighbours. His land was encumbered with
mortgages and settlements, created when food was high, and he could
pay no interest; and now a law was passed, by aid of which property
OUTLINE OF REP.ORT ON IRISH QUESTION 145
could be summarily disposed of at a public sale, and the proceeds
distributed among those who had legal claims upon it.”
Absentee Proprietors. (English capitalists, insurance socie
ties, etc., thereby multiplied, equally former middlemen, etc.,
who wanted to run their farms on modem economic lines.)
Eviction of farmers partly by friendly agreement
terminating tenure. But much more eviction^n masse (forcib
ly by crowbar brigades, beginning with the destruction of
roofs), forcible ejection. (Also used as political retribution.)
This has continued since 1847 to this day. (Abercom,
Viceroy of Ireland.) African razzias (razzias of the little
African kings). (People driven from the land. The starving
population of the towns largely increased.)
“The tenantry are turned out of the cottages by scores at a time....
Land agents direct the operation. The work is done by a large force of
police and soldiery. Under the protection of the latter, the ‘crowbar
brigade* advances to the devoted township, takes possession of the
houses.... The sun that rose on a village sets on a desert.** (Galway
Paperr 1852.) (Abercom. *)
Let us now see how this system affected the land in
Ireland, where conditions are quite different from those in
England.
Decrease o f Cultivated Land. 1861-66
Decrease in cereal crops Decrease in green crops
1861-65 428,041 acres 107,984 acres
1866 42,876 acres 20,077 acres
Total
decrease 470,917 128,061
Decrease o f Yield per Statute Acre o f Every Crop
1847-1865 per cent: the exact decrease: oats, 16.3, flax
47.9, turnips 36.1, potatoes 50. Some years would show a
greater decrease, but on the whole it has been gradual since
1847.
* See pp. 153-54,—Ed.
146 KARL MARX
ESTIMATED AVERAGE PRODUCE

PER STATUTE ACRE
Wheat Potatoes Flax
cwts tons stones
(14 lbs.)
1851 12.5 5.1 38.6
1866 11.3 2.9 24.9
Though Ireland exported considerable quantities of
wheat in the past, it is now said to be good only for cultivat
ing oats (the yield of which per acre also continuously
decreases).
In fact: 1866 Ireland shipped out only 13,250 qrs of
wheat against 48,589 qrs shipped in (that is, almost four
fold). Meanwhile, it shipped out approximately one million
qrs of oats (for £1,201,737).
Since the exodus, the land has been underfed and over
worked, partly from the injudicious consolidation of farms,
and partly because, under the com-acre system ,125 the
farmer in a great measure trusted to his labourers to manure
the land for him. Rents and profits (where the farmer is no
peasant farmer) may increase, although the produce of the
soil decreases. The total produce may diminish, and still
greater part of it be converted into surplus produce, falling to
the landlord and (great) farmer. And the price of the surplus
produce has risen.
Hence, sterilisation (gradual) of the land, as in Sicily by
the ancient Romans (ditto in Egypt.)
We shall speak of the livestock, but first about the popu
lation.
Decrease o f the Population
1801: 5,319,867; 1841: 8,222,664; 1851: 6,515,794;
1861: 5,764,543. If the trend continues, there will be
5,300,000 in 1871, that is, less than in 1801. I shall now
show, however, that the population will be lower still in
1871, even though the emigration rate remains constant.
Emigration
Emigration accounts naturally for part of the decrease.
In 1845-66 there emigrated 1,990,244, or approximate
ly 2,000,000 Irish. (Unheard of.) (About 2/5 of the total
emigration from the United Kingdom in 1845-66 which
was 4,657^588). In 1831-41 emigration approximately
equalled half the accretion of population during the decade,
and after 1847 it was considerably higher than the accretion.
However, emigration alone does not account for the
decrease of the population since 1847.
Decrease o f the Natural Annual Accretion
of the Population
The accretion (annual) in 1831-41 was 1.1 per cent, or
about 1 VlO per cent a year. If the population had increased
in the same proportion in 1841-51, it would have been
9,074,514 in 1851. In fact, however, it was only 6,515,794.
Consequently, the deficit was 2,558,720. Out of this figure,
emigration accounted for 1,274,213. That leaves 1,284,507
unaccounted for. Over a million, but not the whole deficit of
1,284,507, died in the famine. Hence, evidently, natural
population growth decreased in 1841-51.
This is borne out by the decade o f 1851-61. No famine.
The population decreased from 6,515,794 to 5,764,543.
Absolute decrease: 751,251. Yet emigration in this period
claimed over 1,210,000. Hence there was an accretion of
nearly 460,000 during the ten years. Because 751,251 +
460,000=the number of emigrants= 1,211,251. Emigration
claimed almost triple the accretion. The rate of accretion
was 0.7 per cent per year, hence considerably lower than
the 1.1 per cent of 1831-41.
The explanation is very simple. The increase of a popula
tion by births must principally depend on the proportion
which those between 20 and 35 bear to the rest of the com
munity. Now the proportion of persons between the ages of
20 and 35 in the population of the United Kingdom is about
1:3.98 or 25.06 per cent, while their proportion in the
emigration even of the present day is about 1:1.89 or 52.76
per cent. And probably still greater in Ireland.
148 KARL MARX
Physical Deterioration of the Population

In 1806, with a total population of 5,574,107, there was
an excess of males over females by 50,469, whilst in 1867,
with a total population of 5,557,196, there is an excess of
the females over males. At the same time not only a relative,
but an absolute increase in the number of deaf-mutes, blind,
insane, idiotic, and decrepit inhabitants. Contrasting 1851
with 1861, whilst the population had decreased enormously,
the number of deaf-mutes had increased by 473, on their
former total of 5,180; the lame and decrepit by 225, on their
former total of 4,375; the blind by 1,092, on their former
total of 5,767; the lunatic and idiotic, by the immense num
ber of 4,118, on their former total of 9,980; mounting up, in
1861, notwithstanding the decrease in the population, to
14,098.
Wages
Wages have not risen more than 20 per cent since the
potato famine. The price of potatoes has risen nearly 200 per
cent, and 100 per cent on an average of essential food
products.
Professor Cliffe Leslie, in the Economist o f February 9,
1867, says:
“After a loss of two-fifths of the population in 21 years, through
out most of the island the rate of wages is now only Is. a day; a shilling
does not go farther than 6d. did 21 years ago. Owing to this rise in the
ordinary food the labourer is worse off than he was ten years ago.”
Partial famines especially in Munster and Connaught.
Bankruptcy of shopkeepers is permanent. Market towns,
etc., fall to ruin.
The Results o f This Process
In 1855-66, 1,032,694 Irishmen replaced by 996,8 77 head of
livestock (cattle, sheep and pigs). That, in fact, was the
accretion of livestock during that period, with the de
crease of horses (20,656) compensated by eight sheep (to
one horse), which are therefore subtracted from the ac
cretion.
Consolidation o f Farms
From 1851 to 1861 the total decrease of farms was
120,000. (Though the number of 15-30 acre farms and farms
of 30 acres and over increased.) Thus, the decrease affected
particularly farms of one to under 15 acres.
In 1861 about 3/5 Qf the area (Ireland’s total area:
20,319,924 acres) or 12,000,000 acres wfcts held by 569,844
tenants who worked plots of one up to less than 100 acres,
and about 2/5 (8 million acres) by tenants with over 100 and
500 acres and over (31,927 tenants).
The process of consolidation in full gear. Ulster. (Cultiva
tion of flax; Scottish Protestant tenants.)
The Times, etc., officially congratulates Abercom as
Viceroy on this system. He, too, is one of these devastators.
Lord Dufferin: over-population, etc.*
In sum, it is a question of life and death.
Meagher, Hennessy,** Irishman. 126
DECREASE OF CRIME IN IRELAND
Committed Convicted
for trial
1852 17,678 10,454
1866 4,326 2,418
V
U N IT ED STATES A N D FENIANISM
Published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the

Collected Works, second manuscript in German and
Russian ed., Vol. 16, English. Part of the manuscript
Moscow, 1960 translated from the German
* See pp. 124-25.—Ed.
** See p. 158.-E d.
[RECORD OF A SPEECH ON THE IRISH QUESTION
DELIVERED BY KARL MARX TO THE GERMAN
WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION
IN LONDON ON DECEMBER 16, 1867]
On December 16, Karl Marx delivered a lecture to the

London German Workers’ Educational Association on the
conditions in Ireland, in which he proved that all attempts of
the English government to Anglicise the Irish population in
past centuries had ended in failure. The English, including
aristocrats, who immigrated before the Reformation127 were
transformed into Irishmen by their Irish wives and their
descendants fought against England. The brutalities of the
war against the Irish under Queen Elizabeth, the destruction
of crops and the displacement of the population from one
area to another to make place for English colonists did not
change anything. At that time, gentlemen and merchant
adventurers received large plots of land on condition that
they would be colonised by English people. In Cromwell’s
time, the descendants of these colonists fought with the Irish
against the English. Cromwell sold many of them as slaves in
the West Indies. Under the Restoration,128 Ireland received
many favours. Under William III, a class came to power
which only wanted to make money, and Irish industry was
suppressed in order to force the Irish to sell their raw
materials to England at any price. With the help of the
Protestant Penal Laws, the new aristocrats received freedom
of action under Queen Anne. The Irish Parliament129 was a
means of oppression. Those who were Catholic were not
allowed to hold an official post, could not be landowners,
were not allowed to make wills, could not claim an inher
itance; to be a Catholic bishop was high treason. All these
were means for robbing the Irish of their land; yet over 50
RECORD OF MARX’S SPEECH ON IRISH QUESTION 151
per cent of the English descendants in Ulster have remained
Catholic. The people were driven into the arms of the
Catholic clergy, who thus became powerful. All that the
English government succeeded in doing was to plant an
aristocracy in Ireland. The towns built by the English have
become Irish. That is why there are so many English names
among the Fenians. r
During the American War of Independence the reins were
loosened a little. Further concessions had to be granted
during the French revolution. Ireland rose so quickly that her
people threatened to outstrip the English. The English
government drove them to rebellion and achieved the Union
by bribery. The Union delivered the death blow to reviving
Irish industry. On one occasion Meagher said: all Irish
branches of industry have been destroyed, all we have been
left is the making of coffins. It became a vital necessity to
have land; the big landowners leased their lands to specula
tors; land passed through four or five lease stages before it
reached the peasant, and this made prices disproportionately
high. The agrarian population lived on potatoes and water;
wheat and meat were sent to England; the rent was eaten up
in London, Paris and Florence. In 1836, £7,000,000 was sent
abroad to absent landowners. Fertilisers were exported with
the produce and rent, and the soil was exhausted. Famine
often set in here and there, and owing to the potato blight
there was a general famine in 1846. A million people died of
starvation. The potato blight resulted from the exhaustion of
the soil, it was a product of English rule.
Through the repeal of the Com Laws Ireland lost her
monopoly position on the English market, the old rent could
no longer be paid. High prices for meat and the bankruptcy
of the still remaining small landowners further contributed to
the eviction of the small peasants and the transformation of
their land into sheep pastures. Over half a million acres of
arable land have not been tilled since 1860. The yield per
acre has dropped: oats by 16 per cent, flax by 36 per cent,
potatoes by 50 per cent. At present only oats are cultivated
for the English market, and wheat is imported.
With the exhaustion of the soil, the population has dete
riorated physically. There has been an absolute increase in
152 RECORD OF MARX’S SPEECH ON IRISH QUESTION
the number of lame, blind, deaf and dumb, and insane in the
decreasing population.
Over 1, 100, 000 people have been replaced with
9,600,000 sheep. This is a, thing unheard of in Europe. The
Russians replace evicted Poles with Russians, not with sheep.
Only under the Mongols in China was there once a discussion
whether or not to destroy towns to make place for sheep.
The Irish question is therefore not simply a nationality
question, but a question of land and existence. Ruin or
revolution is the watchword; all the Irish are convinced that
if anything is to happen at all it must happen quickly. The
English should demand separation and leave it to the Irish
themselves to decide the question of landownership. Every
thing else would be useless. If that does not happen soon the
Irish emigration will lead to a war with America. The domina
tion over Ireland at present amounts to collecting rent for the
English aristocracy.
Published in: Marx and Engels, Translated from the German

Collected Works, second
Russian ed., Vol. 16,
Moscow, 1960
EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS ON IRELAND
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELjSa NN

October 11, 1867
Ernest Jones was to speak in Ireland to Irish people as a
representative of the party, and, since big landownership
there is identical with England’s ownership o f Ireland, he was
to speak against big landownership. You should never look
for general principles in the hustings speeches of English
politicians but only for what is useful for the immediate aim.
MARX TO ENGELS
November 2, 1867
The proceedings against the Fenians in Manchester were
every inch what could be expected.130 You will have seen
what a row “our people” kicked up in the Reform League. I
have sought in every way to provoke this manifestation of
the English workers in support of Fenianism.1 31
Greetings.
Yours,
K.M.
Previously I thought Ireland’s separation from England
impossible. Now I think it inevitable, although after separa
tion there may come federation. How the English carry on is
evidenced by the Agricultural Statistics for the current
year,132 which appeared a few days ago. Furthermore, the
form of the eviction. The Irish Viceroy, Lord Abicom* (that
* Lord A bercom .—Ed.
154 MARX TO ENGELS, NOVEMBER 7, 1867
seems to be his name), “cleared” his estate in the last few
weeks by forcibly evicting thousands of people. Among them
were prosperous tenants, whose improvements and invest
ments were thus confiscated! In no other European country
did foreign rule adopt this form of direct expropriation of
the stock population. The Russians confiscate solely on
political grounds; the Prussians in Western Prussia buy out.
ENGELS TO MARX
November 5, 1867
How low the English judges have sunk was demonstrated
yesterday by Blackbume when he asked witness Beck (who
first swore to William Martin but later said that it was John
M.): “Then you swore to William and you meant to swear to
John? ” I think the whole prosecution will fall to pieces more
and more with each new batch of accused; perjury for a
reward of <£200 is simply incredible.
Can you tell me where I can read in greater detail about
Lord Abercom’s evictions?
MARX TO ENGELS
November 7, 1867
There was a detailed description of the Abercom evic
tions about a fortnight ago in The Irishman (Dublin). I may
manage to get again the issue that was lent to me for only 24
hours.
At the meeting, at which Colonel Dickson presided and
Bradlaugh made a speech about Ireland, our old Weston,
seconded by Fox and Cremer, tabled a resolution for the
Fenians which was passed unanimously. Last Tuesday, too,
there was a stormy demonstration for the Fenians133 during
Acland’s lecture on the Reform Bill in Cleveland Hall (above
our heads, we had our meeting down in the coffee room,
which is in the basement). This business stirs the feelings of
the intelligent part of the working class here.
ENGELS TO MARX, NOVEMBER 29, 1867 155
ENGELS TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN
November 8, 1867
The Irish, too, are a very substantial ferment in this busi
ness, and the London proletarians declare every day more
openly for the Fenians and, hence—an r unheard-of and
splendid thing here—for, first, a violent and, secondly, an
anti-English movement.
ENGELS TO MARX
November 24, 1867
Dear Moor,
I am returning the encl. letters.
So yesterday morning the Tories, by the hand of Mr. Col-
craft, accomplished the final act of separation between
England and Ireland. The only thing that the Fenians still
lacked were martyrs. They have been provided with these by
Derby and G. Hardy. Only the execution of the three* has
made the liberation of Kelly and Deasy the heroic deed as
which it will now be sung to every Irish babe in the cradle in
Ireland, England and America. The Irish women will do that
just as well as the Polish women.
To my knowledge, the only time that anybody has been
executed for a similar matter in a civilised country was the
case of John Brown at Harpers Ferry. The Fenians could not
have wished for a better precedent. The Southerners had at
least the decency to treat J. Brown as a rebel, whereas here
everything is being done to transform a political attempt into
a common crime.
ENGELS TO MARX
November 29, 1867
As regards the Fenians you are quite right.134 The
beastliness of the English must not make us forget that the
* Michael Larkin, William Allen and Michael O’Brien.—Ed.
156 MARX TO ENGELS, NOVEMBER 30,1867
leaders of this sect are mostly asses and partly exploiters and
we cannot in any way make ourselves responsible for the
stupidities which occur in every conspiracy. And they are
certain to happen.
I need not tell you that black and green predominate in
my home too .135 The English press has once again behaved
most meanly. Larkin is said to have fainted and the others*
to have looked pale and confused. The Catholic priests who
were there declare that this is a lie. Larkin, they say,
stumbled on a rough spot and the three of them showed great
courage. The Catholic bishop of Salford complained bitterly
that Allen would not repent of his deed, saying he had
nothing to repent of and were he at liberty he woidd do the
same again. By the way, the Catholic priests were very
insolent—on Sunday it was given out from the pulpit in all
churches that these three men had been murdered.
MARX TO ENGELS
November 30, 1867
If you read the papers you will have seen that l)th e
Memorial of the International Council for the Fenians** was
sent to Hardy, and that 2) the debate on Fenianism was
public (last Tuesday*** week) and reported in The
Times. 136 Reporters of the Dublin Irishman and Nation were
among those present. I came very late (I ran a temperature
for about a fortnight and the fever passed only two days ago)
and really did not intend to speak, firstly because of my
troublesome physical condition, and secondly because of the
ticklish situation. However Weston, who was in the chair,
tried to force me to, so I moved for an adjournment, which
obliged me to speak last Tuesday.**** As a matter of fact
what I had prepared for Tuesday last was not a speech but
the points of a speech.***** But the Irish reporters failed to
* William Allen and Michael O’Brien.—Ed.
** See pp. 128-29.—
*** The 19th of November. See pp. 485-89.—Ed.
**** November 26th.—Ed.
***** See pp. 130-35—
MARX TO ENGELS, NOVEMBER 30, 1867 157
come, and waiting for them it had become 9 o’clock, while
the establishment was at our disposal only till 10.30. Fox
(because of the quarrel in the Council he had not shown
himself for the past 2 weeks, and had moreover sent in his
resignation as member of the Council, containing rude
attacks on Jung137) had, at my request, prepared a long
speech. After the opening of the sitting I therefore stated I
would yield the floor to Fox on account of the belated hour.
Actually—because of the Manchester executions that had
taken place in the meantime—our subject, Fenianism, was
liable to inflame the passions to such heat that I (but not the
abstract Fox) would have been forced to hurl revolutionary
thunderbolts instead of soberly analysing the state of affairs
and the movement as I had intended. The Irish reporters
therefore, by staying away and delaying the opening of the
meeting, did signal service for me. I don’t like to mix with a
crowd like Roberts, Stephens, and the rest.
Fox’s speech was good, for one thing because it was deliv
ered by an Englishman and for another because it concerned
only the political and international aspects. For that very
reason he just skimmed along the surface of things. The
resolution he handed up was absurd and inane. I objected to
it and had it referred to the Standing Committee.1 38
What the English do not yet know is that since 1846 the
economic content and therefore also the political aim of
English domination in Ireland have entered into an entirely
new phase, and that, precisely because of this, Fenianism is
characterised by a socialistic tendency (in a negative sense,
directed against the appropriation of the soil) and by being a
lower orders movement. What can be more ridiculous than to
confuse the barbarities of Elizabeth or Cromwell, who
wanted to supplant the Irish by English colonists (in the
Roman sense), with the present system, which wants to
supplant them by sheep, pigs and oxen! The system of
1801-46, with its rack-rents and middlemen, collapsed in
1846. (During that period evictions were exceptional, occurr
ing mainly in Leinster where the land is especially good for
cattle-raising.) The repeal of the Com Laws, partly the result
of or at any rate hastened by the Irish famine, deprived
Ireland of its monopoly of England’s com supply in normal
158 MARX TO ENGELS, NOVEMBER 30, 1867
times. Wool and meat became the slogan, hence conversion of
tillage into pasture. Hence from then onwards systematic
consolidation of farms. The Encumbered Estates Act, which
turned a mass of previously enriched middlemen into land
lords, hastened the process. Clearing of the Estate o f Ire-
landl is now the one purpose of English rule in Ireland. The
stupid English government in London knows nothing of
course itself of this immense change since 1846. But the Irish
know it. From Meagher’s Proclamation (1848) down to the
election manifesto of Hennessy (Tory and Urquhartite)
(1866), the Irish have expressed their consciousness of it in
the clearest and most forcible manner.
The question now is, what shall we advise the English
workers? In my opinion they must make the Repeal o f the
Union (in short, the affair of 1783, only democratised and
adapted to the conditions of the time) an article of their pro-
nunziamento.139 This is the only legal and therefore only pos
sible form of Irish emancipation which can be admitted in the
programme of an English party. Experience must show later
whether a mere personal union can continue to subsist between
the two countries. I half think it can if it takes place in time.
What the Irish need is:
1) Self-government and independence from England.
2) An agrarian revolution. With the best intentions in the
world the English cannot accomplish this for them, but they
can give them the legal means of accomplishing it for them
selves.
3) Protective tariffs against England. Between 1783 and
1801 every branch of Irish industry flourished. The Union,
which overthrew the protective tariffs established by the Irish
Parliament* destroyed all industrial life in Ireland. The bit of
linen industry is no compensation whatever. The Union of
1801 had just the same effect on Irish industry as the
measures for the suppression of the Irish woollen industry,
etc., taken by the English Parliament under Anne, George II,
and others. Once the Irish are independent, necessity will
turn them into protectionists, as it did Canada, Australia, etc.
Before I present my views in the Central Council (next
Tuesday, this time fortunately without reporters),140 I
would like you to give me your opinion in a few lines.
MARX TO ENGELS, MARCH 16,1868 159
MARX TO ENGELS
December 14, 1867
Dear Fred,
The last exploit of the Fenians in Clerkenwell141 was a
very stupid thing. The London masses, who haye shown great
sympathy for Ireland, will be made wild by it and driven into
the arms of the government party. One cannot expect the
London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in
honour of the Fenian Emissaries. There is always a kind of
fatality about such a secret, melodramatic sort of conspiracy.
ENGELS TO MARX
December 19, 1867
The stupid affair in Clerkenwell was obviously the work
of a few specialised fanatics; it is the misfortune of all con-
spiracies that they lead to such stupidities, because “after all
something must happen, after all something must be done”.
In particular, there has been a lot of bluster in America about
this blowing up and arson business, and then a few asses
come and instigate such nonsense. Moreover, these cannibals
are generally the greatest cowards, like this Allen, who
seems to have already turned Queen’s evidence, and then
the idea of liberating Ireland by setting a London tailor’s
shop on fire!
MARX TO ENGELS
March 16, 1868
The present way in which the English treat political
prisoners in Ireland, and also suspects, or even those sent
enced to ordinary prison terms (like Pigott of The Irishman
and Sullivan of the News )142 is really worse than anything
happening on the Continent, except in Russia. What dogs!
160 MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN, APRIL 6, 1868
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN
April 6, 1868
The Irish question predominates here just now. It has
been exploited by Gladstone and company, of course, only in
order to get into office again, and, above all, to have an
electoral cry at the next elections, which will be based on
household suffrage.143 For the moment this turn of events is
bad for the workers’ party; the intriguers among the workers,
such as Odger and Potter, who want to get into the next
Parliament, have now a new excuse for attaching themselves
to the bourgeois Liberals.
However, this is only a penalty which England—and con
sequently also the English working class—is paying for the
great crime she has been committing for many centuries
against Ireland. And in the long run it will benefit the English
working class itself. You see, the English Established Church
in Ireland—ox what they use to call here the Irish Church—is
the religious bulwark of English landlordism in Ireland, and
at the same time the outpost of the Established Church in
England herself. (I am speaking here of the Established
Church as a landowner.) The overthrow of the Established
Church in Ireland will mean its downfall in England and the
two will be followed by the doom of landlordism—first in
Ireland and then in England. I have, however, been convinced
from the first that the social revolution must begin seriously
from the bottom, that is, from landownership.
Karl Marx
[ON THE REFUSAL BY THE ENGLISH PRESS
TO TAKE NOTICE OF THE GROWTH OF SYMPATHY
WITH IRELAND AMONG ENGLISH WORKERS
AND ON THE OPENING OF THE DEBATE
ON THE IRISH QUESTION
(Record of the Speech and Content of th&Letter.
From the Minutes of the General Council Meetings
of October 26 and November 9, 1869) ]
I
Cit. Marx said the principal thing was whatever was
passed would be suppressed by the London press. The main
feature of the demonstration144 had been ignored, it was
that at least a part of the English working class had lost their
prejudice against the Irish. This might be put in writing and
addressed to somebody, not the government. He thought it a
good opportunity to do something....
II
The Secretary reported from the Sub-Committee that it

had been agreed not to proceed with an address on the Irish
question14 5 because if the views of the Council were proper
ly set forth, the government and the press would turn them
against the prisoners.
Cit. Jung read a letter from Cit. Marx in support of the
report and, if adopted, Cit. Marx proposed the discussion of
the following questions: (1) The attitude of the British
Government on the Irish question; (2) The attitude of the
English working class towards the Irish. Cit. Marx volunte
ered to open the debate.
The report was adopted and the questions ordered to be
put on the order of the day.
Published in the book Printed according to the text
The General Council of the of the book
First In terna tional. 1868-1870.
Minutes, Moscow
6-226
Karl Marx
[ON THE POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
WITH RESPECT TO THE IRISH PRISONERS
(Record o f the Speech and Draft Resolution.
From the Minutes o f the General Council
Meeting o f November 16, 1869)]
Cit. Marx then opened the debate on the attitude of the

British Government on the Irish question. He said political
amnesty proceeds from two sources: 1. When a government is
strong enough by force of arms and public opinion, when the
enemy accepts the defeat, as was the case in America,146
then amnesty is given. 2. When misgovemment is the cause of
quarrel and the opposition gains its point, as was the case in
Austria and Hungary.147 Such ought to have been the case in
Ireland.
Both Disraeli and Gladstone have said that the govern
ment ought to do for Ireland what in other countries a
revolution would do. Bright asserted repeatedly that Ireland
would always be rife for revolution unless a radical change
was made. During the election Gladstone justified the Fenian
insurrection and said that every other nation would have
revolted under similar circumstances. When taunted in the
House he equivocated his fiery declarations against the
“policy of conquest” 148 implied that “Ireland ought to be
ruled according to Irish ideas”. To put an end to the “policy
of conquest” he ought to have begun like America and
Austria by an amnesty as soon as he became minister. He did
nothing. Then the amnesty movement in Ireland by the
municipalities. When a deputation was about to start with a
petition containing 200,000 signatures for the release of the
prisoners he anticipated it by releasing some to prevent the
appearance of giving way to Irish pressure. The petition
came, it was not got up by Fenians, but he gave no answer.
Then it was mooted in the House that the prisoners were
ON THE POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT 163
infamously treated. In this at least the English Government is
impartial; it treats Irish and English alike; there is no country
in Europe where political prisoners are treated like in
England and Russia. Bruce was obliged to admit the fact.
Moore wanted an inquiry; it was refused. Then commenced
the popular amnesty movement at Limerick. A meeting was
held at which 30,000 people were present aiad a memorial for
the unconditional release was adopted. Meetings were held in
all the towns in the North. Then the great meeting was
announced in Dublin where 200,000 people attended. It was
announced weeks beforehand for the 10th October. The
trade societies wanted to go in procession. On the 8th proc
lamations were issued prohibiting the procession to go
through certain streets. Isaac Butt interpreted it as a prohibi
tion of the procession. They went to Fortescue to ask but he
was not at home, his Secretary Burke did not know. A letter
was left to be replied to; he equivocated. The government
wanted a collision. The procession was abandoned and it was
found afterwards that the soldiers had been supplied with 40
rounds of shot for the occasion.
After that Gladstone answered the Limerick memorial of
August in a roundabout way.149 He says the proceedings
varied much. There were loyal people and others who used
bad language demanding as a right what could only be an act
of clemency.
It is an act of presumption on the part of a paid public
servant to teach a public meeting how to speak.
The iiext objection is that the prisoners have not
abandoned their designs which were cut short by their
imprisonment.
How does Gladstone know what their designs were and
that they still entertain them? Has he tortured them into a
confession? He wants them to renounce their principles, to
degrade them morally. Napoleon did [not] ask people to
renounce their republican principles before he gave an
amnesty and Prussia attached no such conditions.
Then he says the conspiracy still exists in England and
America.
If it did, Scotland Yard would soon be down upon it. It is
only “disaffection of 700 years’ standing”. The Irish have
164 KARL MARX
declared they would receive unconditional freedom as an act
of conciliation. Gladstone cannot quell the Fenian conspiracy
in America, his conduct promotes it, one paper calls him the
Head Centre.1 50 He finds fault with the press. He has not the
courage to prosecute the press; he wants to make the
prisoners responsible. Does he want to keep them as hostages
for the good behaviour of the people outside? He says “it
has been our desire to carry leniency to the utmost point”.
This then is the utmost point.
When Mountjoy was crowded with untried prisoners,
Dr. M’Donnell wrote letter after letter to Joseph Murray
about their treatment. Lord Mayo said afterwards that
Murray had suppressed them. M’Donnell then wrote to the
inspector of prisons, to a higher official. He was afterwards
dismissed and Murray was promoted.*
He then says: we have advised the minor offenders to be
released; the principal leaders and organisers we could not set
free.
This is a positive lie. There were two Americans amongst
them who had 15 years each. It was fear for America that
made him set them free. Carey was sentenced in 1865 to 5
years, he is in the lunatic asylum, his family wanted him
home, he could not upset the government.
He further says: to rise in revolt against the public order
has ever been a crime in this country. Only in this country.
Jefferson Davis’s revolt was right because it was not against
the English, the government.15 1 He continues, the administra
tion can have no interest except the punishment of crimes.
The administration are the servants of the oppressors of
Ireland. He wants the Irish to fall on their knees because an
enlightened sovereign and Parliament have done a great act of
justice. They were the criminals before the Irish people. But
the Irish was the only question upon which Gladstone and
Bright could become ministers and catch the dissenters and
give the Irish place-hunters an excuse of selling them
selves.152 The church was only the badge of conquest. The
badge is removed, but the servitude remains. He states that
the government is resolved to continue to remove any griev
* See p. 259.-£d .
ON THE POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT 165
ance, but that they are determined to give security to life and
property and maintain the integrity of the empire.
Life and property are endangered by the English aris
tocracy. Canada makes her own laws15 3 without impairing
the integrity of the empire, but the Irish know nothing of
their own affairs, they must leave them to Parliament, the
same power that has landed them where they are. It is the
greatest stupidity to think that the prisoners out of prison
could be more dangerous than insulting a whole nation. The
old English leaven of the conqueror comes out in the
statement: we will grant but you must ask.
In his letter to Isaac Butt he says:
“You remind me that I once pleaded for foreigners. Can the two
cases correspond? The Fenians were tried according to lawful custom
and found guilty by a jury of their countrymen. The prisoners of
Naples were arrested and not tried and when they were tried they were
tried by exceptional tribunals and sentenced by judges who depended
upon the government for bread.”
If a poacher is tried by a jury of country squires he is
tried by his countrymen. It is notorious that the Irish juries
are made up of purveyors to the castle whose bread depends
upon their verdicts Oppression is always a lawful custom. In
England the judges can be independent, in Ireland they
cannot. Their promotion depends upon how they serve the
government. Sullivan the prosecutor has been made master of
the rolls.
To the Ancient Order of Foresters in Dublin he answered
that he was not aware that he had given a pledge that Ireland
was to be governed according to Irish ideas.154 And after all
this he comes to Guild-Hall and complains that he is inade
quate for the task.
The upshot is that all the tenant right meetings are
broken up; they want the prisoners [released]. They have
broken with the clerical party. They now demand that
Ireland is to govern herself. Moore and Butt have declared for
it.* They have resolved to liberate O’Donovan Rossa by elect
ing him a member of Parliament.155
* This sentence was inserted between the lines of the Minute
Book.—Ed.
166 KARL MARX
Cit. Marx ended by proposing the following resolution:
Resolved,
That in his reply to the Irish demands for the release of
the imprisoned Irish patriots (in a reply contained in his
letter to Mr. O’Shea d.d. Oct. 18, 1869, and to Mr. Isaac Butt
d.d. Oct. 23, 1869) Mr. Gladstone has deliberately insulted
the Irish nation;
That he clogs political amnesty with conditions alike
degrading to the victims of misgovemment and the people
they belong to;
That having in the teeth of his responsible position
publicly and enthusiastically cheered on the American slave
holders’ rebellion, he now steps in to preach to the Irish
people the doctrine of passive obedience;
That his whole proceedings with reference to the Irish
amnesty question are the true and genuine offspring of that
“policy o f conquest” by the fiery denunciation of which
Mr. Gladstone ousted his Tory rivals from office;
That the General Council o f the International Working
Men’s Association express their admiration of the spirited
and high-souled manner in which the Irish people carry on
their amnesty movement;
That this resolution be communicated to all the branches
of, and working men’s bodies connected with, the Interna
tional Working Men’s Association in Europe and the United
States.
The resolution published in Printed according to the text

November-December in a of the book The General Council
number of the International’s o f the First International.
papers. Record of the speech 1868-1870. Minutes, Moscow
published in: Marx and Engels,
Collected Works, second
Moscow, 1960
Karl Marx
[ON THE POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
WITH RESPECT TO THE IRISH PRISONERS
(Record o f the Speeches in Support o f the General
Council Resolution.
From the Minutes o f the General Council
Meetings o f November 23 and 30, 1869)]
I
Cit. Marx. Cit. Mottershead has given a history of Glad
stone. I could give another, but that has nothing to do with
the question before us. The petitions which were adopted at
the meetings were quite civil, but he found fault with the
speeches by which they were supported. Castlereagh was as
good a man as Gladstone and I found today in the Political
Register that he used the same words against the Irish as
Gladstone, and Cobbett made the same reply as I have
done.156
When the electoral tour commenced all the Irish can
didates spouted about amnesty, but Gladstone did nothing
till the Irish municipalities moved.
I have not spoken of the people killed abroad, because
you cannot compare the Hungarian war with the Fenian in
surrection.15 7 \Ye might compare it with 1798158 and then
the comparison would not be favourable to the English.
I repeat that political prisoners are not treated anywhere
so bad as in England.
Cit. Mottershead is not going to tell us his opinion of the
Irish; if he wants to know what other people think of the
English let him read Ledru-Rollin15 9 and other Continental
writers. I have always defended the English and do so still.
These resolutions are not to be passed to release the pris
oners, the Irish themselves have abandoned that.
It is a resolution of sympathy with the Irish and a review
of the conduct of the government, it may bring the English
and the Irish together. Gladstone has to contend with the
opposition of the Times, the Saturday Review, etc., if we
168 KARL MARX
speak out boldly; on the other side, we may support him
against an opposition to which he might otherwise have to
succumb. He was in office during the Civil War and was
responsible for what the government did and if the North was
low when he made his declaration, so much the worse for his
patriotism.
Cit. Odger is right, if we wanted the prisoners released,
this would not be the way to do it, but it is more important
to make a concession to the Irish people than to Gladstone...
Cit. Marx had no objection to leave out the word “deliber
ately”, as a Prime Minister must necessarily be considered
to do everything deliberately.! 60
II
Cit. Marx said if Odger’s suggestions were followed the

Council would put themselves on an English party stand
point.161 They could not do that. The Council must show
the Irish that they understood the question and the Con
tinent that they showed no favour to the British Govern
ment. The Council must treat the Irish like the English would
treat the Polish.

Collected Works, second of the book The General Council
Russian ed., Vol. 16 o f the First International.
Moscow, 1960, and in the book 1868-18 70. Minutes,
The General Council o f the Moscow
First International 1868-1870.
Minutes, Moscow
Karl Marx
[IRELAND FROM THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
TO THE UNION OF 1801
EXTRACTS AND NOTES]16?.
I. FROM 1778 TO 1782. INDEPENDENCE
A) The Irish Parliament before 1782
The importance o f the question for the English working

class, and the working-class movement generally.
Until 1800 Ireland, although conquered, remained a separate and
federate kingdom. Title of the king up to the peace of Amiens: ! 63
“George III, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the
faith etc.”
The English usurpations in regard to the Parliament at
Dublin principally calculated with a view to the mercantile
monopoly, on the one hand, and, on the other, to have the
appelate jurisdiction in regard to the titles o f landed estates
in the last instance to be decided at London, only in English
courts.
POYNINGS’ LAW164
A Statute of Henry VII, framed by his Attorney General, Sir

Edward Poynings, restrained the Irish Parliament from originating any
law whatever, either in the Lords or Commons. Before any statute
could be finally discussed, it was previously submitted to the Lord
Lieutenant o f Ireland and his Privy Council, for their consideration,
who might at their pleasure reject it, or transmit it to England. The
British Attorney General and Privy Council were invested with the
power either to suppress it altogether, or model it at their own will, and
then return it to Ireland, with permission to the Irish Parliament to
pass it into law. Already Molyneux etc. protested against this (17th
century). Later, in the 18th century, Swift and Dr. Lucas.
170 KARL MARX
STATUTE 6, GEORGE I165
(It declared in fact the legislative supremacy o f the

British Parliament over Ireland. )
Poynings, law reduced the Irish House of Commons to a mere
instrument o f the Privy Council o f both nations, and, consequently, of
the British Cabinet.
George I, Statute , to neutralise the Irish legislation altogether, and
to establish an appellant jurisdiction to the British Lords, whereby
every decree and judgment of the Irish superior courts, which would
tend to affect or disturb the questionable or bad titles o f the British
adventures or absentees166 to Irish estates or Irish property, might be
reversed or rendered abortive in Great Britain by a vote o f the Scotch
and English nobility.
(This was re-enacted by the Union! )
Many British Peers and Commoners, through whose influence this
Statute of George I had been enacted, had themselves been deeply
interested in effecting that measure, to secure their own grants of Irish
estates. Under the 1st clause of this law England assumed a despotic
power “and declared her inherent right to bind Ireland by every Statute
in which she should be expressly designated.”
It was the success of that vicious precedent which had
encouraged George III and his British Parliament to attempt
to legislate for America. This cost them the North-American
colonies.
CENERAL CHARACTER OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT

IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY UNTIL THE UPHEAVING
Protestant Parliament. Only Protestants electors. In fact
the Parliament of the Conquerors. A mere instrument, a mere
serf in relation to the British Government. They compensated
themselves by despotism against the Catholic mass of the
Irish people. The Penal Code against the Catholics167 was
rigorously enforced. Only from time to time some efforts
were made by that Parliament to resist the English com
mercial legislature ruining Irish industry and commerce, then
principally carried on by the Protestant, Scotch-English part
of the population.
As to the internal composition of this Parliament etc.
more will be said by and by.
IRELAND FROM AMERICAN REVOLUTION TO UNION OF 1801 171
A new state of things opened with the American War of
Independence and the disasters it brought upon England.
B) * First Effects of the American War

of Independence on Ireland prior
to Legislative Independence
A ) R E L A X A T IO N O F T H E P E N A L C O D E A G A IN S T C A T H O L IC S
American (United States) Declaration of Independence

proclaimed by Congress, 4 July, 1776.
A p ril 1 7 7 7 : Congress proclaims the Constitution
(American) of the American Republic.
War between England and America.
6 February, 1778: Treaties with France, by which the
independence of the American Republic was recognised and
France promised to support the Americans, until they had
got rid of the English.
Great fermentation produced by the American events in
Ireland. Many Irish, mainly Presbyterians from Ulster,
emigrate to America, enrol under the United States banners
and fight against England on the other side of the Atlantic.
The Catholics, who for a long time had in vain supplicated
for a relaxation of the Penal Code moved again in 1776, in
louder tones.
1778: the Irish Parliament relaxed the severity o f the
Penal Code, its worst features were obliterated, Catholics
were allowed to take leases o f land.
Curran said afterwards (1792, in the debate on Catholic
Emancipation):
“What was the consequence even of a partial union with your
countrymen? The united efforts of the two bodies restored that con
stitution which had been lost by their separation.... Your Catholic
brethren shared the danger of the conflict, but you had not justice or
gratitude to let them share the fruits of the victory. You suffered them
to relapse into their former insignificance and depression. And, let me
* In the manuscript this section is marked II, though the preceding
section is marked “A” and the following “C".—Ed.
172 KARL MARX
ask you, has it not fared with you according to your deserts? Let me
ask you if the Parliament of Ireland can boast of being now less at the
feet of the British Minister, than at that period it was o f the British
Parliament? ”
“ But you affect to think your property in danger, by admitting
them into the state.... Thirteen years ago you expressed the same fears,
yet you made the experiment; you opened the door to landed property ,
and the fact has shown the fear to be without foundation.”’ 68 Then
on Protestant Ascendancy A 69 Tithes and the property o f the Pro
testant Church in Ireland.
The main opposition to every innovation and useful
measure on the part o f absentees. Always steady adherents of
the Minister for the time being. Their proxies in the Lords,
and their influence in the Commons, were transferred to the
Minister on a card or in a letter, and at every division in both
Houses they formed a phalanx.
b )T H E V O L U N T E E R O R G A N IS A T IO N . T H E F R E E -T R A D E M O V E M E N T .
F IR S T C O N C E S S IO N S O F E N G L A N D
On 4 July, 1776 the Americans had proclaimed their

Declaration o f Independence. In the same year the Irish
Catholics, as [we have] seen, demanded (they had before
supplicated for) relaxation of the Penal Code, redress.
In April 1777 the Constitution of the American Republic
was proclaimed. In 1778 first redress of the Catholic grie
vances etc. This enabled the Irish Protestants, till now con
sidered by the English as their gaolers and bailiffs, to move.
To understand the movement from 1779-1782 (Legisla
tive Independence) it becomes necessary briefly to allude to
the state in which England found herself.
In June 1778 commenced the war between England and
France. In 1780 France sent not only, as she had done till
then, money subsidies and men-of-war to America, but also
an auxiliary army. (6,000 men under the Marquis of Rocham-
beau.) The French army landed on 10 July, 1780 in Rhode
Island, surrendered to him by the English. In September
1780 the English colonel Ferguson was defeated in the West
of North Carolina. 19 October, 1781, Cornwallis (General)
included by Washington in York Town (Virginia) had to
capitulate. (5-6,000 men, many English men-of-war etc. were
captured.)
27 July, 1778, sea-battle between French and English at
Quessant. Undecided.
Summer 1779: The King o f Spain* accedes as ally to
United States and France. His navy united with the French
one. The hostile fleets assailed the English coast in June,
and only the dissension amongst the French and Spanish
Admirals saved Plymouth (August 1779) from the destruc
tion of its wharfs and arsenals.
In 1780 England was not defeated on the sea, but lost
much in money and mercantile ships.
26 February, 1780, Russia invites all neutral maritime
powers to Armed N e u tra lity . 0 England pounces upon
Holland. 5 August, 1782, naval battle between the English
and Dutch, at Doggersbank, in the North Sea. Undecided.
On 30 November, 1782, at Paris Preliminary Peace Treaty
between United States and England.
* * *
1779. A great part of the English army and navy consist
ed of Irishmen. In 1779 Ireland was left ungarrisoned, an
invasion of Ireland by France threatened, English coast
(Plymouth) menaced by the united French and Spanish navy.
Under these circumstances the Volunteers—the armed Pro
testantism of Ireland1 7 arose, partly for defence from the
foreigner, partly for self-vindication. In less time than could
have been supposed, from the commencement of these armed
associations, the whole surface of the island was covered with
a self-raised host of patriot soldiers.
* * *
At this place, it will be interesting to anticipate the whole
o f the history of this Volunteer force, because, in fact, it is
* Charles III .—Ed.
174 KARL MARX
the history of Ireland to the moment when, since 1795, on
the one hand, the general popular, national and constitu
tional movement, represented by them, stripped off its
merely national character and merged into a truly revolu
tionary movement, and, on the other hand, the British
Government changed secret intrigue for brutal force intended
to bring about, and succeeding in bringing about the Union
of 1800, i.e. the annihilation of Ireland as a nation, and its
transformation into an out of the way country district of
England.
There are four periods of the Volunteer movement.
I Period. From 1779 to 1783: In its first formation the
Volunteers, the armed Protestantism of Ireland, embrace all
vital elements of all classes, noblemen, gentlemen, merchants,
farmers, labourers. Their first object, emancipation from the
commercial and industrial fetters which the mere mercantile
jealousy of England had thrown around them. Then National
Independence. Then Reform of the Parliament and Catholic
Emancipation as one of the conditions of National Resurrec
tion! Their official, organisation and the disasters of England
give them new strength, but lay also the germ of their ruin,
subordinating them to a week, bigot, aristocratic Whig, the
Earl o f Charlemont. The first victories (commercial ones) of
the Irish. Commons they justly claim as their own victory.
The votes of thanks by the Irish Commons exalt them.
Catholic bodies enroll in them. The apogee of their power in
1783, when their delegates assembled in the Dublin Rotunda,
as a Convention for Parliamentary Reform. The treason of
their chief and the disavowal of them by the Irish House of
Commons breaks their force and pushes them into the
background.
II Period. From 1783 to 1791 (October)
Still important as pressure from without upon the Irish
Parliament, especially House of Commons, and as armed and
popular support of the national and reforming Opposition
(minority) of the House of Commons. The aristocratic
element and the reactionary part of the middle-class with
drew, the popular element prevailing.
The French Revolution „(1789) finds both the Catholic Commit
tee.
(principally composed of Catholic noblemen)
and the Whig Club 17 2
(Reformers)
feeble and dispirited.
There was a steady decline of the Volunteer organisation, and of
the strength of the Liberal Party until 1790.
A different race of men from Whig Club orators or Catholic Lords
now began to act on the public.
In Dublin, John Keogh, a strong, rough, sagacious merchant, and
men of his stamp, sent the Catholic nobles flying in slavish dread.
And in Belfast, Neilson, Russel, McCracken etc., headed a Pro
testant Party, which advocated Reform, but began soon to think of
Republicanism. The government rendered fearful by the Regency
dispute, and desperate by the French Revolution, began to push corrup
tion and the principles of the Union* harder than ever.
Theobald Wolfe Tone, the son of a man, half coach-maker and half
farmer, a poor and briefless barrister, with a wife and a pack of
children, resolved to redress the wrongs o f the Catholics, restore
representation in the Commons, and with these, or failing in them, to
make his country an independent republic. Now he wrote a pamphlet in,
favour o f the Catholic emancipation, called: “An argument on behalf o f
the Catholics o f Ireland, by a Northern Whig," and received every mark
of gratitude from his new clients.
In October, 1791, in Belfast he founded the first United Irish
Society.
From this moment, the movement of the Volunteers
merges into that of the United Irishmen. The Catholic ques
tion became that of the Irish people. The question was no
longer to remove disabilities from the Catholic upper and
middle classes, but to emancipate the Irish peasant, for the
vast part Catholic. The question became social as to its
matter, assumed French political principles, as to its form,
remained national.
Ill Period. From 1791 (October) to 1795 (After the
recall o f Lord Fitzwilliam.)
The movement of the Volunteers merged into that of the
United Irishmen.
* Probably a slip of the pen; in his introduction to Curran’s book
The Speeches John Davies writes: “to push corruption and the
principles of disunion”.—Erf.
176 KARL MAItX
Public until 1794, when forced by the government measures to
become secret The United Irishmen increased in numbers, the
Catholics in confidence, and the Volunteer Corps began to restore fhetr
array, and improve their discipline.
Acme of their action:
15 February, 1793: A Volunteer Convention at Dungannon, passed
resolutions in favour of Emancipation and Reform, and named a
permanent Committee. The Relief Bill of April 1793 was carried by this
pressure.
But now, the Catholic higher classes secede from the
movement; pitched against the ci-devant Volunteers (merging
into the Secret Societies of the United Irishmen) the aris
tocratic and stupidly, bigottedly middle-class yeomen.
Coercive laws against military societies, drilling, and the whole
machinery o f the Volunteers were passed on 11 March, 1793, and the
Alien Act—the. Militia, Foreign Correspondence, Gunpowder and Con
vention Acts, in fact, a full code o f coercion was passed by the same
Parliament, that had passed the Catholic Relief Bill.
The United Irishmen became a secret organisation. The
recall of Fitzwilliam only left the decision to force.
IV Period. The Volunteer Movement merged into the
revolutionary movement since 1795.
.* * *
We now return to the development of the Volunteer
Movement, 1779-83, and the Acts of the Irish Parliament
under this high popular pression. The Armed Associations, at
first provincial and local, were strongest in the North (Ulster)
and Dublin (Leinster). Only Protestants. First against Inva
sion. Protestant farmers rallied under this cry first. Catholics
were prohibited by statute from bearing arms in Ireland.
However, they zealously assisted in forwarding those very
associations into which they themselves had no admission.
Their calmness and their patriotism gained them many
friends, and a relaxation of intolerance appeared rapidly to
be gaining ground, but it was not until the Volunteers had
assumed a deliberative capacity, that the necessity of uniting
the whole population of the country in the cause of inde
pendency became distinctly obvious.
The first object o f the Irish Volunteers—after the defence
against invasion—was to free themselves mercantilely and
industrially, an interest then almost wholly in the hands of
the Protestants, although by its very nature a national
interest. t
It was observed, that this British assumption o f authority
to legislate for Ireland, whatever colouring it might have
received by the dissimulation or ingenuity of its supporters,
had, in fact, for its real object the restraint of her commerce
and the suppression o f her manufactures, so far as they might
interfere with the interests o f England) because the manage
ment of the merely local concerns o f Ireland, by her own
Parliament, was altogether immaterial to Great Britain, unless
where a commercial rivalship might be the probable conse
quence of successful industry and legislative encouragement.
The peers [showed] no public spirit; the measures of the
Commons might be suppressed by an act of the Privy
Council; hence the determined co-operation o f the whole
people necessary.
The moment (the distress of England and the armed force
of the Volunteers) was favourable.
England, notwithstanding [the fact that] she had in some
instances suspended, and in others prohibited, the exporta
tion of Irish manufactures, inundated the Irish markets with
every species of her own; a combination of the great capital
ists of England to destroy Irish manufacture by inundation of
the Irish market.
Hence the Irish resolved to adopt a non-importation and
non-consumption agreement throughout the whole kingdom,
by excluding not only the importation, but the consumption
o f any British manufacture in Ireland. No sooner was this
measure publicly proposed, than it was universally adopted;
it flew quicker than the wind throughout the whole nation.
Meanwhile the Volunteer organisation spread; at length
almost every independent Protestant enrolled as a patriot
soldier. Self-formed, self-governed, no commissions from the
Crown, no connexion whatever with the Government, they
appointed their own officers etc. Yet subordination was
178 KARL MARX
complete. Their arms were at first provided by themselves;
but the extraordinary increase of their numbers rendered
them at length unable to procure a sufficient supply by
purchase; they required arms from the Government; the
Government did not think it safe to refuse their demand; and,
with an averted eye, handed out to the Volunteers 20,000
stands o f arms from the Castle o f Dublin.173 Many men who
had served in the United States against the Americans became
their drill sergeants. At the head of the corps noblemen etc.
Important in this movement the familiar association o f all
ranks.
Under these circumstances:
Sessions o f the Irish Parliament 1779-80. After a
frivolous speech of the Lord Lieutenant (Harcourt? )* in the
House of Lords, and the usual adulatory address moved in
the Commons by Sir Robert Deane, Grattan moved the
following amendment:
“That we beseech Your Majesty to believe, that it is with the
utmost reluctance we are constrained to approach you on the present
occasion; but the constant drain to supply absentees, and the un
fortunate prohibition of our trade, have caused such calamity, that the
natural support of our country has decayed, and our manufacturers are
dying for want*, famine stalks hand in hand with hopeless wretchedness;
and the only means left to support the expiring trade of this miserable
part of Your Majesty’s dominions, is to open a free export trade, and
let your Irish subjects enjoy their natural birthright.”
Mr. Hussey Burgh, the Prime Sergeant (above the
Attorney General) moved the following amendment:
“That it is not by temporary expedients, that this nation is now to
be saved from impending ruin.” ! 74
Unanimously carried.
The Volunteers attributed rightly this unexpected success
to their movement. It greatly increased both the numbers and
confidence in Volunteer associations.
Although even in both Houses o f the British Parliament
attention was called to the Irish distress and the dangerous
state of that country, Lord North treated the whole [matter]
with his usual superciliousness and frivolity. Nothing was done.
* Lord Buckingham was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at the time.—
Ed.
The non-importation and non-consumption movement
became now general in Ireland. At length, a general meeting
was convened by the High Sheriff o f the city of Dublin, and
resolutions then entered into by the whole metropolis, which
finally confirmed and consummated that judicious measure,
and at length convinced Great Britain, that Ireland would no
longer submit to insult and domination. These resolutions
were enforced with vigour and strictness. The Volunteers of
Dublin resolved to consolidate [their organisation], chose
William, Duke of Leinster, for their Chief. This was the first
measure of the Volunteers to form a regular army composed
of every rank of society. Secret efforts of the Government to
seduce the soldier from his officers, or to detach the most
popular officers from the command of the soldiers—all in
vain!
The appointment of the Duke of Leinster to the com
mand of the Dublin Volunteers, was quickly followed by that
of other district generals; and the organisation of four provin
cial armies was regularly proceeded with. The Ulster army
appointed the Earl of Charlemont its commander-in-chief,
the other armies proceeded rapidly in their organisation.
Provincial reviews were adopted; and everything assumed the
appearance of systematic movement. Soon a General Com
mander-in-Chief [was appointed].
Affairs now approached fast towards a crisis; the freedom
of commerce being the subject most familiar to the ideas of
the people, was the first object of their solicitude. “A free
trade” became the watchword of the Volunteers, and the cry
of the Nation; the Dublin Volunteer Artillery appeared on
parade, commanded by James Napper Tandy, with labels on
the mouths of their cannon: “Free Trade or Speedy Revolu
tion. ” Lord North got now frightened. America was already
lost. On 24th November, 1781, a speech from the throne
wherein he [ the king] called the immediate attention of his
British Parliament to the situation o f Ireland. Now in hot
haste these blockheads acceded to the Irish claims. The
British Parliament met on the 25 November, and the first
Bills of concessions received the royal assent on the 21
December, 1781. Now these dunderheads passed Bills,
distinctly repealing all the Acts which their predecessors had
180 KARL MARX
declared absolutely essential to secure the prosperity of
England from the dangerous industry of the Irish.
Messages were sent over to Ireland, much fuss was made
of the liberality and justice of Great Britain. Meanwhile
North tried to pass over the year 1782, by continuing to
open the Committee on Irish affairs from time to time, now
and then passing a resolution in favour of that country, and
thus endeavouring to wear out the session.
Ireland at length perceived the duplicity of the proceed
ings which, while they purported to extend benefits to
Ireland?!, asserted the paramount authority of Great Bri
tain, and converted its acts of concession into declaratory
statutes of its own supremacy. Fourteen Irish Counties at
once avowed to establish, at the risk of their lives and
fortunes, the independence of the Irish Legislature. The cry
of “Free Trade” was now accompanied with that of a “Free
Parliament”.
George III was forced, from the throne (in his speech), to
pass unqualified eulogiums on the Volunteer army, as an
expression of the loyalty and fidelity of the people.
The Army in Ireland had been under the regulations of
a British Statute, and the hereditary revenue of the Crown,
with the aid of a perpetual mutiny bill, 1 7 5 enabled the
British Government to command at all times a standing army
in Ireland, without the authority or the control of its Parlia
ment. The Volunteers became aware of this. Resolutions
were entered into by almost every military corps, and every
corporate body, that they would no longer obey any laws,
save those enacted by the King, Lords and Commons of
Ireland.
The salaries of the Judges o f Ireland were then barely
sufficient to keep them above want, and they held their
offices only during the will of the British Minister, who might
remove them at his pleasure: all Irish justice, therefore, was
at his control. In all questions between the Crown and the
people, the purity of the judge was consequently suspected.
The Irish Parliament, at this period, met but once in two
years, and in the British Attorney General was vested the
superintendence of their proceedings and in the British Privy
Council the alteration and rejection of their Statutes.
9 OCTOBER, 1781. Irish House o f Commons. Irish Parliament
opened, speech of the Viceroy etc., after address to His Majesty passed,
Mr. O'Neill (House of Commons) moved a resolution o f thanks to “all
the Volunteers of Ireland, for their exertions and continuance”. It was
unanimously voted, and directed to be circulated throughout all
Ireland, and to be communicated by the sheriffs of the counties to the
corps within their bailiwicks.
r
This resolution brought down the British Government to
the feet of the Volunteers, and raised the Volunteers above
the supremacy of Britain, by a direct Parliamentary approba
tion of self-armed, self-governed, and self-disciplined associa
tions.
These Volunteers by this time exceeded in number the
whole regular military force of the British Empire.
Portugal Affair : By the resolutions of the British Legislature,
Ireland had been admitted to export her linen and woollen manu
factures to Portugal, agreeable to the provisions o f the Treaty o f
Methuen,176 from which liberty she had been previously and explicitly
prohibited by express statutes. Irish manufacturers tried immediately to
improve this. The Portuguese Ministry (under orders o f the British
Ministers) peremptorily refused, and seized the Irish merchandise (this
happened in 1782). Petition of the Dublin merchants to the Irish House
of Commons. In opposition to a motion of Fitzgibbon, Sir Lucius
O'Brien moved an amendment, calling upon the King as King of
Ireland, to assert the rights o f that kingdom, “by hostility with
Portugal” concluding with: “We doubt not that Nation (Ireland) has
vigour and resources sufficient to maintain all her rights, and astonish
all her enemies. ”
The House did not have the courage to pass it.
Now the cry [was heard] in the country, that their con
nection with England was only federative. This engrossed
now almost the exclusive consideration of the armed associa
tions of Ireland.
Want of protection for personal liberty in Ireland: No
Habeas Corpus Act . 177
Repeal of the English Statute of 6, George I asked by the armed
Volunteers and corporate bodies etc. Catholic bodies now also entered
the Volunteer army, officered by Protestants. Regular and public
deliberative meetings of the armed Volunteers. The armed associations
of Ulster first appointed delegates to declare the sentiments of their
province, in a general assembly. The Convention at Dungannon, 15
February, 1782, agreed upon the celebrated Declaration o f Rights and
Grievances.
182 KARL MARX
They were delegates from 25,000 Ulster soldiers, backed by the
voice of about one million inhabitants of that country.
THE DECLARATION OF THE VOLUNTEERS

AT THE DUNGANNON CONVENTION, 15 FEBRUARY, 1782
“Whereas it has been asserted that Volunteers, as such, cannot with
propriety debate or give their opinions on political subjects, or the
' conduct of Parliament, or public men, resolved unanimously: that a
citizen, by learning the use of arms, does not abandon any of his civil
rights. That a claim of any body of men, other than the King, Lords,
and Commons of Ireland, to make laws to bind this Kingdom, is uncon
stitutional, illegal, and a grievance;
that the power exercised by the Privy Council of both Kingdoms,
under the pretence of the law o f Poynings, is unconstitutional and a
grievance;
that the independence of judges is equally essential to the impartial
administration of justice in Ireland, as in England; and that the refusal
or delay of this right to Ireland, makes a distinction where there should
be no distinction; may excite jealousy where perfect union should
prevail; and is in itself unconstitutional and a grievance; that it is our
decided and unalterable determination to seek a redress of these griev
ances ... redress, speedy and effectual; that as men, and as Irishmen, as
Christians, and as Protestants, we rejoice in the relaxation o f the penal
laws against our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects; and that we conceive
the measure to be fraught with the happiest consequences to the union
and prosperity of the inhabitants of Ireland.”
Four members from each country of the province of Ulster were
appointed to act as a committee for the Volunteer Corps, and to call
general meetings of the province. That the said committee appoint nine
of their members to be a committee in Dublin, in order to commun
icate with all other Volunteer Associations in the other provinces, that
may think proper to come to similar resolutions; and to deliberate with
them on the most constitutional means of carrying them into effect.
The Earl of Bristol, an Englishman by birth, British Peer and
Protestant Bishop of Derry (uncle of George Robert Fitzgerald) openly
declared for the Volunteers (ditto for full Catholic Emancipation ).
In every Volunteer Corps of Ireland the Dungannon resolutions are
accepted.
About this time about 90,000 Volunteers are ready.
As soon as the Dungannon Volunteers had received the
concurrence of the armed associations, the Irish House of
Commons assumed a new aspect. The proceedings of the
people without now told on their representatives within. The
whole House appeared forming into parties.
IRELAND FROM AMERICAN REVOLUTION TO UNION OF 1801________183
Their Sessions were biennial, and consequently their
grants to Government were for two years at once; and till
more money was required, their legislative [power] was
inactive. They now determined on granting supplies to the
Crown for 6 months only, as a hint that they would grant no
more till their grievances were redressed; this had its effect.
The proceedings of the Volunteers and fiiunicipal bodies
became every day more serious and decisive, the tone in the
House of Commons more menacing.
It was impracticable to proceed with Lord North any
longer. About April 1782, the Marquis o f Rockingham’s
Cabinet (James Fox etc.) [was formed]. The Duke of
Portland, nominated Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, arrived at
Dublin 14 April, 1782, he had to meet the Irish Parliament
on the 16th April
C) Declarations of Irish legislative independence

Message o f George III to the British Parliament o f 18 April,
1782. Stating:
“that mistrusts and jealousies had arisen in Ireland, and that it was
highly necessary to take the same into immediate consideration, in
order to... a final adjustment. ”
The British House o f Commons in reply: express
“their entire and cheerful concurrence in His Majesty’s views of a final
adjustment”.
The same words “final adjustment99were repeated, by the
Irish Ministry, when a Union was proposed to the Irish Parlia
ment in 1800.
The Duke of Portland wanted to procrastinate. Grattan commun
icated to him, that this was impossible without provoking anarchy.
House of Commons, 16 April, 1782: Grattan on the point of proposing
the Independence motion, when Mr. Hely Hutchinson (Secretary of
State in Ireland) rose and said, the Lord Lieutenant had ordered him to
deliver a message from the King, importing that
“His Majesty, being concerned to find that discontents and
jealousies were prevailing amongst his loyal subjects of Ireland, upon
matters of great weight and importance, recommended the House to
take the same into their most serious consideration, in order to effect
184 KARL MARX
such a final adjustment as might give satisfaction to both kingdoms.”
Hutchinson accompanied this message, and his statement of his own
views on the subject, with a determination to support a declaration of
“Irish rights9* and constitutional “independence”. Hutchinson declared
at the same time, that he had simply to deliver the message; he was
therefore silent to all details and pledged the Government to none.
Ponsonby proposed a short address.
Grattan spoke: “America has shed much English blood, and
America is to be free: Ireland has shed her own blood for England, and
is Ireland to remain in fetters? ” etc. He proposes an Amendment to
Ponsonby’s “short address”, etc. “to assure His Majesty that his
subjects of Ireland are a free people, that the Crown of Ireland is an
imperial crown, inseparably connected with the Crown of Great Britain
... but that the Kingdom of Ireland is a distinct kingdom , with a Parlia
ment of her own the sole legislature thereof, that there is no body of
men competent to make laws to bind the Nation but the King, Lords,
and Commons of Ireland, nor any Parliament which hath any authority
or power of any sort whatever in this country, save only the Parliament
of Ireland; to assure His Majesty that we humbly conceive that in this
right the very essence of our liberty exists, a right which we, on the part
of all the people of Ireland, do claim as their birth-right, and which we
cannot yield but with our lives. ”
Brownlow seconded. George Ponsonby stated “that he most willing
ly consented [on behalf of Portland] to the proposed amendment, and
would answer that the noble lord who presided in the Government of
Ireland, wished to do everything in his power etc.” and “he (Portland)
would use his utmost influence in obtaining the rights of Ireland, an
object on which he had fixed his heart.”
(1799. Portland openly avowed in 1799 that he had never
considered this concession of England in 1782 as final.)
Unanimo usly Grattan’s Mo tion was passed.
Shortly before and shortly after this scene very decided
resolutions on the part of the Volunteer Corps. It was the
unanimous firmness of the people, and not the abstract virtue
of their delegates, which achieved this revolution.
Fitzgibbon had declared [himself] a patriot; and Mr. John Scott,
then Attorney General, afterwards Lord Clonmel, even declared: “If
the Parliament of Great Britain were determined to lord it over Ireland,
he was resolved not to be their villain in executing their tyranny. That
if matters should proceed to the extremity to which he feared they
were verging, he should not be an insignificant subscriber to the fund
for defending their common rights ... he had determined to throw his
life and fortune into the scale.”
(This true man of the Pitt-Castlereagh school!)
Immediately on this turn, Portland sent off two despatches to
England, one to the Cabinet as a public document, the other, private
and confidential, to Fox. He explained the reasons for the necessity of
acceding.... Stated in conclusion that “he would omit no opportunity
of cultivating his connexion with the Earl of Charlemont, who appeared
entirely disposed to place confidence in his Administration, and to give
a proper tone to the armed bodies over whom he had the most con
siderable influence”.
The Parliament was meanwhile prorogued for tnree weeks, to wait
for the King’s Reply to their Declaration of Independence. Meanwhile
reviews and discipline were continued with unremitting vigour by the
Volunteer army, now about 124,000, of whom upwards of 100,000
effectives. Besides nearly 1/3 of the whole English army was then Irish,
ditto very many sailors Irish
(Portland’s conduct in 1782 a. premeditated tissue of dis
simulation^.)
On 27 May, 1782 the Irish House o f Commons met, pursuant to
adjournment.
Portland in his quasi speech from the throne: “King and British
Parliament ... are united in a desire to gratify every wish expressed in
your late Address to the Throne.... By the papers which, in obedience
to His Majesty’s commands, I have directed to be laid before you, you
will receive the most convincing testimony of the cordial reception
which your representations have met with from the Legislative of Great
Britain, but His Majesty whose first and most anxious wish is to
exercise his Royal Prerogative in such a manner as may be most con
ducive to the welfare of his faithful subjects, has further given it me in
command to assure you of his gracious disposition to give his Royal
assent to acts to prevent the suppression of Bills in the Privy Council o f
this Kingdom, and the alteration of them anywhere, and to limit the
duration of the Act for the better Regulation and Accommodation o f
His Majesty’s forces in this Kingdom , to the term o f two years. The
benevolent intentions of His Majesty ... unaccompanied by any stipula
tion or condition whatever. The Good faith, the generosity, and the
honour of this (the English) nation, afford them the surest pledge of a
corresponding disposition, on your part etc.”
Grattan the fool rose at once:
“That as Great Britain had given up every claim to authority over
Ireland, he had not the least idea that she should be also bound to make
any declaration that she had formerly usurped that power. I move you
to assure His Majesty of our unfeigned affection to His Royal Person
and Government... magnanimity of His Majesty, and the wisdom of the
Parliament of Great Britain, that we conceive the resolution for an
unqualified, unconditional repeal of the 6, George I, to be a measure of
consummate wisdom and justice”
186 KARL MARX
and similar talk, and in particular
“that no constitutional question between the two nations will any
longer exist”, 178
Sir Samuel Broadstreet on the other hand declared that “the Irish
Parliament actually sat at that moment under an English statute”. Ditto
Flood, David Walsh:
“I repeat it, that until England declares unequivocally, by an Act of
her own Legislature, that she had no right, in any instance, to make
laws to bind Ireland, the usurped power o f English Legislation never
can be considered by us as relinquished.... we have the power to assert
our rights as men, and accomplish our independence as a nation.”
Grattan’s address was triumphantly carried (only two votes were
cast against it. Fitzpatrick, the secretary, had accelerated the vote by
artifice).
Beauchamp Bagenal proposed to appoint a committee “to consider
and report what sum the Irish Parliament should grant, to build a
suitable mansion and purchase an estate for their deliverer” (i.e.
Grattan).
The British Cabinet was now frightened. Their intoler
ance degenerated into fear. They had already signed the capitu
lation, and thought it impossible to carry it too soon into
execution. America was already lost.
Bills to enact the concessions demanded by Ireland were,
therefore, prepared with an expedition nearly bordering on
precipitancy. The 6th of George I, declaratory of, and establ
ishing the supremacy of England, and the eternal dependence
of Ireland on the Parliament and Cabinet of Great Britain,
was now hastily repealed, without debate, or any qualifica
tion by the British Legislature. This repeal obtained the royal
assent, and a copy was instantly transmitted to the Irish
Viceroy, and communicated by circulars to the Volunteer
commanders.
Chap. Ill: An Act, to repeal an Act made in the 6th year o f the
reign of his late Majesty King George I, entitled, An Act for the better
securing the dependency of the Kingdom of Ireland upon the Crown of
Great Britain.
“Whereas, an Act was passed etc., may it please your excellent
Majesty, that it may be enacted, and be it enacted, by the King’s Most
Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords
spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament
assembled, and by the authority of the same, that from and after the
passing of this Act, the above-mentioned Act, and the several matters
and things therein contained, shall be, and is, and are hereby repealed.”
Irish House of Commons, 30 May, 1782. Bagenal resumed the
subject of reward to Grattan; proposed £100,000. Mr. Thomas Conolly
declared that “the Duke o f Portland felt with the Irish people ... he (the
Lord Lieutenant) begged to offer, as a part of the intended grant to
Mr. Grattan, the Viceregal Palace in the Phoenix Park”
—the King’s best Palace in Ireland.
The Viceroy of Ireland proposing, on behalf of the King
of England, to Grattan to reward his sendees for having
emancipated his country from the domination of Great
Britain, was an incident as extraordinary as had ever occurred
in any Government, and, emanating from that of England,
told, in a single sentence, the whole history of her horrors,
her jealousies, her shallow artifice and humbled arrogance.
This was, of course, rejected by the Irish House of Commons.
Grattan got £50,000 from that House.
II. FROM 1782 (AFTER THE DECLARATION
OF INDEPENDENCE) TO 1795
General remark on this period: When Lord Westmoreland
was removed from Ireland, in 1795, Ireland was in a most
unexampled and progressive state of prosperity. Curran
suggested even an intention to impeach Westmoreland for
having permitted a part of the 12,000 troops (which, accord
ing to stipulation, should always remain in Ireland) to be
drafted out of that kingdom for foreign service.
A) From 1782 to 1783. (The Fiasco of the Reform Bill and the
Great Defeat of the Volunteers.)
Irish House of Commons: Bills to ameliorate, by partial
concession, the depressed state of the Catholics, and some
reward for their zeal and patriotism, were introduced, and
had arrived to their last stages in the House of Commons,
without any effective opposition. Opposed by bigotism in
their latter stages, the Castle powers stirring on. Those Bills
relaxing the severity o f the Penal Code passed however
through both Houses. The concessions [though] very limited,
still afforded great satisfaction to the Catholics, as the first
growth of a tolerating principle. Grattan still believed in the
Whigs. But at length Fox himself, wearied by a protracted
188 KARL MARX
course of slow deception, at once confirmed the opinions
of the Irish people, and openly proclaimed to Ireland
the inadequacy of all the measures that had heretofore
been adopted. He took occasion in the British Parliament,
on the repeal of the 6th George I being there alluded to,
to state
“that the repeal of that statute could not stand alone, but must be
accompanied by a final adjustment, and by a solid basis of permanent
connexion”, that “some plans of that nature would be laid before the
Irish Parliament by the Irish Ministers, and a treaty entered upon,
which treaty, when proceeded on, might be adopted by both Parlia
ments, and finally become an irrevocable arrangement between the two
countries”.
By that speech, the Irish delusion of a final adjustment
was in a moment dissipated, the Viceroy’s duplicity became
indisputably proved.
Still Flood was feebly supported in Irish House of Com
mons, but [had the support of ] the Volunteers.
19 July, 1782, Flood moved for leave to bring in a Bill “to affirm
the sole exclusive right of the Irish Parliament, to make laws affecting
that country, in all concerns external and internal whatsoever”.
Even the introduction of this Bill was negatived without
division. Grattan!
On the other hand, Parliament passed the foolish motion
of Grattan:
“that leave was refused to bring in Mr. Flood’s bill, because the sole
and exclusive right to legislate for Ireland in all cases whatsoever, inter
nally and externally had been asserted by the Parliament of Ireland, and
had been fully, finally and irrevocably acknowledged by the British
Parliament”
(which was not true). (For himself had declared the
contrary!) (Because of his scepticism Flood had been dis
missed from his office of Vice-Treasurer.)
On 27 July, 1782, the Parliament was prorogued. In the
proroguing speech Portland stated amongst other things:
“your claims were directed by the same spirit that gave rise and stabili
ty to the liberty of Great Britain, and could not fail of success, as soon
as the councils of that Kingdom were influenced by the avowed friends
of the Constitution.
“Convince the people in your several districts, as you are yourselves
convinced, that every cause of past jealousies and discontents is finally
removed ; that both countries have pledged their good faith to each
other, and their best security will be an inviolable adherence to that
compact; that the implicit reliance which Great Britain has reposed on
the honour, generosity, and candour of Ireland, engages your national
character to a return of sentiments equally liberal and enlarged.
Convince them that the two kingdoms are now one, indissolubly con
nected in unity of constitution, and unity o f interests/’
The Marquis o f Rockingham died (1782). Fox and Lord
North Coalition.
Portland superseded by Earl Temple [who later became
Marquis of Buckingham) (his Chief Secretary his brother Mr.,
afterwards Lord, Grenville) (15 September, 1782—3 June,
1783). Temple made small reforms. Though he obtained no
credit from the body o f the people, he made considerable
progress amongst the aristocracy of the patriots (Charlemont,
Grattan etc.).
The armed Volunteers had now assumed a deliberative
capacity: They paraded as soldiers and debated as citizens.
More than 150,000 Volunteers now appeared upon the
regimental muster-rolls. Strong accession to them of Cathol
ics. They resolved no longer to obey, or suffer to be obeyed,
any statute or law theretofore enacted in England, and to
oppose their execution with their lives and fortunes. The
magistrates refused to act under them, the judges were
greatly embarassed, no legal causes could be proceeded on,
under the authority of British Statutes, though naming
Ireland, no counsel would plead them, no juries would find
for them, the operation of many important laws, theretofore
in force, was necessarily suspended.
Parliament was divided between Flood and Grattan, the
latter (Whig spelt) was always in the majority. The British
Administration wanted to foster this division of the nation.
[But was] baffled by thje injudicious conduct o f some
members o f the British Parliament.
In the House of Commons (British) Sir George Young (Sinecure
placeman in Ireland, although not Irish, viz. Vice-treasurer o f Ireland)
opposed the Bill of Concession to Ireland, and Repeal of 6, George I.
Protested against the Power of King and Parliament to pass such bills.
(He could not act against the will of the Ministers.)
KARL MARX
Lord Mansfield, notwithstanding the repeal of 6, George I, proceed
ed to entertain, in the Court of King’s Bench,! 79 at Westminster, an
appeal from the King’s Bench of Ireland, observing that “he knew of no
law depriving the British Court of its vested jurisdiction”. The interest
of money was 5 per cent in England, 6 per cent in Ireland. Mansfield
had placed very large sums of Irish mortgages to gain the additional 1
per cent. Felt that they were not likely to gain any additional facilities
by the appelant jurisdiction being taken from the British courts and
transferred to Ireland herself*, hence his reluctance to part with it.
Lord Abingdon, in the House o f Lords, totally denied the authority
of the King and Parliament of England to emancipate Ireland; he moved
for leave to bring in a Declaratory Bill to re-assert the right of England
to legislate externally in the concerns of Ireland.
The Volunteers beat to arms throughout the whole
kingdom; above 120,000 paraded. All confidence in Great
Britain dissipated. Flood gained much ground amongst the
people. Now new panic o f the British Ministry. Without
waiting for further and peremptory remonstrances from
Ireland, they passed the following Statute:
ANNO VICESSIMO TERTIO (1783)
GEORGII III. REGIS*
Ch. XXVIII. An Act for removing and preventing all doubts which
have arisen, or might arise, concerning the exclusive rights of the
Parliaments and Courts o f Ireland, in matters o f legislation and
judicature; and for preventing any writ o f error or appeal from any of
His Majesty 9s Courts in that Kingdom from being received, heard, and
adjudged in any of His Majesty's Courts in the Kingdom of Great
Britain. Whereas ... doubts have arisen whether the provisions of the
said (their last) Act are sufficient to secure to the people of Ireland
the rights claimed by them, to be bound only by laws enacted by His
Majesty and the Parliament of that Kingdom, in all cases whatever etc.
etc. ... be it declared and enacted ... that the said right claimed by the
people of Ireland, to be bound only by laws enacted by His Majesty
and the Parliament of that Kingdom, in all cases whatever, and to have
all actions and suits at law or in equity, which may be instituted in
that Kingdom, decided in His Majesty’s Courts therein finally, and
without appeal thence, shall be, and it is thereby declared to be
established and ascertained for ever, and shall, at no time hereafter, be
questioned or questionable.
And be it further enacted ... that no writ of error or appeal shall be
received or adjudged, or any other proceeding be heard by or in any of
* In the twenty-third regnal year of King George I I I .—EcL
His Majesty’s Courts in this Kingdom, in any action or suit at law or in
equity, instituted in any. of His Majesty’s Courts in the Kingdom of
Ireland etc. etc.
This measure brought into the British House of Commons
by Mr. Townshend, passed through both Houses, and re
ceived the Royal assent without debate and with very little
observation. In England held out a mere consequential
declaratory part of a general constitutional arrangement
entered into between the two nations.This measure came
too late to satisfy the Irish people as to the purity of their
own Parliament It convinced them of either its inefficiency
or corruption, otherwise the Renunciation Act of the
British Parliament Would have been quite unnecessary. They
had to secure their liberties. The Renunciation Act of
Ireland had discredited the Irish Parliament with the Irish
people.
Mr. Flood had become most prominent among the Irish
patriots. Grattan was his enemy. The discussion on the
English Renunciation Act led to the conclusion of the neces
sity to reform their own Parliament, because, without its
comprehensive Reform, there was no security against the
instability of events and the duplicity of England.
The rotten borough system .180 Many members of the
Irish House of Commons were nominated by individuals
(borough-mongers) and Peers, who in this way voted by
proxy in the House of Commons. The King constitutionally
nominated Peers, and the Peers created Commoners. The
representation of the people in the Commons was purchased
for money, and the exercise of that representation was sold
for office. These purchases were made by servants of the
executive Government, in trust, for the uses and purposes of
its ministers to carry measures. The Volunteers had the facts
sifted. One Peer nominated nine Commoners etc. Many
individuals openly sold their patronage for money, to the
best bidder, others returned members at the nomination of
the Viceroy or his Secretary; and it appeared that the number
.of representatives elected freely by the people did not
compose 1/4 of the Irish Commons. The Volunteers at
length determined to demand a reform of Parliament.
Delegates from several Volunteer regiments again assembled
192 KARL MARX
at Dungannon, to consider the expediency and means of an
immediate reform of Parliament. Flood [had] great influence
now. 300 delegates, men of great influence, many of them
members of the House of Lords and the Commons were
chosen by different corps.
10 November, 1783 was proclaimed for the first sitting of
the Grand National Convention o f Ireland at Dublin. [The
delegates] arrived there escorted by small detachments of
Volunteers from their respective counties. The Rotunda was
chosen as their place of meeting (vis-a-vis the magnificent
dome of the Commons9 House of Parliament). Bishop of
Derry and Earl of Charlemont were rivals for the presidency.
The British Ministers knew that if a reform o f Parliament
were effected in Ireland, it could not be long withheld from
England. Then [there was also] the commercial jealousy of
England. Charlemont was their tool. By intrigue he (support
ed by Grattan) was elected before the Earl of Bristol, Bishop
of Derry, arrived. A collision [occurred] in the Convention
between Flood and the Bishop on the one side, and Charle
mont and his friends on the other.
After much deliberation, a plan of reform, framed by Mr.
Flood and approved by the Convention, was directed to be
presented by him to Parliament forthwith, and the sittings of
the Convention were made permanent till Parliament had
decided the question. Mr. Flood obeyed his instructions, and
moved for leave to bring in a Bill of reform of the Parliament.
The Government knew that the triumph o f the Parliament
implied not only the destruction of the Convention, but of
the Volunteers.
The Government refused leave to bring in Flood’s Bill,
because it had originated from their (the Volunteers)
deliberations. (Yelverton now Attorney-General.) (Furious
speech of Fitzgibbon.) Unprecedentedly violent debate. The
Bill was rejected by 158 to 49; 158 o f the majority were
placemen and the very persons on whom the reform was
intended to operate. Ditto 158 placemen who carried the
Union Bill in 1800, which, if the Reform had succeeded,
never could have been passed. An address to the King (moved
by Conolly), offending against the Volunteers, carried. Earl
Charlemont, suppressing this news, told the Volunteers, he
had received a note from the House of Commons, which left
no hopes of a speedy decision, the Convention ought to
adjourn till Monday, * then to decide upon ulterior measures,
if the Bill should be rejected. He had secretly decided that
they should meet no more. On the Monday morning he
repaired to the Rotunda before the usual hour of sitting; only
his own immediate partisans were present. H£ adjourned the
Convention sine die. When the residue of the delegates came,
the door was closed, the Convention dissolved. The Bishop
became now the popular man. Charlemont went down. He
was a bigot, and hated the Catholics, the Bishop was quite
the opposite. Exclusion on the one side, and toleration on
the other became the theme of the partisans. The dispute ran
high. The people began to separate. This effected all the
mischief the Government expected.
A Northern Corps, calling itself “Bill of Rights Battalion”, says in
Address to the Bishop among other things:
“The gloomy clouds of superstition and bigotry, those engines o f
disunion, being fled from the realm, the interests of Ireland can no
longer suffer by a diversity of religious persuasions. All are united in the
pursuit of one great object—the extermination of corruption from our
constitution; nor can your Lordship and your virtuous coadjutors, in
promoting civil and religious liberty, be destitute of the aid of all
professions. ”
The Bishop answered in the same strain (dated 14 January, 1784):
in conclusion he said:
“The hour is now come ... when Ireland must necessarily avail
herself of her whole internal force to ward off foreign encroachments,
or once more acquiesce under those encroachments, the better to
exercise anew the tyranny of a part of the community over the dearest
and inalienable rights of others. For one million of divided Protestants
can never, in the scale of Human Government, be a counterpoise against
3 millions of united Catholics. But, gentlemen of the Bill of Rights
Battalion, I appeal to yourselves, and summon you to consistency—
Tyranny is not Government, and Allegiance is only due to Protection. ”
The Government resolved (too impotent to act) to watch
the progress of events. Many of the best patriots thought the
Bishop’s language too strong. The idea of coercing the Parlia
ment very rapidly lost ground. No military language to Parlia
ment etc.
* December 1, 1783 ,—Ed.
7-226
194 KARL MARX
The people were severed, but the Government remained
compact; the Parliament was corrupted, the Volunteers were
paralysed, and the high spirit of the Nation exhibited a rapid
declension.
The weak and foolish Charlemont, after the dissolution
of the Convention, recommended a Reform Bill to be
presented to Parliament, as emanating solely from civil
bodies, unconnected with military character. Of course, the
placemen, who had scouted the military Bill, because it was
military, now rejected the civil Bill, because it was popular.
Meetings of the Volunteers were suspended, their reviews
continued, to amuse the languid vanity of their deluded
general.
The temperate (bourgeois parliamentary) system now
gained ground. The Volunteers of Ireland survived these
blows for some years. The Whig orators (Grattan etc.) lost
ground and influence.
D ecem ber 1783. Pitt Minister. Duke of Rutland
Viceroy (!)
B) From the End of 1783 to 1791

(Foundation of the United Irishmen)
Pitt in England.
The Duke of Rutland (Lord Lieutenant) died October,
1787.
The Marquis of Buckingham (formerly Earl of Temple)
[became for the] second time Viceroy (16 December,
1787-5 January, 1790).
John Fane, Earl of Westmoreland [was Lord Lieutenant]
[Hobart, afterwards Earl of Buckinghamshire, Chief Secreta
ry) from 5 January, 1790 onwards (until 1795).
In the Irish House of Commons repeated attempts at
Reform (Flood, Grattan, Curran etc.) failed.
Place Bill, Pension Bill, Responsibility Bill, Inquiry into the
Sale of Peerages and into the Police of Dublin were the most
material measures pressed by the Opposition during West
moreland’s Office, hence after the Revolution o f 1789 in
France.
The Place, Pension and Responsibility Bills proposed by
Mr. Grattan, acceded to by the Viceroy, passed into laws.
The Place Bill—a, bill to vacate the seats of members accepting
offices under Government, omitting the term of bona fide
offices, thereby leaving the Minister the power of packing the
Parliament; this Bill was one of the instruments of Castle-
reagh for carrying the Union. %
Up to 1790 all these things as also Emancipation,
Reform, Tithe questions failed.
There was a steady decline of the Volunteer organisation, and of the
strength of the Liberal party up to 1790. We have Tone’s word that
when the French Revolution broke out, both the Catholic Committee
and the Whig Club—the Emancipation and Reform parties—were
feeble and dispirited.
Irish House of Commons. February 14, 1785. Militia against Volun
teers. Gardiner { on behalf of the Minister, and, as Curran told him, “in
the hope of being rewarded, by being raised to a higher rank”, he
became actually Lord Mountjoy by the Union) moved a grant of
£20,000 for clothing the Militia. This motion was levelled at the Volun
teers, and therefore violently debated. One of the reasons of its being
carried—the fool-rogue* Grattan went with the Government. Fitzgib-
bon, the Attorney General, said amongst other things against Curran,
who opposed the Bill and defended the Volunteers: “he (Curran)
poured forth a studied panegyric of the Volunteers.... I shall even
entrust the defence of the country to gentlemen, with the King's com
mission in their pockets, rather than to his (Curran’s) friends, the
beggars in the streets.”
Orde9s Propositions and the Regency Bills were the things
most important during this period as international questions
between Iraland and England; before speaking of them, we
shall, however, allude still to a few other objects treated in
Parliament during the period 1783-1791.
Renewed efforts for reform were made in 1784. In consequence of
a requisition, Henry Reilly, Sheriff of the County of Dublin, summoned
his bailiwick to the court-house of Kilmainham for the 25 October,
1784, to elect members to a national congress. For this Mr. Reilly was
attached by the King’s Bench, on a crown motion, and on the 24
February, 1785, Mr. Brownlow moved a vote of censure on the judges
o f that court, for the attachment. Speech of Curran. Motion rejected by
143 to 71.
Shows still a great independent minority.
* “The fool-rogue” was inserted by Marx.—2?d.
7*
196 KARL MARX
PENSIONS, DISFRANCHISEMENT OF EXCISE OFFICERS,
GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION
The endeavour to regain by corruption what was surrendered to
force, began in 1782, and increased greatly after the defeat of Orde*s
Propositions.
Pensions
Pensions, 13 March, 1786. Irish House o f Commons. The Bill of
Forbes to limit the amount o f pensions was defeated, i.e. adjournment
ad Calendas Graecas,* was carried. As Curran said the object of the Bill
was to “restrain the Crown from doing wrong by a. physical necessity”.
“The Pension List, like charity, covers a multitude of sins ... coming
home to the members of this House ... the Crown is laying a foundation
for the independence of Parliament ... they” (the members of this
House) “will have this security for their independence, that while any
man in the kingdom has a shilling, they will not want one” (Curran).
12 March, 1787. (Forbes renewed his Bill for limiting Pensions.
Curran supported him. Orde, Secretary. Also failed.)
“The King’s authority” (here) “delegated first to a Viceroy, and
next it falls to a Secretary, who can have no interest in the good of the
people, no interest in future fame etc.... What responsibility can be
found or hoped for in an English Secretary ? ... A succession of men”
(these Secretaries), “sometimes with heads, sometimes with hearts,
oftener with neither” (Curran). “Where will you look for Orde’s respon
sibility as a Minister? You will remember his Commercial Proposi
tions”** (Curran).
“A right honourable member opposes the principle of the Bill as
being in restraint of the Royal Bounty .... A gross and general applica
tion of the people’s money to the encouragement of every human vice,
is a crying grievance.... The pension list, at the best of times, was a
scandal to this country: but the present abuses of it have gone beyond
all bounds” (Curran).
“That unhappy list has been degraded by a new species of prostitu
tion that was unknown before, the granting of honours and titles, to lay
the foundation for the grant of a pension, the suffering any man to
steal a dignity, for the purpose that a barren beggar steals a child. It was
reducing the honours of the State from badges o f dignity to badges of
mendicancy ” (Curran). The Bill would “restrain a Secretary from that
shameful profusion of the public treasure.... It is a law necessary as a
counterpoise of the Riot Act, a penal law adopted from Great Britain,
giving a new force to the executive magistrate. It is a Bill to preserve the
independence of Parliament” (Curran).
11 February, 1790. Irish House o f Commons (Government Corrup
* Until the Greek calends.—Ed.
** See below, pp. 198-201.—Ed.
tion and Patriot opposition proceeded, the public daily being more
convinced that nothing but a reform of the Commons could save the
Constitution of 1782 from the foul policy of the Ministers.) Forbes
moved an address describing and censuring several recent pensions.
Curran supported it The motion was rejected by 136 to 92.
GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION
House of Commons. 21 April, 1789. Disfranchisement of Excise
Officers*Bill. The Bill was rejected by 148 to 93.
Curran*s prophecy in his speech on that occasion was fulfilled. The
English Executive inflicted incompetent men and corrupt measures on
Ireland, then took advantage of her own crime and our misfortunes to
provincialise us, and now uses these very events as arguments against
our independence. Curran said inter allia:
“The opposition to this measure comes from the avowed servants of
the Crown and o f every Administration ... the men sent to grind us are,
in general, the refuse of Great Britain.... Cart-loads of excise officers—'
revenue troops—collected from every corner of the nation, and taking
possession of boroughs on the eve of an election v (Curran).
House of Commons. 25 April, 1789. Dublin Police.
Sir H. Cavendish moved two resolutions to the effect that the
Dublin Police System was attended with waste, and useless patronage.
The Ministers opposed the Resolutions. Rejected by 132 to 78.
Curran in support said among other things:
“Advantage had been taken of some disturbances in 1784, to
enslave the capital by a police. A watch of old men, at 4 d. per night,
was naturally ineffectual.,,
House of Commons. 4 February, 1790. Stamp Officers* Salaries.
{ Curran proposes to regulate them, cut them down etc. Rejected by
141 to 81.} (This was one means of government corruption.) West
moreland Viceroy, Hobart his Secretary.
Curran says inter alia: the Earl of Temple (afterwards Marquis of
Buckingham ), incensed because of his failure in the Regency Bill,*
increased the Revenue Board, the Ordnance, £13,000 addition to the
infamous Pension list; (Under Lord Harcourt a compact was made that
the Board of Accounts and the management of the stamps { stamp
duties had been granted in Harcourt’s times J should be executed by
one board). Buckingham separated them in order to make places for
members of Parliament. “Two county members prying into stamps! ”
“In proportion as you rose by union, your tyrant became appalled: but
when he divided, he sunk you, and you became debased.” ‘ I rise in an
assembly of 300 persons, 100 o f whom have places or pensions.... I am
showing the danger that arises to our honour and our liberty, if we sub
mit to have corruption let loose among us ... the people now are fairly
told that it is lawful to rob them of their property, and divide
the plunder among the honest gentlemen who sell them to the
* See below, pp. 201-02.—Ed.
198
administration. *j
In his bold speech Gurran alludes to the French Revolution.
House of Commons. February 12, 1791. Government Corruption.
( New attempt of Curran to prove the impurities of Government. J
Curran’s principal theme: “Raising men to the peerage for money,
which was disposed o f to purchase the liberties o f the people
“Miserable men introduced” (by these means) “into this House, like
beasts of burden, to drudge for their employers.” On the other hand
“those introduced into the House of Lords, to frame laws, and dispose
of the property of the Kingdom, under the direction of that corruption
by which they have been raised”.
“I have proof ... that a contract has been entered into by the
present ministers to raise to the peerage certain persons, on condition
of their purchasing a certain number o f seats in this House
Curran states: “During the whole of last session (1790) we have, in
the name of the people of Ireland, demanded from them the Constitu
tion of Great Britain, and it has been uniformly denied. We would
have passed a law to restrain the shameful profusion o f a pension-list
... it was refused by a Majority. We would have passed a law to exclude
persons, who must ever be the chattels o f the government, from sitting
in this House—it was refused by a Majority. A bill to make some
person, resident among you, and therefore amenable to public justice,
responsible for the acts o f y our governors—has been refused to Ireland
by a majority of gentlemen calling themselves her representatives....
This uniform denial ... is a proof to them” (the people) “that the
imputation of corrupt practices is founded in fact.”
The vain attempt—in 1790-91—of the Parliamentary Minority
against government corruption proves on the one hand its increase, on
the other the influence of the French Revolution o f 1789. It also
shows why, at last, the foundation of United Irishmen [took place] in
1791 , since all Parliamentary action proved futile, and the Majority a
mere tool in the hands of the Government.
s|c sfc
ATTEMPTS OF THE GOVERNME NT AGAINST

IRISH INDEPENDENCE REPELLED ON OCCASION
OF ORDE’S COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS
AND THE REGENCY BELL
a) Orde’s Commercial Propositions.
(The Duke of Rutland, Lord Lieutenant)
In May 1784, Griffith proposed in the Irish House of Commons an
inquiry in the commercial intercourse between Britain and Ireland. He
desired to show that Irish Trade should be protected from English
competition etc.
The Government took this proposal out of his hand.
On 7 February, 1785, Mr. Orde, the Chief Secretary, announced,
and on 11 February he moved, the 11 propositions on trade, commonly
called the Irish propositions
(in fact, they are of English origin).
There were four principles established in these propositions:
1) Taxes on all goods, foreign and domestic, passing between the
two countries, should be equal
| placing England and Ireland on the same footing, to the ruin
of the latter.}
2 ) Taxes on foreign goods should always be higher than on the same
articles produced in either island (this sacrificed the realities of French,
Spanish, and American trade then increasing, to the profits of English
competition).
3) That the regulations should be unalterable (thus abdicating legis
lation).
4) That the surplus of the hereditary revenue (hearth tax, and
certain customs, and excises, [amounting to] over £656,000 a year)
should be paid over to the English Treasury, for the support o f the
Imperial (English) navy.
Yet this plan was proffered as a boon, a reciprocity plan; Orde (in
contrast to Flood) hurried the Commons on to seize upon it, because
otherwise the jealousy of the English monopolists might be awakened.
The thing was a favour—to he paid for by £ 140,000 o f new taxes, asked
and voted in return for it.
On the 22nd o f February, 1765 Pitt moved the Resulution in
British House o f Commons which declared that Ireland should be
allowed the advantages (i.e. competition) of British Commerce as soon
as she had “irrevocably” granted to England an “aid” (i.e. tribute) for
general defence. North and the Tories, Fox and the Whigs—
as a party manoeuvre—
—saw in English jealousy to Ireland a sure resource against the “heaven
bom Minister**. Fox obtained adjournments, and all England “spoke
out”, from Lancashire to London, from Gloucester to York. Pitt sound
ed a parley. He submitted to some of their terms: retained all that was
adverse to the Irish Constitution, suffered the loss of all that could by
any ingenuity be serviceable to Irish trade. Returned the Act thus
approved o f by him in the form of 20 English propositions.
The 11 propositions had been increased in England to 20, each
addition a fresh injury. Half the globe, namely, all between Magellan
and Good Hope, was (articles 3 and 9) interdicted to Ireland9s ships:
interdicts were also laid on certain goods. The whole custoins legislation
of Ireland was taken away by clauses which forced her (art.4) to enact
200 KARL MARX
(register) all navigation laws passed or to be passed by England (art. 5
and 8), to impose all the colonial duties that England did (art. 6 and 7),
to adopt the same system in custom-houses that England did, and
finally (art. 17 and 18) to recognise all patents and copyrights granted
to England.
Irish House of Commons. 30 June, 1785: Orde moves the adjourn
ment of the House till Tuesday Fortnight. Curran opposes this. The
adjournment is carried. Curran says:
“When we had the 11 propositions before us, we were charmed
with them. Why? —because we did not understand them. Yes, the
endearing word reciprocity rang at every corner of the streets.”
23 July, 1785. Orde moves anew adjournment; Curran opposes;
the adjournment is carried.
11 August, 1785. Curran asks Orde what has “become of the 11
propositions “as o f them only that Parliament could treat.” They were
“proposed as a system o f final and permanent commercial adjustment
between the 2 kingdoms”. “As a compensation for the expected
advantages of this system, we were called upon
{ and they did so!]
to impose £ 140,000 a year on this exhausted country.” “We submit
ted.” “We have oppressed the people with a load of taxes, as a com
pensation for a commercial adjustment: we have not got that adjust
m ent”
Curran plainly threatened that the people would take
revenge against the persons who, in a thin House, would
accept the 20 propositions after the adjournment. He threa
tened that such a demand for surrender of the Constitution
would be answered not merely “by words”. All this is taken
from Curran’s speech of 23 July.
12 August, 1785. Orde moved his Bill (the 20 propositions).
Opposed by Grattan, Flood, Curran. Leave to bring in the Bill was
carried by 127 to 108 (i.e. by 19 votes: this showed that the Bill would
be rejected).
Curran: “The commercial part of it” (the Bill) “is out of the ques
tion: for this Bill portends a surrender of the Constitution and the
liberties of Ireland.... I fear the British Minister is mistaken in the
temper of Ireland, and judges of it by former times. Formerly the
business here was carried on by purchase of majorities ... things have
changed. The people are enlightened and strong, they will not bear a
surrender of their rights, which would be the consequence, if they
submitted to this Bill. It contains a covenant to enact such laws as
England should think proper: they would annihilate the Parliament of
Ireland. The people here must go to the bar of the English House o f
Commons for relief; and for a circuitous trade to England, we are
accepting a circuitous constitution.... A power to bind externally,

would involve a power to bind internally. This law gives the power to
Great Britain, of judging what would be a breach of the compact, of
construing it; in fact, of taxing us as she pleased; while it gives her new
strength to enforce our obedience. In such an event we must either sink
into utter slavery, or the people must wade to a reassumption o f their
rights through blood, or be obliged to take refuge in a Union, which
would be the annihilation of Ireland', and what, I ^suspect, the Minister
is driving at.... Civil war or a Union at best.**
15 August, 1785 : Orde, on presenting the Bill, abandoned it for the
session, and for ever. Thereupon Flood moved: “Resolved—That we
hold ourselves bound not to enter into any engagement to give up the
sole and exclusive right o f the Parliament o f Ireland to legislate for
Ireland in all cases whatsoever, as well externally as commercially and
internally,** Curran supported him. Flood withdrew his motion, the
House adjourned, and Orde*s Propositions merged in a secret design for
the Union.
b) Regency Bill (1789)
George III was mad for some time, this was concealed, in the end o f
1788 it could no longer be hid. In the ministers* draft o f the address in
answer to the Lord Lieutenant (Buckingham) (he had again become
Viceroy in December 1787), they praised themselves.
Irish House of Commons. February 6, 1789. Grattan moved an
Amendment, substituting a general expression of loyalty. Curran spoke
in support. “Every man sees the change of public administration that is
approaching. **
(People thought that Fox would become Minister under
the Prince of Wales.)
“It has been delayed and opposed by a party in another kingdom.
Upon what principle of wisdom or justice can Ireland enlist herself in
that opposition etc? ”
Grattan*s Amendment was carried without a division although he
called Buckingham “a jobber in a mask**
(Fitzherbert Buckingham’s Chief Secretary),
so prostrated was the Castle at the prospect of the Prince*s
Regency, with Fox as Primer.
February 11, 1789 : The Ministers tried to postpone the discussion
on the Regency. Their avowed motive to have from England the
Resolutions of die British Parliament, appointing the Prince Regent o f
Great Britain with limited powers. These Resolutions had been passed
on 23 January, and accepted by the Prince on 31st January, but not
reached the Irish Government. The postponement was refused by the
202 KARL MARX
House. Conolly then moved an address to be presented to the Prince, as
Prince Regent of Ireland with full kingly Powers. The. Motion was
passed without a division.
February 12, 1789. Conolly moved the address. February 17, con
currence of Lords brought up and agreed to. On 19 February presented
to Buckingham. He refused to transmit it. February 20, 1789, it was
agreed to transmit it by deputation. Vote of censure against Buckin
gham.
February 27, 1789. Deputation (Conolly, O’Neill, etc.) deliver a
letter to the Commons with the answer of the Prince Regent, thanking
“warmly” the Irish Parliament.
March 20, 1789. A still more fervent letter of the Prince Regent,
announcing his father’s recovery, is read in the Irish House of Com
mons.
Pitt, to maintain his power, had defended and carried in
England, the right o f election of the Regent, hence the right
to restrain his power.
The Irish in this case maintained the common Constitu
tion against the oligarchic and ministerial encroachments of
Pitt.
♦ * *
There are for this lapse of time two things still to be

considered,
1) the Tithe Riots etc. showing the state of the Catholic
Irish peasantry at that time, and
2) The Dublin Lord Mayor election, showing the in-
fluence of the French Revolution upon the (into the bargain
Protestant) Irish middle-class.
1) TITHE RIOTS ETC.
ENGLISH RIOT ACT INTRODUCED IN IRELAND
Irish House o f Commons. January 19, 1787. Outrages in the South.
Disturbances in the South caused by the misery of the people, Tithes,
Rents, absenteeism, bad tenures, harsh treatment etc.
Towards the close of the 18 century (since the end of
1791) political parties united themselves with -the peasants
(the republicans of the North).
1786. In the Lord Lieutenant’s Opening Speech, he referred to the
“frequent outrages” (“Right Boys ” of Kilkenny, who were bound
amongst each other by oath). 181 Yet the only Bill on disturbances
brought in by the Government was a Dublin Police Bill, against which
the City petitioned.
1787. The Viceroy’s speech referred much more positively to the
Southern outrages, and the debates on the Address in reply to it were
violent. During this debate the government pqxty (Fitzgibbon for
instance) treated the disturbances as against the clergy, accused the
landlords of grinding the people, and abetting the disturbances, and
asked for fresh powers.
House of Commons. 19 January, 1787. Fitzgibbon, in his speech
(1787) said the disturbances commenced in Kerry, the people
assembled in a mass-house, there took an oath to obey the laws of
Captain Right. They soon spread through the province of Munster.
Their objects were the tithes, then to regulate the price o f lands, to
raise the price of labour, and to oppose the collection o f hearth-money
and other taxes. “I am very well acquainted with the province of
Munster, and I know that it is impossible for human wretchedness to
exceed that of the miserable peasantry in that province. I know that the
unhappy tenantry are ground to powder by relentless landlords—far
from being able to give the clergy their just dues, they have not food or
raiment for themselves, the landlords grasp the whole ; and ... not
satisfied with the present extortion, some landlords have been so base
as to instigate the insurgents to rob the clergy of their tithes, not in
order to alleviate the distresses of the tenantry , but that they might add
the clergy’s share to the cruel rack-rents already paid.... The poor
people of Munster live in a more abject state of poverty than human
nature can be supposed able to bear—their miseries are intolerable, but
they do not originate with the clergy: nor can the Legislature stand by
and see them take the redress into their own hands. Nothing can be
done for their benefit while the country remains in a state o f anarchy. ”
Longfield, a County Cork Gendeman, stated that the disturbances
were exaggerated, though the distress was not. He accused the Govern
ment of looking for a year at the disturbances, for a political purpose.
Curran moved an amendment to the address (it was withdrawn
without a division). He said inter alia:
“Cease to utter idle complaints of inevitable effects, when you your
selves have been the causes... the patience of the people has been totally
exhausted; their grievances (have long) been the empty song of this
House, but no productive effect has ever followed. The non-residence
of the landholders, the tyranny of intermediate landlords. You denied
the existence of the grievance, and refused redress.... No wonder that
the peasantry should be ripe for rebellion and revolt.... Not a single man
of property or consequence [was] connected with the rebels....
“ You were called on solemnly ... for a proper reformation in the
representation o f the people: did you grant it? No; and how does it at
present stand? Why, Sir, seats in this House are bought and sold. They
are set up to public sale; they have become an absolute article of
204 KARL MARX
commerce—a traffic of the constitution .... Saleable rotten boroughs. As
they have bought the people for a sum of money, it is natural they
should sell. them.... The peasantry have formed hopes of relief....
People, when oppressed, . . . though oppressed by law, will make repris
als; and these are the real causes of the disturbances. System of vile
jobbing extends to commissions of the peace (24 commissions o f the
peace sent down to the County of Clare in one post) and to the sheriffs.
You may talk of commerce expanding ... but what, in God’s name, have
they to do with the wretched peasantry? ”
House of Commons. February 19, 1787. “Right Boy Bill99. One
clause of the Government, which was abandoned, was directing
magistrates to demolish mass-houses at which combinations shall be
found, or unlawful oaths administered. Curran resisted the Bill altoge
ther:
Curran: “The people are too much raised by a consciousness of
their strength and consequence to be proper objects o f so sanguinary a
code as that now proposed.... ” He alludes to the pamphlet of Dr. Wood
ward, Bishop of Cloyne, in defence of tithes “tending manifestly to
revive the dissensions from which we had so recently emerged, and to
plunge us into the barbarism from which we were emerging, or, perhaps
to imbrue us in the bloodshed of a religious war99.... (The BUI was
committed by 192 to 31.)
February 20, 1787. Discussion of the same Bill, by which a Riot
Act was passed. O9Neill moved to limit it to Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and
Tipperary. (The limiting motion rejected by 176 to 43.) In the Bill
To dess trafe—capital punishment—for tendering an oath etc.
“I fear,” said Curran, “that, as the coercion is so great, and as no
means are taken for the relief of the poor, rebellion will go in the dark
... until... the whole Kingdom set in aflame.99
13 March, 1787. Tithes. Grattan having moved a resolution that if
tranquillity were restored, at the opening of the next session, the House
would consider the Tithe Question. The motion was lost, without a
division. Curran supported Grattan’s Motion.
Curran: “A law of pains and penalties severe beyond all example of
any former period.... TTie offence was local and partial... the causes of
such offence were universal.... The abject and miserable state o f the
peasantry of Ireland. The Secretary” (an Englishman\ ) “declares he is a
stranger to their distresses, and will not hold out any hope that they
should be ever considered by the Parliament! 99 ... “The honourable
gentlemen could not let the Riot Act pass without accompanying it
with an express disavowal of all intention to alleviate, or even at any
period, however distant, to listen to their complaints.” “Who are to
execute it” (that law)? “That very body o f men in the class above
the peasants, who have been represented as adverse to the rights of
the clergy, and are said to have connived at these offences.” ... “But
whatever may be the idea o f an English Secretary, this House must be
too wise to say that inveterate evils can receive any sanction from any
length o f time.99
2) ELECTION OF THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN
(1790)
The disputed election for the Mayoralty o f Dublin was connected
with the attempt of the English Government to govern or provincialise
Ireland by corruption. Hence the bourgesses of Dublin pledged them
selves in their guilds not to return any one as Lord Mayor or Member of
Parliament for the city, who held a place or pensioitfrom the Govern
ment Alderman James was a Police Commissioner. Under the old
Corporation laws the Lord Mayor and Aldermen sat and voted in one
chamber, the Sheriffs and Common Councilmen in a second.
16 April, 1790 the former chose Alderman James as mayor elect for
the ensuing year, the Common Council rejected him. Seven other
names afterwards sent down were^ similarly rejected. Then the Common
Council elected Alderman Howison : Napper Tandy led the popular
party. The Aldermen repeated their election of James. This dispute
came before the Privy Council, where Curran pleaded for the Common
Council. The Privy Council decided for a new election. The Aldermen
re-elect James and the Councilmen Howison. This whole process, with
interference of the Privy Council, is repeated several times.
On 10 July, 1790, Curran pleads for the Common Council before
the Privy Council, presided by Fitzribbon (who became Lord
Chancellor, and Lord Clare, in June 1789.)
He flagellated that fellow masterly.
The Privy Council decided for James, he resigned, on 5th August,
1790, Howison was chosen by the Aldermen, and approved by the
Common Council and Privy Council Thus this struggle ended in the
utter defeat of the Government
On the 16 July, in the Common Council, Napper Tandy carried 17
Resolutions censuring the Privy Council, and the Aldermen, and sum
moned a meeting of freemen and freeholders*82 at the Exchange. This
meeting was held on 20 July, Hamilton Rowan was in the chair; it
adjourned to 3d August, after appointing a committee to prepare a
state of facts.
3rd August that State o f Facts was read, and James's resignation
was announced.
Sir E. Newenham denounced Fitzgibbon, who on 24 July had in the
House of Peers made an audacious speech, where he read a Resolution
of the Whig Club and attacked them, until Lords Charlemont and Moira
avowed the Resolution. (The Whig Club was founded in Dublin, in the
summer of 1789.)
(The Whig Club, met on 2d August, drew up a Report against
Fitzgibbon.)
Fitzgibbon had become so unpopular, that the guild of merchants,
who had, in the previous winter, voted him an address in a gold box, for
services to their trading interests, expunged the resolutions on 13 July,
1790, as “disgraceful”.
206 KARL MARX
From the above-quoted “State of Facts”, August 3, 1790:
(Aggregate meeting o f the citizens of Dublin, held at the Royal Ex
change.) Among other things it said:
“That we do acknowledge, that for the last 10 or 11 years the
citizens of Dublin did take an active part for the liberty of their
country etc. etc.;
“that we do acknowledge that the freedom of the City of Dublin
was refused to His Excellency the Earl of Westmoreland etc.;
“that we do not deny that many among us did, on a former occa
sion, favour the scheme of Protective Duties etc.;
“that we do acknowledge to have expressed our approbation of the
conduct of the minority of the late Parliament in the last session ... that
those measures had no other view, meaning, or object, save corruption
only: ... that the nation was told by a very high authority (.Fitzgibbon )
... that in order to defeat an opposition in Parliament, this nation had
been, in the Administration of the Marquis of Townshend, bought in by
the Government, and sold by the Members of Parliament for half a
million, and that if opposition continued to the present administration,
this nation must be bought and sold again etc. etc.”
The Judges, dependent on the Crown, the Army indepen

dent of Parliament, the Legislature at the feet of the British
Attorney-General, and the people bound by the laws of
Scotch and English Delegates. { The two last points apply to
the period before 1782.J
c) From October 1791 to the commencement of April 1795
(Lord Fitzwilliam’s Recall
and replacement by Lord Camden)
(From October 1791 to 4 January, 1795. (Arrival of
Fitzwilliam.) Continuation of Lord Westmoreland’s Govern
ment. (His Secretary Major Hobart.)}
French events during this time: 1793. Duke of York, 8
September thrashed by Houchard, has to abandon the siege
o f Dunkirk, the Dutch and English thrown back into Fland
ers. The allies were repulsed on the Upper Rhine, towards the
end of December they had to abandon the whole territory as
far as Worms. The Republicans were victorious in the South
and West of France as well. In October 1793, they subdued
the rebellious Lyons and in December 1793 Toulon, which
had been occupied by the English, they drove the Spanish
over the Pyrenees and attacked them in their own country.
1794—18 May, Moreau and Souham won a total victory
over the Duke of York at Tourcoing.
26 June, second battle of Fleurus Qourdan). Belgium was
quickly conquered. The leaders of the English and Dutch
troops were compelled to think only offthe defence of the
Netherlands.
In October and November the Dutch lost all their frontier
fortresses.
In October Jourdan compelled the Austrians to abandon
the entire left bank of the Rhein up to Mainz, on 26 October
he entered Coblenz. Left of the Rhine, only Mainz and
Luxembourg remained in the hands of the allies.
On 27 October, Pichegru marched into the Netherlands.
1795—20 January, 1795, Pichegru’s entry into Amster
dam. Batavian Republic.
In September Diisseldorf fell into Jourdan’s hands and
Mannheim into Pichegru’s hands. The Austrians had to
withdraw across the Main. Clairfait defeated the French army
at Mainz on 29 October. Pichegru and Jourdan had to retreat.
An armistice came into force towards the end o f the year.
Moreau was given the command of the Rhine army.
A t the beginning of 1795 a peace treaty was concluded
with the leaders of the Vendee. (The Peace of La Mabilois.)
Pitt landed an emigre army at Quiberon on 27 June, 1795,
etc. On 20 July it was crushed by Hoche etc.183
|/n February and March 1796 Stofflet, Charette and
others were court-martialled and executed by firing-squad. In
July 1796 he [Hoche] reported to the Directory that the
civil war in the West had been brought to an end.J
1796 to 97. Bonaparte in Italy.
The First United Irishmen Society was founded by Theobald Wolfe

Tone in October 1791.
Their avowed (and by the mass of the Societies alone wished for)
objects were Union between Catholics and Protestants, perfect
208
Emancipation for the Catholics (Belfast had proposed this already in
1783) and Popular Representation for the men of both creeds. ( Tone
and others of the leading men were for an independent Republic. With
out the cruelty of the Government they would have been overruled by
the Whigs, and outvoted in the Societies.)
The Belfast Society met publicly, as did all the United Irish
Societies until 1794. The Catholics, on their part, were rapidly advanc
ing in political spirit and information.
Keogh and the leading (not aristocratic and Whiggish) Cathol
ics were United.
The Confederation extended to Dublin, received the support of the
leading citizens, and of many of the Volunteer Corps. Its chief organ
was the Northern Star: the first number of this paper, printed 4
January, 1792 (manaiger Samuel Neilson), occupied itself chiefly with
French politics. The Evening Star appeared in Dublin soon after, but
the Press did not commence until 28 September, 1797.
Returning now to Westmoreland's Administration, we remark
that Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform were
the two cries!
Irish House of Commons. 18 February, 1792. Catholic Emancipa
tion.
These proceedings began by the presentation of a petition from the
Protestants of the County of Antrim for the Bill.
Some small thing was proposed by Grattan (It was re
jected.)
Curran, “At Cork, the present Viceroy was pleased to reject a most
moderate and modest petition from the Catholics of that city. The next
step was to create a division amongst the Catholics themselves: the next
was to hold them up as a body formidable to the English Government,
and to their Protestant fellow-subjects.... It is not a question merely of
the sufferings or their relief—it is a question of your own preservation
... a partial liberty cannot long subsist ... alienation of 3 millions of
our people, subserviency and corruption in a fourth ... the inevitable
consequence would be an Union with Great Britain. And if any one
desires to know what that would be, I will tell him. It would be the
emigration o f every man of consequence from Ireland; it would be
the participation of British taxes, without British trade; it would be
the extinction o f the Irish name as a people etc.”
The petition for the Catholics was rejected with indignation, by
208 to 23. This rejection inflamed the Catholics.
THE DOINGS OF CATHOLICS, UNITED IRISHMEN
AND ADMINISTRATION UNTIL THE CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL
OF 1793
In March 1792, the Catholic Committee, or rather Convention (for
it was a body of delegates) met, and Tone was named its secretary. The
agitation by means of these societies became most vigorous. The shining
progress of the French Revolution, and the organisation of the political
societies in England and Scotland* 84 aided them.fThe United Irishmen
increased in number, the Catholics in confidence, and the Volunteer
Corps began to restore their array, and improve their discipline. The
ministry grew alarmed. “In December (1792) the Catholics thundered
out their demands ... they were supported by all the spirit and intel
ligence of the Dissenters. 18 5 Dumowrier was in Brabant—Holland was
prostrate before him.” (Wolfe Tone.)
7 December, 1792. Government Proclamation against all seditious
meetings: In this Proclamation we read: “The first battalion o f National
Guards were to have paraded clothed like Frenchmen etc.” This
Proclamation was answered by the United Irishmen.
16 December, 1792, Rowan (of Dublin) was Chairman, when the
address was voted, Dr. Drennan wrote it
The main content of this Proclamation, on account of
which Rowan and Drennan were prosecuted, was: 1) It called
the Volunteers to arms:
“To your formation was owing the peace and protection of this
island; to your relaxation has been owing its relapse into impotence and
insignificance. 2) Elective franchise to the whole body of the people ...
reform in representation. 3) Universal Emancipation and representative
legislature, in these 4 words lies all our power.... We, therefore, wish for
Catholic Emancipation without any modification, but still we consider
this necessary enfranchisement as nearly the portal to the temple of
national freedom.... The Catholic cause is subordinate to our cause, and
included in it; for, as United Irishmen, we adhere to no sect, but to
society—to no party, but the whole people, ... were it (Catholic
Emancipation) obtained tomorrow, tomorrow would we go on as we do
today, in the pursuit of that Reform, which would still be wanting to
ratify their liberties as well as our own. 4) For both these purposes it
appears necessary that provisional conventions should assemble pre
paratory to the convocation of the Protestant Convention (this is then
to communicate with the Catholic Committee or Convention in
Dublin.)... If a Convention on the one part does not soon follow, and is
not soon connected with that on the other, the common cause will split
into the partial interest—the people will relapse into inattention and
inertness—too probably, some local insurrections, instigated by the
malignity o f our common enemy, may commit the character, and risk
the tranquillity of the island... The 15th o f February approaches.... Let
210 KARL MARX
parochial meetings be held as soon as possible; let each parish return
delegates; let the sense of Ulster be again declared from Dungannon....
Citizen Soldiers etc.” (This address was issued in a meeting at a fencing
school, in Dublin, several corps of Volunteers with their side-arms going
there, as well as Napper Tandy etc.)
In December 1792 Rowan was arrested on an information and
admitted to bail.
The Northern Star of Belfast, was prosecuted for publishing the
Declaration and Address of the “Irish Jacobins (the name of the
society) of Belfast” on 15 December, 1792.
The Declaration of the “Irish Jacobins” says among other things:
Declaration
1st) Resolved ... That this Kingdom (meaning the Kingdom of
Ireland) has no national government, inasmuch as the great mass of the
people are not represented in Parliament. 3d) That the people of
Ireland can never effectually constitute their own laws, without an
extension of the elective franchise to all its citizens. 4th) That the
elective franchise can never be obtained without a cordial, steady, and
persevering union of all the Irish people of every denomination. 5) That
the penal code of statutes which have for upwards of a century doomed
our fellow-citizens, the Roman Catholics of this Kingdom, to a state
little inferior to the unlettered African, is a disgrace to the land we live
in.... 7) That to obtain this most desirable end (natural rights of men)
we entreat our fellow-citizens of every denomination in Ireland,
England, and Scotland, to turn their thoughts to a National Conven
tion, in order to collect the sense of the people as to the most effective
means of obtaining a radical and complete Parliamentary reform, an
object without which these kingdoms must for ever remain wretched
etc.”
“Address. The Irish Jacobins
of Belfast to the Public”
It says among other things: “Where the mode of government is not
derived from all the people clearly expressed, that nation has no con
stitution; need we say this is the case with Ireland; it possesses only an
acting government: in such a government the supreme authority has
more power to oppress the subject than to defend his rights.... Out of
5 millions of people (meaning the Irish people) 90 individuals
actually return a majority o f the House o f Commons, who instead
of representing the voice of the nation, are influenced by English
interests, and that aristocracy whose baneful exertions have ever
tended to sap the vital principles etc. of this unhappy and wretched
country.... By unanimity and perseverance this divided land will
be liberated from the shackles o f tyranny.... It is by procuring a
renovated representation that liberty will be established in this
country; this can only be accomplished by a National Conven

tion. The Roman Catholics are already convened; let the Protestants
follow their Peaceful example. ”
15 February, 1793: Volunteer Convention, said to represent
1,250,000 people, met at Dungannon, passed resolutions in favour of
Emancipation and Reform, and named a permanent
Committee. This doubtless, assisted the carrying o f the Relief Bill, but
it made the Ministry resolve to crush the Protestants, while it con
ciliated the Catholics.
Irish House o f Commons. 10 January, 1793. Lord Westmoreland
opens Parliament He complained of the discon ten t o f Ireland, but said
nothing of the corruption, extravagance, and alien policy o f ministers.
He complained of the invasion o f Holland by France, but was silent
about the European conspiracy against the Republic. He recommended
a. relaxation of Catholic fetters, but did not mention the motives: the
English declaration of war against France,*86 Custine had conquered
the Rhine (21 October, 1792), Dumourier*s battle of Jemappes (6
November, 1792) and annexation of Belgium. The speech also stated
that the Government had increased the military establishment, and
recommended the formation of a militia. This last was a stroke against
the Volunteers. The Address moved was the echo to the speech,
Grattan moved a trivial Amendment.
Catholics had acquired spirit and organisation by Wolfe Tone,
Keogh, Byrne, Todd Jones and M'Cormick. The Catholic Committee
negotiated with the Government, the successes of France compensated
them for the baseness o f their [Catholic ] aristocracy. Supported by the
United Irishmen.
In opposition to the Catholic Committee and the United Irishmen, the
Ministry stimulated Protestant bigotry and Catholic division. Out of
doors they got the exclusive Corporation of Dublin to address the
other Irish Corporations against Emancipation, and they intrigued
with the Aristocracy (lay and clerical) of the Catholics. In Parliament
they found the relics of the old exclusion Party.
11 January, 1793: Curran supported Grattan's Amendment which
was carried.
“Parliament has become unpopular in the country.... How could the
credit of Parliament survive its independency? ...More than half of us
have no connexion with the people.... The disunion of the people from
this House raises from this—the people are not represented. And to
restore the Union ... wanted a radical Reform o f the Commons.... With
out them (the Catholics) the country cannot be saved. Give them no
qualified Emancipation.... A hated Government, an unpopular Parlia
ment, a discontented people.... The Catholic Petition (1792) has been
rejected by the influence o f the Irish Administration. ”
Early in January 1793* Curran unsuccessfully resists the Attorney
* According to Davies on January 29, 1793—cf. his commentary
to The Speeches o f the Right Honourable J.Ph. Curran.—Ed.
212 KARL MARX
General’s motion for the committal of M’Donnel, the printer of the
Hibernian Journal, for publishing that the House was not free and
independent
On January 14, 1793 (so persuasive were French victories) Grattan
obtained a Committee o f the Whole House on Parliamentary Represen
tation, and moved several Resolutions among others that of the 300
members only 84 are returned by counties, counties of towns and
cities, together with the university, while the remaining 216 are
returned by boroughs and manors. Finis: “ Resolved—That the state o f
the representation of the people in Parliament requires amendment.”
Curran supported this. He said:
“The Catholic Question must precede a Reform . Their place in the
state must be decided first.... Ireland feels, that without an immediate
Reform her liberty is gone. ”
The Motion was lost by 71 to 153.
But the Opposition had already yielded to the Ministers Indemnity
for their violent Proclamations against the Republican Volunteers', they
had consented to the Militia and Gunpowder Bills, and therefore the
Resolutions were resisted. 11 March, 1793, another Government
Proclamation, forbidding military societies, drilling, and the whole
Machinery of the Volunteers, without naming them .
April 1793: The Relief BUI of the Catholics was passed, admitting
Catholics to the franchise, the bar, the university, and to all the rights
o f property ; but excluding them from Parliament, from State Offices,
and from all, indeed, that the Bill o f 1829 concededA&7
The Bill of 1793 was brought in 10 days after the declaration
of war against France.*
The Same Parliament which passed the Relief Bill, passed the Alien
Act, the Military Foreign Correspondence, Gunpowder, and Conven
tion Acts , in fact, a full code o f coercion and a Secret Committee. He
got 20,000 Regulars and 16,000 Militia.
Convention Bill:
“A law,” says Curran, “not to restrain but to promote insurrec
tion.” The law declares that no body of men may delegate a power to
any smaller number, to act, think, or petition for them.
This is in fact a bill to prevent assemblies of the people to petition
against grievances. According to the Conventon Act it is a high
misdemeanour in any part of the people to assemble for the purpose of
choosing any persons to act for them in framing petitions or other
representations for the producing of any change in anything established
by law. It was intended to put an end to societies formed and forming,
in 1793, for the purpose of procuring a Parliamentary Reform.
(Cobbett.)188
* On February 21, 1793.—Ed.
Thus armed, the Government commenced its crusade of
prosecuting and persecuting, and obtained fresh laws from
time to time, and, after the truce of 1795, drove the quarrel
to an Insurrection and to the Union.
1794. The agitation continued. (Government prosecutions against
Volunteers, United Irishmen etc.) The United Irishmen Society was
changed into a secret and secretly organised boay. The Catholics still
laboured; the French had conquered; their Government, aroused by the
Irish Jacobin Resolutions o f Belfast, and the suggestions of some Irish
patriots, bethought themselves to assist the discontented Irish to effect
a separation. Rev.Jackson sent there as an agent, put himself in com
munication with Tone. He was betrayed; arraigned for treason (after
arrest), hanged.
29 January, 1794, Curran as defender of Rowan:
“ But now, if any aggregate assembly meets, they are censured; if a
printer publishes their resolutions, he is punished; rightly, to be sure, in
both cases, for it has been lately done. If people say, let us not create
tumult, but meet in delegation, they cannot do it ... the law of last
session has for the first time declared such meetings to be a crime.”
The informer system is flourishing.
From 4 JANUARY, 1795 TO THE END OF MARCH 1795.
LORD FITZWILLIAM
a Whig, who had opposed Pitt,

was sent by him to Ireland, charged with the carrying through o f
Catholic Emancipation (and Reform BUI), and the pacification of
Ireland. The apparent causes are the rapid progress o f the United Irish-
men and the French armies, who had driven the Spaniards behind the
Pyrenees, the Austrians behind the Rhine, destroyed the Duke of
York’s army, and prepared the occupation of Holland in the winter of
1794-95.
But from papers published (correspondence between
Fitzwilliam and Lord Carlisle) it is evident that Pitt (this was,
perhaps, on second thoughts, when the King’s and Beres-
ford’s influence prevailed) has chosen him as a tool to agitate
the Irish, inflame them, and drive them into Rebellion.
Fitzwilliam was one of the most indulgent landlords of
Ireland and very popular. What Pitt wanted, was to raise the
Catholics to the height of expectation, and by suddenly recal-
214 KARL MARX
ling Fitzwilliam, to drive them into commotions, which
would throw the Protestants into the arms of England for
protection, whilst the horrors would be aggravated by the
mingled conflicts of the parties, Royalists and Republicans.
Pitt had sent Fitzwilliam to Ireland with unlimited
powers.
The day Fitzwilliam arrived, peace was proclaimed
throughout all Ireland. The day he quitted it, she prepared
for insurrection.
Irish House of Commons. 22 January, 1795'. Fitzwilliam opens with
a plausible speech. Grattan outdid the Ministers in servile adulation* (as
to the Address). An Emancipation Bill was read a first time, but ample
supplies were voted, a £2 millions loan was voted, and Anti-Gallican
frenzy got upon certain classes. Fitzwilliam was'recalled.
Ill
B) Lord Camden’s Administration.
April 1795 - End of July 1798
Camden*s arrival was attended by almost insurrectionary
outrages. The Beresfords were assaulted, Clare (the Lord
Chancellor, i.e. Fitzgibbon) was almost killed in his carriage.
Camden’s Chief Secretary Mr. Pelham (Earl Chichester)
was afterwards replaced by his nephew Stewart (Lord Castle-
reagh).
Camden became extremely popular amongst the armed
associations which were raised in Ireland under the title of
Yeomen. He was considered the guardian of that Institution.
Irish House of Commons. 4 May, 1795. Second Reading of the
Emancipation BilL It was rejected by 155 to 84.
Fitzwilliam fs recall was a triumph for the separation party. An Irish
Republic now became the only object of the United Irishmen. The bulk
o f the Presbyterians o f Down, Antrim, and Tyrone joined them as did
multitudes of Protestants and Catholics in Leinster. A t this time the
Catholics of the North were Defenders or RibbonmenA 8*9 Both sides
made ready for the worst
An Insurrection Act was passed, making death the penalty for any
one to take an oath of Association; another allowing the Lord
* Davies wrote “he outdid ministers in loyalty.—.Ed.
Lieutenant to proclaim counties, in which case no one could go out at
night; and magistrates obtained the power o f breaking into houses, and
transporting to the navy all persons whom they suspected. Other acts^
granting indemnity for magistrates guilty of any illegality —giving the
Lord Lieutenant the power of arrest without bail—licensing the in
troduction of foreign troops (Germans), and. establishing the Yeomanry
Corps—followed each other in quick succession.
The Yeomanry consisted of the Tory Gentry, and their dependants,
undisciplined and unprincipled, legal banditti ifo villainy but was
perpetrated by them. Whipping, pitch-capping, half—or whole hanging,
sending to serve in the navy—as the leisure or facilities of the officer
allowed.
1795. Among the papers found in Jackson’s possessions
was View of Ireland, by Tone:
“The Established Churchmen in Ireland have engrossed, besides the
whole church patronage, all the profits and honours of the country
exclusively, and a very great share of the landed property. Aristocrats,
adverse to any change, decided enemies of the French Revolution. Dis
senters.... Republicans. Catholics, the great body of the people, in
lowest degree of ignorance, ready for any change, because no change
can make them worse. The whole peasantry of Ireland, the most
oppressed and wretched in Europe, may be said to be Catholic. Within
these 2 years have received a certain degree of information, ... various
insurrections, ... bold, hardy race, and make excellent soldiers. Defend
ers. They are so situated that they have but one way left to make their
sentiments known, and that is by war. All Parliamentary, Grand Jury
etc. Acts proceeding from Aristocrats, whose interest is adverse to that
of the people.
Defenders (in the North). The Lords Committee o f 1793
describes them
“as poor ignorant labouring men*’, [fighting] for the Catholic cause,
relieve from hearth-money, tithes, county cesses, lowering of their
rents. First they appeared in County Louth , in April 1793, several of
them were armed; they assembled mostly in the night, forced their way
into the houses of Protestants and took from them their arms. They
spread soon through the counties of Meath, Cavan, Monagnan and other
adjacent parts. The Secret Committee tried to connect them with
Catholic Gentlemen, and the crown prosecutors tried to trace them to
the United Irishmen Association and French gold. [Appearing] before
the Drogheda, Spring Assizes, April 23, 1794, the Drogheda Defenders,
were declared not guilty. Hie Dublin Defenders, December 22, 1795,
James Weldon, connected with them, was hanged.
House of Commons. February 3d, 1796. Indemnity Bill.
25 February, 1796. Insurrection Bill (it gave the right o f arbitrary
transportation to magistrates).
216 KARL MARX
Curran: “It is a Bill for the rich, and against the poor.” “What is a
Bill which puts the liberty of the poor man, who has no visible means
of living but labour, in the discretion of the magistrates? In Ireland,”
where poverty [is] general, “it constitutes poverty berime” “Let the rich
men of Ireland, therefore, fear when they enact a law against poverty,
lest poverty should enact a counter-law against riches.” “Gentlemen
have reasoned to prove that he who should be transported by this law
would only be sent into an honourable retirement, where he might gain
glory by fighting for his country from which his poverty had expelled
him.”
Irish House o f Commons. 13 October, 1796. French War. Camden
opened [the sitting with the call:] resist invasion! (Hoche’s force was
just assembling at Brest, and Wolfe Tone, Grouchy, and a part of that
expedition, reached Bantry Bay on the 22 December and did not leave
it till the 28. ) Camden denounced also “popular passion and popular
opinion”.
Curran. “Government encourages every attack upon the reputation
of the Catholics, and the most wicked and groundless prosecutions
against their lives.” “Look at the scene that has been exhibited for 2
years in one of your counties, of robbery, and rape, and murder, and
extermination (of the Catholics). Law can give them no protection
under a hostile and implacable government.”
Ponsonby’s Amendment was defeated by 149 to 12. Then the
Attorney General moved for leave to bring in a Bill, similar to such as
have been enacted on like occasions in England, to empower the Lord
Lieutenant, to take up and detain all such persons as were suspected o f
treasonable practices. Leave being given, the Bill was forthwith present
ed, read a first and second time, and committed for the morrow.
14 October, 1796 . Suspension o f the Habeas Corpus Act. Leave to
bring it in was granted; it was read, twice, etc. all in a few minutes in
the morning after midnight
17 October, 1796. Catholic Emancipation Bill rejected.
6 January, 1797. Hoche’s Expedition . ^ 0 Secretary Pelham
brought down a message from the Lord Lieutenant full of English
palaver, in reference to France and especially the expedition of Hoche.
Curran. “You have already laid a shilling on the brogues of your
beggar peasants; will you impose another shilling upon them? What
wealth they have ? Seven pence per day. N
24 February, 1797. Internal Defence. Sir Laurence Parsons moved
an Address for an increase of the domestic army, especially the Yeomen
infantry. Grattan supported, and the Ministers opposed, the Address.
Neither party foresaw how the Patriots o f the Clubs would turn into
the scourges of the people—traitors to their country and their oath,
when under the bribe of payment, the compulsion o f discipline, and the
spirit o f the army.
Curran. “At this moment the gaols are crowded ... they* make a
demand of redress an act of treason.
* The Commoners.—Ea.
Since the end o f March 1796 whole counties of Ireland
proclaimed (put in state of siege).
House o f Commons. March 18, 1797: Disarming o f Ulster. Message
of Lord Camden. (Pelham is still Secretary.) General Lake—cowardly,
infamous, cruel—was to disarm the inhabitants together with the
magistrates. Lake*s Proclamation. Belfast, 13 March, 1797.
19 March, 1797. Grattan: “The Lord Lieutenant attaints one entire
province of Ireland of High Treason.” Amendment of Grattan.
20 March, 1797. The Amendment was rejected by 127 to 16.
Curran. “The North is deeply discontented. By what? Your own
laws, your Convention Act, Gunpowder Act, Insurrection Act. The first
denies the natural right of sufferers—the right of petition or complaint;
the second, the power of self-defence ... the third, the defence of a jury
against the attempts of power.”
May 15, 1797. Last speech of Curran in the House of Commons, he
secedes from it, ditto Grattan; the Opposition ceased to attend, and the
House adjourned on 3 July, 1797. Castlereagh Chief Secretary.
We have seen the decreasing minorities of the party who gallantly
struggled to maintain the parliamentary constitution of Ireland. But
they grew daily more powerless. The people looked to the United Irish
Executive, to France, to arms, to Revolution. The Government persist-
ed in refusing Reform and Emancipation, continued the suspension of
the Constitution, and incessantly augmented the despotism of their
laws, the profligacy of their administration, and the violence of their
soldiery—they trusted to intimidation. Under these circumstances, the
Opposition determined to abandon the contest.
The Government and the United Irishmen now face to face. The
Government strengthened itself by spies on the United Irishmen (such
as Maguane and others), the “battalion o f testimony ” (Bird, Newell,
O'Brien, etc.), free quarters, prosecutions, patronage, and calumny.
Orr was hanged 14 October, 1797, for having (allegedly) administ
ered the oath of the United Irish to a private soldier. The Oath is: first,
to promote a brotherhood of affection among men of all religious
distinctions; secondly, to labour for the attainment of Parliamentary
Reform; 3dly, an obligation of secrecy, this was added to it when the
Convention Law had made it a criminal offence for any public delega
tion to meet for that purpose. The Insurrection Act makes the
administering of such an oath a felony carrying the death penalty.
The United Irish Society of 1791 was formed in 1791, for the
achievement of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform. In
1792-93 it increased, retaining its original objects. In 1794, the views of
Tone and Neilson, who both desired an independent republic, spread;
but the formal objects were unchanged, when, on 10 May, 1795, the
organisation of Ulster was completed. The recall of Fitzwilliam, the
consequent disappointment of the Catholics, the accumulation of
coercive laws, the prospects of the French Alliance, and the natural
progress of a quarrel, rapidly spread the influence, and altered the
218 KARL MARX
whole character of the Society. The test of the Society was made more
decisive, and less constitutional. In the autumn o f 1796 the organisa
tion was made military in Ulster. Towards the middle o f 1797 , this
system spread to Leinster. So far back as May 1796, the Executive had
formally communicated with France, through Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
Only on 19 February, 1798 they resolved “that they would not be
diverted from their purpose by anything which could be done in Parlia
ment”.
In the winter o f 1796-97, the coming of the French was urged as a
reason for immediate insurrection; but it did not prevail. In May 1797,
the order for the execution of the four soldiers of the Monaghan
militia, was regarded by the militias as sufficient motive for action; but
not so thought the Executive. In the summer o f 1797 the militia
regiments sent a deputation, offering to seize the Castle. The Northern
leaders were for an outbreak, so was Lord Edward. Still nothing was
done. And again, in the beginning o f 1798, the people subjected to free
quarters, whipping, burnings, and transportation, pressed for insurrec
tion. Lord Edward disposed to it. Emmet wanted to wait for France,
and thus they were, when the sleek traitor Rynolds o f Kilkee glided
into their councils through Lord Edward’s weakness. Arthur O'Connor
was arrested at Maidstone, in the act of embarking for France; on 12
March, a meeting of Leinster delegates, including Oliver Bond, McCann
etc. were arrested at Oliver Bond's warehouse, Dublin. McNevin,
Thomas Emmet, Sampson were not taken for some days. A Warrant
[was issued] against Lord Edward; he escaped and lay concealed. New
directory, John Sheares one of it. On 19 May, just four days before the
rising was to take place, Lord Fitzgerald was pounced on, and on 2lst
the two Sheares.* Thus the insurrection began, without its designers to
lead it, and without time to replace them.
On 23 May, 1798, the insurrection commenced, 17 July, Lord
Castlereagh announced its final defeat.
Before the outbreak of the insurrection, treason trials took
place in February and March 1 798.
The insurgents were during the struggle not treated as
soldiers, but hanged. Burning every cottage, and torturing
every cottager—the loyalists. Martial law was proclaimed, and
the courts of justice closed. No quarter was given on either
side. Bills of attainder and all sorts of legal murder. Juries
(packed) recorded the opinions given them by the judges.
25 July, 1798, negotiations of the state prisoners with the Govern
ment. Their lives secured Mr. Cooke, on behalf of the Ministers. On the
other hand, they were to describe the United Irish affairs, so far as they
could, without implicating individuals. Byrne, however, was hanged:
* Henry and John.—Ed,
the compact was finally settled on 29 July, at the Castle, by “deputies
from the gaols”. The Government broke the compact. They, not only
in their press, but by their indemnity act, described the United Irish
leaders as confessing guilt, and craving pardon, neither of which they
did. Instead of allowing them to go abroad, they were kept in gaol here
for a year, and then thrust into Fort George, from whence they were
not released, till the Treaty of Amiens, in 1802.
Within 12 days from the first rising, the people o f Wexford had
cleared their county, with the exception of Ross dhd Duncannon, two
places unfit to resist a skilful attack. Similar successes attended the
Kildare insurrection.
Antrim and Down did not rise for a fortnight, and there, after
similar blunders, and a shorter struggle, the Presbyterians were ousted.
The Wexfordmen protracted the war; partly from a vague hope for
foreign assistance, but still more from despair, for they could not trust
the faith of their persecutors; and not a few of these heroic men died in
the plains of Meath, in an effort to force their way into Ulster.
The soldier having done his own work, and that of the assassin and
brigand, too, [ it was the turn of ] the bow-string of the Attorney
General. Courts-martial hanged those taken in battle, and courts-civil
slaughtered the prisoners. Most unaccountably the insurgents did not
retaliate. They besides spared females, the loyalists did not.
German and English troops were also employed in these
affairs.
Pitt’s Plan to Enforce and Provoke the Insurrection
1784—Independence was assailed by Pitt under colour of
commercial tariff.
1789—The Prince Regent’s Question determined to exting
uish the Irish Legislature.
1798—Rebellion used to terrify the minds of men out of
common sense.
1798-99 and 1598-99: It is here well worthy of reflec
tion, that the exercise of free quarters and martial law, the
suspension o f all municipal courts of justice, the discretional
application of the torture to suspected persons, executions in
cold blood, and the various measures which Mountjoy and
Carew, and the other officers of Elizabeth practised in
Ireland by her authority, in 1598-99*, were again judged to
be expedient, and were again resorted to with vigour in
1798-99, 200 years after they had been practised by the
Ministers of Elizabeth.
* See pp. 336, 373.—Ed.
220 KARL MARX
United Irish Societies known to Government.
Though it appeared, from public documents, that the Government
had full and accurate information of the United Irish Societies, and
that their leaders and chiefs were fully known to the British Ministry,
the Government did nothing to suppress them, but everything to
exasperate the people.
Under Camden9s Administration:
Earl of Carhampton, Commander-in-Chief of Ireland, first expressed
his dissatisfaction with Pitt9s inexplicable proceedings. Although martial
law was not yet declared, Carhampton ordered his troops to intervene,
wherever insurrectionary movements occurred. This was prohibited by
Camden. Carhampton found that troops in the garrison of Dublin were
daily corrupted by the United Irishmen: he therefore withdrew them
and formed two distinct camps on the South and the North, some miles
from the capital. This measure also refused by the Lord Lieutenant
whom Carhampton refused to obey. The King’s sign-manual was at
length procured, ordering him to break up his camps, and bring back
the garrison; this he obeyed and marched his troops into Dublin
barracks. He then resigned his command, and publicly declared, that
some deep and insidious scheme of the Minister was in agitation; for,
instead of suppressing, the Irish Government was obviously disposed to
excite, an insurrection. Mr. Pitt counted on the expertness of the Irish
Government to effect a premature explosion. Free quarters were now
ordered
{ Free quarters rendered officers and soldiers despotic
masters of the peasantry, their homes, food, property, and
occasionally, their families. This measure was resorted to,
with all its attendant horrors, throughout some of the best
parts of Ireland, previous to the insurrection, and for the
purpose of exciting it} .
to irritate the Irish population; Slow Tortures were inflicted under the
pretence of forcing confessions; the people were goaded and driven to
madness.
General Abercromby, who succeeded as Commander-in-Chief, was
not permitted to abate these enormities, and therefore resigned with
disgust. {General Abercromby , in general orders, stated that the army
placed under his command, from their state of disorganisation, would
soon be much more formidable to their friends than to their enemies,
and that he would not countenance or admit free quarters.}
Ireland was by those means reduced to a state of anarchy, and
exposed to crime and cruelties to which no nation had ever been
subject. The people could no longer bear their miseries. Pitt’s object
was now effected and an insurrection was excited.
UNITED IRISHMENAND PIT T.

(POLAND AND PRUSSIA )19 *
Until 1795 the United Irishmen were Protestants, of a minor divi
sion of the people. Many of them were Pitt’s dupes. At the same time
(1793 sqq) emissaries were sent from Berlin to Poland in order to form
there Jacobinical Clubs, that they might offer a pretext for the in
troduction of new armies.
r
Exorbitation of the People.
Castlereagh’s Boast
The Irish people were to be tormented, outraged, forced into actual
rebellion. The recall of Lord Fitzwilliam involved the country in con
sternation and dismay. To this succeeded, to fret and exasperate, the
Habeas Corpus Act Suspension Bill, the Searching for Arms Act, the
Bill to transport persons not found at home from sunset to sunrise;
further many persons were shot because, being terrified, they attemp
ted to escape when challenged, or being seized, they were consigned to
Prussia. Ensor met some of them at Berlin, and the law indemnified the
perpetrators of such prodigious deeds. Then the Yeomanry were
raised: these committed dreadful outrages, particularly in the
North; burning houses in open day, commanded by their officers,
who were also magistrates. The Militia rivalled the Yeomanry. It
is said that pitch-caps were invented by some bravos of the North
Cork Militia. Still more ferocious was the Dublin Corporation.
The riding-house, in Marlborough Street, distinguished for Protes
tant loyalty, and torture was administered by the scourge and
the triangle.
Summary executions were not uncommon in preparing the Irish for the
Union; bodies of Irish, deluded by the British Ministry, irritated and
inflamed, tortured, tormented, in phrensy and despair, grasped such
arms as they could seize, and defied their enemies. This was called
rebellion; and Castlereagh boasted that he had made the conspiracy
explode. He charged that mine as well as fired it.
PITT IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT DEFENDER OF THE UNION,

IN ORDER TO PREVENT MEASURES OF PACIFICATION.
CASTLEREAGH, 1797, IN THE IRISH PARLIAMENT
Castlereagh had been reformer in Ireland as Pitt in England, till
office made him explode. He declared, 1792, for Irish Parliamentary
Reform. Ditto 1793 for Grattan’s motion for Parliamentary Reform.
When, lo! the Ministry of Ireland was changed and Camden succeeded
Lord Fitzwilliam. With the change of men Castlereagh’s opinion of
Reform was upset In 1797, the serpent, the viper, and snake made
222 KARL MARX
another feat: he declared for a wise and well digested plan of Ref orm at
a proper time. Yet then he has nearly completed the scheme o f the
Union, and the extinction of the Parliament o f his country.
Pitt in the British Parliament
The reign of terror (Pitt thundered against the French one)
prepared the Union. Pitt, while talking of the prodigious wickedness of
interfering with prerogative orders and ancient customs, meditated
during years of such verbose, political prudery, the end and ruin of the
fundamental constitution of Ireland. At the very time when this his
machination was completing, he defended, with swollen rhetoric, the
independence of Ireland's Parliament. In the debate on the recall of
Lord Fitzwilliam, in 1795, “he deprecated the discussion as a manifest
violation of the independence o f the Irish Parliament**. Two years later,
in 1797, when Fox proposed to address His Majesty on the best means
to tranquillise Ireland, this W.Pitt objected “on the inconstitutionality,
the impropriety, and the danger to be apprehended from the interfer
ence of the British Parliament in the affairs of Ireland”. This flagitious
impostor deprecated any means for Ireland’s prosperity; for he pro
posed, through its agonies and confusion, to effect its incorporate
Union with Great Britain.
Lord Cornwallis’ Administration

(August 1798 sqq) Castlereagh Chief Secretary.
The Union Trick
Then there was Lord Cornwallis, the man thrashed by
the Americans, during their War of Independence. As a governor for
India, he was further qualified for destroying a nation’s right.
(There he incorporated Tippoo Sahib for the East India
Company.)
Cornwallis was the intermediate agent between Pitt and Robert
Stewart, commonly called Lord Castlereagh.
In India Cornwallis had defeated Tippoo Sahib, but con
cluded a peace which only increased the necessity of future
wars.192
19 October, 1781, capitulation of Cornwallis at York-
town.
Quietness was almost restored. Cornwallis affected impartiality,
whilst he was deceiving both parties. He encouraged the United Irish
men, and he roused the Royalists; one day he destroyed, the next day
he was merciful. His system, however, had not exactly the anticipated
effect. Everything gave reason to expect a restoration of tranquillity, it
was through the impression of horror alone that an Union could be
effected, and he had no time to lose, lest the country might recover its
reason.
A fortunate accident for him: A portion of an armament, destined
by France to aid the Irish insurgents, had escaped the Irish cruisers, and
landed about a 1,000 troops at Killala Bay (in the North-West of
Ireland).* They entered Killala without opposition, surprising the
bishop and a company of parsons who were on their visitation. They
were joined by a considerable number of peasantry, unarmed, un
clothed, and undisciplined. But the French did their best to render
them efficient They marched into the country. Lord Hutchinson com
manded the garrison of Castlebar, a few miles from Killala. His force
was numerous, with a good train of artillery. General Lake with his
staff had just arrived. The French attacked them. In a few minutes, the
whole of the royal army was completely routed . About 900 French and
some peasants took possession of Castlebar.** (This battle is called the
Races of Castlebar.) The English fled in full haste to Tuam.
A considerable part of the Louth and Kilkenny regiments (militia),
not finding it convenient to retreat, joined the victors, and in one hour
were completely equipped as French riflemen. About 90 of these men
were hanged by Cornwallis afterwards at Ballynamuck. The defeat of
Castlebar, however, was a victory to the Viceroy; it revived all the
horrors of rebellion, which had been subsiding, and the desertion of the
militia regiments tended to impress the gentry with an idea, that
England alone could protect the country.
Lord Cornwallis was supine, and the insurgents were active in
profiting by this victory; 40,000 of them were prepared to assemble at
the Crooked Wood, in Westmeath, only 42 miles from Dublin, ready to
join the French and march upon the metropolis.
The French continued too long at Castlebar, and Lord Cornwallis at
length collected 20,000 troops, with which he considered himself
pretty certain of conquering 900 men. With above 20,000 men, he
marched directly to the [Shannon] *** to prevent thepassage, but he was
outmanoeuvred: the insurgents had led the French to the source of that
river, and it was ten days before Castlereagh, by the slowest possible
marches, which tended purposely to increase the public terror, reached
his enemy. After some skirmishes, in which the French were victorious,
they capitulated at Ballynamuck .**** They were sent to Dublin and
afterwards to France.
Horrors now were everywhere recommenced; executions were
multiplied. Cornwallis marched against the peasantry, still masters of
Killala; and after a sanguinary conflict in the streets, the town was
* On August 2 2 ,1798.-£d.
** On August 27, 1798.—Ed.
** * The manuscript is damaged here.—Ed.
** ** On September 8, 179S.-Ed.
224 KARL MARX
taken: some were slaughtered, many hanged, and the whole district was
on the point of being reduced to subjection, when Cornwallis most
unexpectedly proclaimed an armistice, and without any terms allowed
the insurgents freely to disperse, and gave them 30 days, either to
surrender their arms or be prepared for slaughter; leaving them to act,
as they thought proper in the interval. This interval was terrific to the
loyalists; the 30 days of armistice were 30 days o f new horror, and the
Government had now achieved the very climax o f public terror, on
which they so much counted for inducing Ireland to throw herself into
the arms of the protecting country. And the first step o f Pitt's project
was fully consummated.
THE UNION
Pitt now conceived that the moment had arrived to try
the effect of his previous measures to promote a Legislative
Union.
The Irish Peers, under Lord Clare’s, the Lord Chancellor’s despotism,
were ready for anything. The lure of translation neutralised the scruples
of Episcopacy. Single exceptions: Marly, Bishop of Waterford, and
Dixon, Bishop of Down. The rebellion had commenced on 22 May,
1798, and on 22 January, 1799, an Union was proposed. 40,000 British
troops were then in Ireland.
The measure was first proposed indirectly by Speech from the
Throne on 22 January, 1799 . Lord Cornwallis’s unexpected warfare
against 900 Frenchmen, was evidently intended more for terror than
for victory.
The King.s title was “George III, King of Great Britain, France,
and Ireland, Defender of the Faith” etc. France was dropped on
Amiens Peace. 193
Pitt now conceived the moment to have come to try the
effect of his previous measures to promote a Legislative
Union, and annihilate the Irish Legislature.
Clare’s (Fitzgibbon’s) only check was the bar, which he resolved to
corrupt He doubled the number of bankrupt commissioners, revived
some offices, created others, and under pretence of furnishing each
county with a local judge, in two months established 32 new offices, of
£600-700 each.
The first Parliamentary debate, on 22 January, 1799, lasted till 11
o’clock of 23 January (22 hours). The Government obtained a majority
o f one by open sale of a certain Fox, lawyer.
The second debate, which began at 5 o.clock of 23 January, 1799,
continued till late in the morning of the 24, the Government was
defeated. In every debate upon that measure, it was insisted upon that
Parliament was incompetent, even to entertain the question of the
Union. In this sense spoke Saurin, since Attorney General, Plunket
since Lord Chancellor, Sir John Parnell, then Chancellor of the Ex
chequer, Bushe, since Lord Chief Justice, Lord Oriel, the then Speaker
of the Irish House of Commons.
Sir Lawrence Parsons and other showed by irrefutable facts that the
country had been worked upon by the English Minister, to terrify the
Irish gentry into a resubmission to those shackles from which the spirit
of the Volunteers and the nation had but a few years before released
them. It was argued that the insurrection, first organised and fostered
by Pitt, and protracted by Cornwallis, had been suppressed by the Irish
Parliament; and that the introduction of foreign and mercenary
Germans, to immolate the Irish, instead of extinguishing, had added
fuel to the insurrection. Then great point: the incompetence o f Parlia
ment to betray its trust. A ct o f Union in itself a nullity ab initio , and a
fraud upon the then existing constitution.
Act of 23 George III “recognising the unqualified independence of
Ireland, and expressly stipulating and contracting that it should endure
for ever”.
24 January, 1799 « 111 Members decided against Union, 105 for.
Voted that night 216. Absent 84.
House o f Lords on 22 January, 1799, in answer to the Viceroy’s
Address voted for the Union.
The Irish Lords lay prostrate before the Government, but the
leaders were not inattentive to their own interest. The defeat o f the
Government in the Commons gave them an importance they had not
expected. The accounts of Lord Annesley etc. prove their corruption. A
great proportion of the 1 V2 millions levied upon Ireland, and distribut
ed by Castlereagh’s Commissioners of Compensation, went into the
pockets of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of Ireland.
Cornwallis coquetted with the persons, assuming to themselves the
title of “ Catholic Leaders”. The Catholic Bishops were generally
deceived into the most disgusting subserviency.
The members of the old opposition, who were returned to the new
Parliament in 1797 , did not exceed 50.
The strongest cause of division amongst the Members was the
Catholic Question. Cornwallis flattered the Catholics promising certain
emancipation; the priests bowed before him. Never yet did any clergy
so retrograde as the Catholic Hierarchy, on that occasion. Corruptly
deceived. In 1798 the Catholics were hanged, in 1799 caressed, in 1800
cajoled, in 1801 discarded.
Mr. Pitt, by private dispatch to Cornwallis, desired that the measure
should not be then pressed, unless a majority of 50 was certain. Clare,
the Chancellor, overhauled this. There were thousands of addresses and
petitions against any further discussion. As a punishment for the rejoic
ings at Dublin over the rejection of the Union, the soldiers were ordered
to fire amongst the people, of whom a few were killed arid some
wounded.
It appears in full proof, that in proportion to their respective
8-226
226 KARL MARX
numbers, the British Commons, at the period of the Irish Union, had
1/4 more corrupted, corruptible, and influenced members than that of
Ireland at any period.
5 and 6 February, 1800. Union accepted by Irish House o f Commons.
Castlereagh compelled even felons in the gaols to sign Union petitions.
English generals, who, at a moment when martial law existed , or a
recollection of its execution was still fresh in every memory, could not
fail to have their own influence over proclaimed districts and bleeding
peasantry; tried to procure addresses to Parliament
Mr. Darby, High Sheriff of King’s County,! 94 and Major Rogers of
the artillery, had gone so far as to place two six-pounders towards the
doors of the Court House, where the gentlemen and freeholders of the
county were assembling to address as Anti-Unionists.
In the interval between the old and the new Parliament, the Parlia
mentary patrons had breathing-time after the preceding session, and
began to tremble for their patronage and importance; some desperate
step by the Government became necessary to insure continuance of
their support Now an unparalleled measure was taken.
Castlereagh publicly declared, first, that every nobleman, who
returned Members to Parliament, should be paid, in cash £15,000 for
every Member so returned; secondly, that every Member who had
purchased a seat in Parliament should have his purchase money repaid
to him, by the Treasury in Ireland; thirdly, that all Members of Parlia
ment, or others, who were losers by an Union, should be fully recom
pensed for their losses; and that £1,500,000 should be devoted to this
service; in other terms, all who supported this measure were, under
some pretence or other, to share in the bank of corruption. A declara
tion so flagitious and treasonable was never publicly made in any
country; it had its effect; before the meeting of Parliament he had
secured a small majority o f 8 above a moiety o f the members.
After the debate on the Union in 1800, he performed his promise,
and brought in a Bill to raise 1 V2 million of money upon the Irish
people, nominally to compensate, but really to bribe their representa
tives, for betraying their honour and selling their country. George III
gives his assent to a Bill to levy taxes for the compensation of
Members of Parliament, for their loss of the opportunities of selling
what it was criminal to sell or purchase.
The Union Bill but feebly resisted. The divisions o f January and
February 1800 reduced the success of the Government to a certainty
Lord Shannon received for his patronage in the Commons £45,000
The Marquis o f Ely ....................... .. £45,000
Lord Clanmorris, beside a British peerage . . . . . . . ....... £23,000
Lord Belvidere, beside his d ou ceu r................. ................ £15,000
Sir Hercules Langrishe . . . . . . . . .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £15,000
15 January, 1800. Speech from the Throne, the debate proceeded
till past 10 o’clock on the 16th. (60 members absent Not governmental
5 February next division. The Union propositions, as passed by the
British Parliament, were, after a long speech, laid before the House of
Commons by Castlereagh. After a debate of the entire night, at 11 the
ensuing morning, the division took place.
Members 300, absent 27, rest 273. For Castlereagh’s Motion 158,
against 115, majority 43. (273 members present.)
The House was surrounded by military, under the pretence of
keeping peace, in fact, to excite terror. (British Regiment.)
The Bishops Troy, Lanigan, and others, deluded by the Viceroy,
sold their country, and basely betrayed their flocks, by promoting the
Union. The rebellion had terrified the great body of Catholics who
could not move. Besides the 1 V2 million Castlereagh also had unbound
ed secret service money from England. British clerks and officers were
smuggled into the Irish Parliament to vote away the Constitution of
the Country. By the subjugation of Ireland, England has gained noth
ing but an accumulation of debt, an accession of venality to her Parlia
ment, an embarrassment in her councils and a progressive danger to
the integrity of the Empire. The name of Union has been acquired,
but the attainment of die substance has been removed farther than
ever. Castlereagh palpably purchased 25 Members before the second
discussion in 1800, which made a difference of 50 votes in favour of
the Government Thus Pitt and Castlereagh carried the Union.
* * *
More about the Union

The [members of the ] Irish Parliament were only delegates for a
few years. How could they vote their own dissolution and extinction
for ever? If the Irish Parliament was authorised to destroy the Consti
tution, why not the English? Why not pass a royal law? No appeal was
made to the people. This was done in Scotland^ they did not dare
doing it in Ireland. Even the rotten boroughs sickened at the sound.
The Irish Parliament of 1800 was elected in 1797 for 8 years.
The Union was carried during the reign of Martial Law\ On the
other hand, the Resolution of th e English House of Commons in 1741:
“that the presence o f armed soldiers, at the election of members of
Parliament, is a high infringement of the liberty of the subject, and an
open defiance o f the laws and constitution!”
There was a Martial Law Bill in Ireland from the commencement o f
the rebellion in 1798, it was renewed 1799, in 1800 revived, but in fact
it was to be considered as a continuance of former act passed in 1799;
in 1801, the act of 1800 was continued, for a very short time, by the
United Parliament, without any inquiry I'
The Act o f the Union is an A ct of Conquest (Ensor).Ireland’s
Union with England was Cromwell’s scheme. It was among the delu
sions of Monk. The English Government had no other object when it
228 KARL MARX
effected the Union, which means the extinction of the Irish Legislature,
but to deprive Ireland of its political consequence and authority, and
subject her property and people to the mercy of England.
The English Ministry, in guaranteeing Norway to Sweden, stipulated
that Norway, by its union with Sweden, should enjoy an independent
P a rlia m e n t. * 9 6
Just as the Union of Ireland with England was declared necessary,
so had Lord Grenville declared: “Hampshire ought to be no more dear
to us than Han over.*’
Popular Meetings (and Petitions)

Despite Martial Law and the Suspension
of all Guarantees for Popular Security.
Ditto House of Commons during 1799.
Popular indignation was universal. Though sheriffs were chosen to
obstruct petitioning, though the military opposed their assembling, and
dispersed them; yet they met and protested, as at Birr, where Major
Rogers actually marched with cannon against a county meeting. They
met in Dublin, as in 1759, on the mere rumour of a projected Union.
The people assembled in the towns of Belfast, Limerick, Drogheda,
Newry, Maryborough, Carrickfergus, Pontadown, etc.; in the Counties
of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Wexford, Cavan, Longford, Tipperary,
Galway, Monaghan, Fermanagh, Kilkenny, Meath, Carlow, the King’s
and Queen’s Counties, Leitrim, Kildare, Down, Westmeath, Armagh,
Clare, Louth, Donegal, Mayo, Wicklow, Tyrone, Antrim, Waterford.
Thus the population in towns, cities and counties petitioned against
that fatal measure, in spite of all terrors and opposition.
The Irish Commons coincided with them. Though a mere fictitious
representation, first as a result of the borough system , and secondly of
its election (a mere farce), for the annalist remarks: “through- con
sternation of some, and hostility of others, it had little more than the
formality of an election.** Yet the House of Commons had in 1799
rejected the Union by 111 to 105!
Corruption etc. in 1800

The English Government resumed the measure. Merciless profligacy.
Vote with us or vacate your seat! Open, flagitious bribery! The bribe
was administered in every form to wretches. Mr. Edgeworth relates that
he was offered to vacate a seat, that a more convenient person might be
elected in his place. Offices were granted simply, or divided among
many; pensions added; endless promises. The Church afforded a great
vent for the increase of prostitution; rectories and bishoprics were
granted thrice in succession to clerical friends of members, advocates
for the Union. The army and navy, boards and concessions, were
exposed at the Union mart; lawyers were to be advanced to the Bench,
by voting away the Parliament. Commoners were to be made Lords,
and Lords to be relorded with a superior title.
So numerous were the superadded placemen alone in the Commons,
that in the year of the Union 1800, 35 new writs were moved for the
re-election o f members, who had accepted places from England’s
Minister! The Lords, and the other borough fmongers] ,* of course,
obtained a grand division of the Union-bribe—£622,000 was voted in
the United Parliament in 1801, [as]* Compensation for the borough-
holders I Only £622,000 paid, as a first instalment, by the borough-
mongers of [England] * to the borough-mongers of Ireland!
Yet, after this overwhelming corruption, prompt payment, and
endless expectancy, a minority was opposed to the Union, in the first
[discussion],* in a House of Commons, of whom 84 only returned for
the counties, counties of cities, and the University, and 216 for
[boroughs].* A simple bribe disqualifies a member from sitting in
Parliament; and shall not such bribery, a small part of the corruption,
dismiss the Act of Union from the Statute-Book?
The Just Punishment of the Traitorous

Catholic Hierarchy
and the Few Higher
Class Catholics who Joined Them
Cornwallis (Pitt) had promised them full emancipation. Fulsome

address from the Catholic clergy and Bishop Lanigan from Kilkenny to
Cornwallis. Yet King George III, as will be seen from the following,
accepted the Union as a means to make no further concessions to the
Catholics. Pitt in 1801 handed in his resignation, on the pretext that
the King kept not his word as to Catholics. This was mere show. He
wanted not to be minister during truce with Bonaparte. He re-entered
afterwards the Ministry without stipulating any favour for Catholics.
George III, in his letters, published by Lord Kenyon, declares that
he was inclined to assent to the Union, believing that the Union would
for ever preclude any further Concessions to the Catholics.
His words in his letter to Pitt, February 1, 1801, are: “When the
Irish propositions were transmitted to me, by a joint message from both
Houses of Parliament, I told the Lords and Gentlemen, sent on that
occasion, that I would with pleasure, and without delay, forward them
to Ireland; but that, as individuals, I could not help acquainting them,
that my inclination to an Union with Ireland was principally founded
on a trust, that the uniting the established churches of the two king
* The manuscript is damaged here.—Ed.
230 KARL MARX
doms would for ever shut the door to any further measures with respect
to the Roman Catholics.”
On the Legality of the Union
The Attorney-GeneraTs Scott’s (afterwards Lord Clonmel, principal
agent of Pitt etc.) declaration of resisting the usurpation of England, in
1782, was repeated in 1800 , by two successive Attorney-Generals of
Ireland. Mr9 William Saurin, in his place in Parliament, declared that he
considered the Irish representatives incompetent to exact a legislative
Union; and that any statute, made by a Parliament, thus constituted,
would not be constitutionally binding on the Irish people. After becom
ing Attorney General, he never afterwards repeated his scepticism.
Mr. Plunket made the same declaration, but in rather stronger
terms, as he vouched for his son as well as himself; and soon after
became Attorney-General.
In every debate upon that measure, it was insisted upon that the
Parliament was incompetent, even to entertain the question of the
Union. So Saurin, Plunket (since Lord Chancellor), Sergeant Ball, the
ablest lawyer of Ireland, Fitzgerald, Prime-Serjeant of Ireland, Moore,
since a judge, Sir John Parnell, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Bushe, since Chief Justice, Lord Oriel, the then Speaker of the (Irish)
House of Commons.
January 1799. Irish House o f Commons. Plunket (Solicitor-General
for Ireland under the Addington Cabinet) declared: “I tell [you] * that
if, circumstanced as you are, you pass this Act, it will be a mere nullity,
and that no man in Ireland will be bound to obey it. ”
7 May, 1802, Forster declared in the United House of Commons
1802 that Castlereagh, in Ireland, had made use of public money for
the purpose of obtaining votes in favour of the Union.
Grey, May, 1806, House of Commons said that “ these votes for
Union were purchased by corruption ”.
“The ac[t of ] * borough-mongers and placemen is irrevocable,
against the Irish Nation! ” (Ensor.)
Opinions of English Liberals
and Radicals on the Union
Lord Holland: The English were injured (by the Union) particularly
by the means it affords to increased parliamentary corruption. This was
foreseen by Lord Holland, who, in debating the Union preparatory to
its enactment, said “ that it was incompatible with the opinions of all
those who wished for Parliamentary Reform”. ■
The Representative Irish Peers, thickening the ranks of the House
of Lords, have strengthened the prerogative. The whole peerage of
Ireland is a borough, o f which the King is Patron.
George Tierney said, speaking of the Union before it was enacted,
that it would ruin Great Britain. It has ruined both England and
Ireland. The subjugation of Ireland has made England’s people a mere
taxable commodity. Instead of the universal tranquillity, which
Canning promised, when advocating the Union, the Union was followed
by new and severe laws, extraordinary commissions, and unlimited
agitation. Ireland is mocked with some o f the minor forms o f freedom.
“Union of 1800 a ruin to the annexed, a torment to the annexing
nation.” (.Barrington.)
Cobbett. Political Register, 14 February, 1807, in con
nection with the “ Threshers” disturbances in West
Ireland,197 lays the following ironical words in the mouth of
an Irish exciseman:
“He had no doubt but with an entire repeal of the Habeas Corpus
Act, a due execution of the statutes for martial law, and the assistance
of 60,000 regular troops, Ireland would become a valuable dependence
to England, and produce so considerable a revenue, as to [be] able with
the aid of Sir John Newport, in borrowing 2 or 3 millions a year, very
nearly to pay the troops to keep the peace, the custom-house officers
to collect the revenues, and the salaries and pensions of the ‘friends of
government*.”
In connection with the Irish Insurrection Bill of 1807, which was
still in force in 1809:
Cobbett. Political Register, 9 December, 1809: “Angry with the
Irish', because—because what? Why, because their existence endangers
our safety ! Angry with them, because they are alive, and have a desire
to enjoy life! Sad dogs those Irishmen must be to desire to keep alive,
when to keep alive may be dangerous to ms! ”.... “We may, as I before
observed, be angry with the Irish, because about 5 millions o f them
continue to be alive, we may hate them and curse them; we may wish
their island sunk to the bottom of the sea; but, still they live, and live
they will”.... “It is, therefore, as useless to be angry with them as it
would be to be angry with thunder and lightning.”
Cobbett Political Register, 20 February, 1811:
“What an infamy to the English nation, who really seem to desire
to be deceived with regard to Ireland; but, whose silly and base desire
will be frustrated in spite of themselves; for hear and see and feel the
truth they must They may hide their heads in their hoods and cloaks
as long as they will; they may, as long as they please, pay impostors to
sooth their cowardly fears, but all will not do. Ireland! Ireland!
Ireland! will, maugre all their miserable devices, present herself to
, them in her true and formidable shape.”
Ensor. “Ireland with its foundations is pressed downward by the
accumulated burthens of England and her empire.” ([Ireland] pays five
millions now for absentees etc. to England.)
Curran: She (Ireland) “thought the circulation of the political
blood could be carried on only by the action of the heart within the
body, and could not be maintained from without ”. “The instruments
of our government have been almost simplified into the tax gatherer
232
and the hangman,99 With the Union: “all semblance of national
independence buried in that grave in which our legislation is interred,
our property, and our persons are disposed of by laws made in another
clime, and made like boots and shoes for exportation to fit the wearers
as they may, ... It was, in fact, the real design of a rash, and arbitrary,
and short-sighted projector at once to deprive you of all power, as to
your own taxation, and of another power of not very inferior import
ance, and which, indeed, is invariably connected with taxation, to rob
you of all influence upon the vital question of peace and war; and to
bring all within the control of an English minister. This very power,
thus acquired by that detested Union, has been a millstone about the
neck of England, From that hour to this she has been flaring away in
her ruinous and wasteful war.”! 9®
Ensor: “England paralysed at home and abroad.” Castlereagh,
advanced to be English minister by the Irish war. He taxed the English
nation with “an ignorant impatience of taxation”. “The whole House
of Commons is a labyrinth of pretension, imposture, falsehood,
injustice, and gloating corruption.... There is no shame, no regard to
facts, no respect for consequences, since the Union, in the English
Parliament,99
Morning Chronicle, 1828: “The hatred of the Union is the only
point, we believe, as to which all Irishmen are agreed. It has been an
unfortunate measure both for England and Ireland! 99
Petty said: “England has constantly lost, these 500 years, by the
meddling with Ireland.99
Loss to England
The Irish Members [brought an]
access o f venality and
corruption to the House of Commons. Increase of ministerial
usurpation.
“How the Irish Members precipitated themselves, when the
Manchester Massacre was to be justified by Castlereagh, the manager of
the Union! How they thronged to pass the 6 Acts! ”199 (Ensor)
“The French war strengthened the royal prerogative in England, as
it increased the means of expenditure, and the fonds o f corruption.
These effected the Union, and the Union multiplied every scheme of
rapine and prodigality.” (Ensor. )
Ireland—one of the pretexts for keeping a large standing
army.
By the Union, the military of one country, when transferred, are in
effect foreign mercenaries. War service in time-of peace.
English House o f Commons. “Increased members, and the increased
and multiform business in the House of Commons, have lessened the
attention of the great body of the members. The House of Commons,
before the Union of Scotland and England, consisted of 513 members.
A t this period the business of the nation preceded application to private
affairs. The legislature then met in the morning. The members were
fined if they absented themselves when the Speaker took the Chair, and
absence for a whole day was punished with an enhanced penalty. Now
the House consists of 658 members, yet not a 10th are present when
the Speaker takes the Chair on any day. Business is often transacted
when there is, technically, no House.” (Ensor. )
“Every acquisition o f a nation by a nation is injurious to the liberty
of both. The accessory country is a lapsed inheritance, while the people
who make the acquisition are submissive to their own rulers, lest they
might countenance any disturbance in the superadded nation; they
submit at home for a barren, often expensive, superiority abroad. This
the whole story of the Roman history ... as the world fell before the
Roman aristocracy, the Roman citizens were pauperised and enslaved.
Every impeachment of liberty in one country leads to its loss in ano
ther.” (Ensor. )
“Talk about revolutionary principles\ The Duke of Clarence,
afterwards William IV, called in 1793, an effort to abolish the slave
trade part of \we levelling principles of the French Revolution *.”
“Say not, then, that England will never consent to relieve Ireland
from the Union—repeat not that she will never be bullied or frightened.
The English are the sports of frights.... When Englishmen proclaim, we
will not be frightened: it is as the coward’s song, surprised by the
darkness of night The English not be frightened! ... England not to be
frightened by Ireland! The whole history of the connexion of the 2
countries betrays terror, paralysis, distraction. England’s numerous laws
against Ireland’s trade, manufatures, and commerce—against her people,
as a religious community, as a political society—prove that the fears of
England have neither measure nor lim it... Nay, their jealousy, their
suspicion, their alarm, confessedly induced them to force the Union on
Ireland, by which they ensured the evil they laboured to prevent.”
(Ensor. )
Confiscations in Ireland
Sir W. Petty says generally: “ most o f the lands o f Ireland have been,
within 150 years, forfeited ”.
In fact, all Ireland has been confiscated, three times, again and
again. On some occasions, such were the forfeitures, that the territory
on sale, from the glut of the market, fell to §§ of its former annual
Value. Lawrence mentions, “that from 1654-1660, not only the
adventurers and soldiers, but all persons who could command money,
traded in land, and thereby obtained better estates in one year than by
treble the sum they got ever before in 7 years’ traffic”.
This upsetting and dislocation of property, by force of arms, were
aggravated by wicked inquisitions, and the practices of the crown
234 KARL MARX
lawyers. When the head of a clan died, if the descent followed the Irish
custom, the land was forfeited: for this custom was repugnant to the
English code. [Yet if]* this land were distributed according to the
English law, that was reputed irregular: for it should have been
transmitted, said the lawyers, according to the Brehon law.** Thus the
land was forfeited either way, and the Crown became the sole heir. By
these means, whether in peace or alleged insurrection, property was
subjected to chicane, and the people systematically robbed. Sometimes
the people revolted, e.g. under Edward II and Charles 7.200 Harris
states the reasons of this last insurrection thus: “The preposterous
I rigour, and unreasonable severity—the covetous zeal and uncharitable
I fury of some men—and, lastly, the fear of utter extirpation.
The Scotch Union with England

Scotland and England are parts of the same island. But the popula
tion differed from that in England. In Scotland at that time there was
peace at home and abroad. There were only 3,000 troops in Scotland
(Defoe***). Again, when the Parliament of Scotland was to be elected,
the electors were apprised that they were to depute members to decide
respecting the Union of the two countries. When Union was first
proposed in the Scotch Parliament, 64 majority for Union. Scotland by
the Union secured for itself the republican form of Church government.
Presbyterianism became thus bv law the religion of the State. By the
Irish Union the religion of l/io of the people was declared to be the
State religion. The Act of Union declares this to be the law for ever.
Yet the repeal o f the Scotch Union in the English House o f Com
mons**** in 1713 was rejected by a majority of four voices.
[IRELAND FROM THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
TO THE UNION OF 1801.
Sum m ary] 201
I) From 1778 to 1782. (Legislative Independence)
(Catholics)
a) The Penal Code was up to 1778 in full vigour against
the Catholics.
State o f Irish Parliament in 18th century until American
** Brehon—an ancient Irish lawyer or judge; Brehoxi Law—the code
of law used in Ireland before its occupation by the English.—Ed.
*** D. Defoe, The History o f the Union o f Great Britain, Edinburgh,
1709.-JW.
**** Ensor has: House of Lords.—Ed.
War of Independence. Poynings’ Law (a statute o f Henry VII,
by his Attorney-General, Sir Edward Poynings). Statute 6,
George L
Only some opposition to England on commercial matters.
Influence of absentees. (Peers principally.)
b) 1778. Irish Parliament relaxes severity of the Penal
Codej Catholics were allowed to take teases o f land. This is a
consequence of the American war, and the treaty of France
with America (6 February, 1778).
c) Volunteer Organisation.
The Free Trade Movement.
First Concessions of England.
June 1778 commenced war with France. Summer 1779

King of Spain* accedes as ally to the United States and
France. Plymouth assailed by their united fleets (August
1779). Threatened invasion of England.
The Volunteers—armed Protestantism of Ireland. {(26
February, 1780: Armed Neutrality founded by Russia. )j In
1779 Ireland was left ungarrisoned.
The armed associations were at first local and provincial,
strongest in the North. First against invasion. Protestant
farmers rallied first under this cry. Catholics assisted. Soon
the cry of the Volunteers was: “Free trade8 (i.e. Free export)
and emancipation of Irish industry and commerce from the
shackles laid upon them by England (to free themselves
mercantilely and industrially). England suspends, prohibits
export of Irish manufactures, inundates the Irish market with
her own manufactures. Non-Importation and Non-Consump
tion Agreement. In the Volunteer movement association of
all ranks.
Sessions of the Irish House o f Commons 1779-80 under
this high popular pressure.
Grattan moves an amendment to the address, where we
find the following:
* *Charles III.—Ed.
236 KARL MARX
“constant drain to supply absentees, and the unfortunate prohibi
tion o f our trade”, demands to “open a free export trade”.
Amendment of Henry Burgh (the Prime Sergeant):
“that it is not by temporary expedients, that this nation is now to
be saved from impending ruin”.
Unanimously carried. The Volunteers rightly attributed
to themselves this success. Increase in their number and con-
fidence. Lord North supercilipus. Does nothing. Non
importation and Non-Consumption Act now general [cry]
in Ireland. Dublin (city) Resolutions. Dublin Volunteers
chose William, Duke of Leinster, for their Chief. Soon four
provincial armies are organised, Earl of Charlemont first com
mander-in-chief of the Ulster army, soon general commander-
in-chief
Free Trade became the watchword of the Volunteers.
James Napper Tandy at the head of Dublin Volunteer Artil
lery, with labels on the mouths of their cannon: “Free Trade
or Speedy R e v o lu tio n Meanwhile: 19 October, 1781,
Cornwallis capitulates at York Town, (Virginia).
30 November, 1782. Paris Preliminary Treaty between
the United States and England.
Lord North now frightened. America already lost.
English House o f Commons. 24 November, 1781. Speech
from the Throne. 25 November, 1781. British Parliament
meets, first Bills of concession receive royal assent.
2 December, 1781; In hot haste these laws restrictive o
commercial and manufactural restraint are now revoked, but
North tried, by considering them bit by bit, in longer
intervals, to get over the session of 1782 and do no more.
Now, on the contrary, the Irish Volunteers became aware
that under the pretext of making concessions the British
Parliament asserts its legislative authority over Ireland. Free
Parliament becomes now a watchword added to that of Free
Trade. Fourteen Irish counties at once avowed to establish, at
the risk of their lives and fortunes, the independence o f the
Irish Legislature.
Resolutions entered into by almost every military camp,
and every incorporate body, that they would no longer obey
any laws, save those, enacted by the Kings, Lords, and
Commons of Ireland.
At that time: Poynings* Statute subjected the Irish
Legislature to the British Attorney General and British
[Privy] Council 6, George I to the Statutes o f the British
Parliament and British Appellant Jurisdiction.
The standing army in Ireland was independent o f Parlia
ment, under the regulations of a British Statute, the Per
petual Mutiny Bill and hereditary Revenue ofcthe Crown.
The Judges of Ireland hold their offices only during the
will of the British Minister, and their salaries are barely suf
ficient to keep them above want
The Irish Parliament met but once in two years. In the
British Attorney-General was vested the superintendence of
their proceedings, in the British Privy Council the alteration
and rejection of their Statutes. Want of Protection for Per
sonal Liberty in Ireland; no Habeas Corpus Act.
9 October, 1781. Irish House o f Commons. Resolution of
vote of thanks for the Volunteers, for their exertions, and
Continuance. [Passed] unanimously.
These brought down the British Government to the feet
of the Volunteers—self-armed, self-governed, self-disciplined
Associations; by this time they exceeded in number the
whole regular military force of the British Empire. Now re
gular and public deliberative meetings o f the Volunteers. Ca
tholic bodies entered the Volunteer army, officered by Pro
testants. Cry: “that their connection with England was only
federative. The repeal o f 6, George I was demanded.
The armed associations of Ulster first appointed delegates
to declare their sentiments in a general Assembly. Convention
at Dungannon, 15 February, 1782. It agreed upon the
celebrated Declaration of Rights and Grievances. Delegates of
25,000 Ulster soldiers.
The Convention resolves to appoint nine of their memb
ers to act as a Committee at Dublin, to communicate with
the other Volunteer Associations, deliberate with them on
carrying the Dungannon Resolutions into effect. In every
Volunteer Corps of Ireland the Dungannon Resolutions were
accepted.
Pressure of this on the Irish House o f Commons. Its ses
sions were biennial, and, consequently, their grants for the
Government for two years at once. They now resolved on
238 KARL MARX
granting supplies to the Crown for six months only. This had
its effect.
c) Declaration of Irish Independence
The proceedings of Irish voluntary bodies and corporate
bodies [became] every day more serious and decisive, the
tone in the House of Commons more menacing. Lord North
was no longer possible.
April 1782. The Marquis of Rockingham Cabinet (James
Fox in it). Duke o f Portland, nominated Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, arrives at Dublin 14 April, 1782, had to meet the
Irish Parliament on 16 April.
Message of George III to the British Parliament, 18 April,
1782, wherein the necessity is expressed
“to come to a final adjustment with Ireland”.
The British House of Commons express their full con
currence.
House of Commons, 16 April, 1782. Portland had wanted
to procrastinate, Grattan communicated to him that this was
impossible without provoking anarchy. Hely-Hutchinson,
Lord Lieutenant had ordered him to communicate the King’s
message for “a final adjustment”. Grattan *samendment of the
address in reply affirming Ireland to be a
“distinct kingdom with a Parliament o f her own the sole legislature
thereof ” etc.
G. Ponsonby (on behalf of Portland) seconded this.
Unanimously passed. Strictly before and after this scene firm
Resolutions of the Volunteer Corps. Their firmness achieved
this Revolution (even Fitzgibbon and John Scott, afterwards
Lord Clonmel, on 16 April, 1782, frightened into patriot
ism). Immediately after this Portland sends two despatches to
England, one public, the other private and confidential to
Fox, as to the necessity of yielding (ascertaining at the same
time that he would act on the Volunteers through Charle-
mont, on the House of Commons through the dissension of
Flood and Grattan).
Irish Parliament prorogued for three weeks, to wait on
the King's Answer.
Meanwhile public reviews of the Volunteers (then
100,000 effectives); nearly 1/3 of the whole English Army,
moreover, are Irish; many sailors ditto.
Irish House of Commons meets: 27 May, 1782: Quasi
Throne Speech of Portland. Will concede to all demands,
British Parliament ready; King gives his Royal Assent to acts
to prevent the suppression o f Bills in the Rrivy Council of the
Kingdom, limits the Army A ct (Mutiny Bill) to two years.
(Besides much soft-sawder.) Grattan fool, address of thanks.
“The British Government had given up every claim to authority
over Ireland” (he says), “that we conceive the resolution for an un
qualified repeal o f 6, George I to be a measure of consummate
wisdom”, • that no constitutional question between the two nations
will any longer exist. ”
Grattan's Address carried (only two votes against).
Bagenal proposes to appoint a committee determine the sum
to be voted by the nation to Grattan.
The Britishers are frightened. Precipitantly Bills enacted
for making the concessions to Ireland. 6, George I repealed
by the British Parliament, obtains sanction of King, is instant
ly transmitted to the Irish Viceroy, by him communicated to
all the Volunteer Corps.
Irish House of Commons, 30 May, 1782. Bagenal’s
proposition for Grattan is repeated. Portland offers him, as
part of the intended grant, on the part of the Crown, the
“ Vice-Regal Palace in the Phenix Park”, the King’s best
palace in Ireland. Of course refused. Grattan got from the
House of Commons £50,000.
II) From 1782

(since the Declaration of Independence)
to 1795
a) 1782-83. (REFORM BILL DEFEATED.
VOLUNTEERS HUMBLED)
Some small measures to relax the severity of the Penal Code
against Catholics. Opposed by bigots and Castle influence. It
was passed however. The concessions were very limited.
240 KARL MARX
At length Fox himself declared in the British Parliament that
“the repeal of that Statute” (6, George I) “could not stand alone, must
be accompanied by a. final adjustment99 “treaty, to be adopted by both
Parliaments, to be entered upon ... to finally become an irrevocable
arrangement between the 2 countries99.
By this the Viceroy’s duplicity was exploded, Grattan’s
stupidity exposed, Flood is now still feebly supported in the
House of Commons, but strongly by the Volunteers.
19 July, 1782. Flood moves leave to bring in a Bill of the
ascertaining of Irish legislative etc. independence. Even leave
to bring in this Bill was negatived without a division. (Grat
tan! )
27 July, 1782. Irish Parliament. Prorogued by Portland.
In his proroguing speech: “inviolable adherence to that
compact etc.”
Marquis of Rockingham died 1782. Fox-North Coalition.
Portland superseded by Earl o f Temple (later Marquis of
Buckingham). His Chief Secretary Mr., afterward Lord Gren
ville. His Administration from 15 September, 1782-3 June,
1783.
More than 150,000 Volunteers are now on the Muster?
rolls. Strong Accession to them o f Catholics. They resolved
no longer to obey or suffer to be obeyed any law or statute
passed in England for Ireland. Hence standstill. Magistrates,
counsels acted ditto. Juries would not find for them. Action
of many important laws suspended.
Parliament was divided between Flood and Grattan. The
latter (Whigspelt) always in majority. The British Administra
tion resolved to foster the division o f the nation thus created.
Baffled by injudicious conduct o f some Members o f the
British Parliament.
Sir G. Young in the British House o f Commons. Lord
Mansfield in the Court of King’s Bench. Lord Abingdon in
the House o f Lords.
The Volunteers beat to arms throughout Ireland. Above
120,000. Flood has the upper hand amongst-them. New panic
of the British Ministry.
1783. 23 Act of George III. All right o f legislative inter
ference on the part of the British Parliament, and appellant
jurisdiction in England, repudiated. Without debate passed.
This British Renunciation A ct discredited the Irish Parlia
ment with the Irish People. Showed either its insufficiency or
corruption, or would have been superfluous. Reform of the
Irish Parliament now the cry.
Irish Parliament. Rotten Borough System. Members of
the House of Commons were nominated by individuals,
especially Peers, who were nominated by the King, voted by
proxy in House of Commons. Membership purchased by
money and its exercise sold for office. These purchases were
also made by servants of the Executive Government. The
Volunteers had the facts sifted etc. one Peer nominated nine
Commoners etc. Only 1/4 of the members were freely elected
by the people. A new Delegates Assembly of Volunteers in
Dungannon. 10 November, 1783 was proclaimed for the first
sitting of the Grand National Convention of Ireland at
Dublin. The Rotunda was to be the place of their meeting.
The British Ministers knew that if [there was a] Reform in
Ireland [it] could not be withheld from England. Then com
mercial jealousy of England. Charlemont President by
trickery. A plan of Reform was passed, to be brought into
the House of Commons by Flood. Sittings of the Convention
were made permanent till an answer [was received] .
The Government refused leave to bring in Flood's Bill,
because it had originated from armed deliberation.
The Government knew that the triumph of the Parlia
ment implied not only the destruction of the Convention,
but of the Volunteers. The Bill was rejected by 158 to 49.
158 of the majority were placemen, as in 1800. Address to
the King, offending the Volunteers, was carried. Charlemont
adjourns the Convention by tricks. Now struggle between the
bigots (Charlemont) and Emancipation (Catholic) amongst
the Volunteers and the People. (Earl Bristol, Bishop o f Derry
for full emancipation. Address in that sense by Belfast
Volunteers.) Foolish Charlemont made new “civil”, not
military “Bill of Reform” to be introduced in House of
Commons. Of course rejected. Now begins the period of
moderate parliamentarism. The Volunteers survived the
blows for some years, but were decaying. The Whig Orators
(Grattan etc.) lost ground and influence.
KARL MARX
b) FROM THE END OF 1783 TO 1791.

(FOUNDATION OF THE UNITED IRISH)
December 1783, Pitt Minister. Duke o f Rutland Viceroy.
Orde Minister. Rutland died October 1787.
DUKE OF RUTLAND VICEROY. (ORDE CHIEF
SECRETARY.) December 1783-October 1787.
In the House of Commons repeated useless attempts at
Reform.
Orde’s Commercial Propositions.
May, 1784. Griffith proposes a House of Commons
inquiry into the commercial intercourse between Ireland and
Great Britain, he wanted Irish trade to be protected against
English competition. The Government took that proposal out
of his hands.
7 February, 1785. Orde announced, and on 11 February,
1785 moved 11 Propositions on Trade. This plan proffered as
a boon of reciprocity. This favour was paid for by £140,000
new taxes.
22 February, 1785. Pitt moved 20 Resolutions in the
British House of Commons. Amended in the English sense.
Then sent to Ireland. Half the globe interdicted to Irish ships
and interdicts laid on Irish goods. The whole Custom-House
Legislation was taken away from Ireland etc. (See p. 22)*
Irish House of Commons. On 15 August, 1785, after
different previous stormy sittings, Orde had to abandon the
Bill for the session, for ever. Orde9s Propositions merged into
a secret design for the Union.
11 August, 1785. Curran had threatened with opposi
tion, “not only by words".
12 August, 1785. Curran:
“the Bill portends a surrender o f the Constitution and Liberties of
Ireland
Irish House of Commons. 14 Feburary, 1785. Bill for
raising Militia. Against the Volunteers. (£20,000 for the
Militia.)
* Here and further on Marx refers to the main section of his
manuscript (see pp. 199-200 of this book). —Ed.
1784 renewed effort for Reform. Henry Reilly, Sheriff of
the County of Dublin, in consequence of a requisition,
summoned his bailiwick etc. for the 25 October 1784, to
elect members for a national congress. For this he was
attached by the King's Bench, on a Crown Motion.
24 February, 1785 Brownlow moved a vote o f censure on
the judges of that Court, for the attadjpnent. Rejected by
143 to 71.
The endeavour to regain by corruption what was surrend
ered to force, began in 1782, and increased greatly after the
defea t o f Orde ys Prop ositions.
Irish House o f Commons 13 March, 1786. Forbes moves
to limit the amount of Pensions. This failed.
12 March, 1787. Forbes renewed his Bill. Failed again.
No Ministerial Responsibility in Ireland.
Irish House of Commons January 19, 1787. Outrages in
the South, caused by misery of the people, from tithes, rents,
absenteeism, bad tenures, harsh treatment etc. (Since the end
of 1791, United Irishmen, Political Parties united themselves
with the peasants, the Republicans of the North.)
1786 in the Lord Lieutenant's Opening Speech he
referred to “frequent outrages” in the South, “Right Boys”
of Kilkenny. Yet the only Bill, brought in by Government,
was the Dublin Police Bill, against which the City of Dublin
petitioned.
1787, Viceroy's speech on this subject much more
positive. Fitzgibbon accused the landlords of grinding the
people, and abetting the disturbances against the clergy, and
asked for more powers.
19 January, 1787. Fitzgibbon said the disturbances
commenced in Kerry etc. “Captain Right”. Spread then
through Munster etc. Their object the tithes, then to regulate
the price of lands, raise the price of labour, oppose the collec
tion of hearth-money and other taxes.
Curran during the debates:
“You may talk o f commerce expanding ... but what, in God’s name,
have they to do with the wretched peasantry? ”
19 February, 1787. Right Boys' Bill. Bill committed by 192
against 31. By it Riot Act, introduced from England, passed.
244 KARL MARX
20 February,. 1787: Proposed to limit the Bill to Cork,
Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary. Motion lost without a division.
This Bill [prescribes] capital punishment for tendering an
oath etc.
13 March, 1787. Tithes. Grattan moved, that if tranquilli
ty was restored, at the opening of the next session, the House
would consider the Tithe Question. Motion lost, without a
division. English Secretary declared
“he was a stranger to the distress” and would “never have it con
sidered by the Parliament”.
This Riot Act to be enforced by the very same landed
proprietors whom Fitzgibbon had accused of grinding the
peasant and instigating him against the clergy.
Marquis o f Buckingham (formerly Earl of Temple)
second time Viceroy. 16 December, 1737-5 January, 1790.
(Orde Secretary! ) (Fitzherbert Chief Secretary.)
Influence o f the French Revolution of 1789 commences
during this period.
Irish House o f Commons. 21 April, 1789. Disfranchise
ment of Excise Officers’ Bill. Rejected by 148 to 93.
25 April, 1789: Dublin Police Motion
“attended with waste, and useless patronage”. Rejected by 132 to 87.
Regency Bill, 1789. George III mad for some time, this
was concealed, at the end of 1788 it could no longer be hid.
In the Ministers’ draft of the address in answer to Lord
Buckingham they praised themselves.
6 February, 1789 Grattan moved an Amend
ment. ([People] believed that Fox would become Premier
Minister under the Prince of Wales.) Carried without a
division.
11 February, 1789 The Ministers tried to postpone divi
sion on the Regency; their avowed motive to know the
Resolutions of the British Parliament (appointing Prince
Regent with limited powers). (These resolutions passed in
England on 23 January, accepted by Prince 31 January, but
had not yet reached the Irish Government.) Postponement
was refused. The Prince was nominated Prince Regent of
Ireland with unlimited Powers. Passed without division.

12 February, 1789, Conolly moves address, February 17
concurrence of Lords, 19 February presented to Buckin
gham. Refused to transmit it, 20 February, Deputation to
Prince appointed. Vote of Censure against Buckingham. 21
February, 1789. Deputation (of the Commons) send them
letter with “warmest thanks” of the Pfince, 20 March, 1789 a
still more fervent letter of the Prince to the Irish House of
Commons on recovery of his father’s health.
ADMINISTRATION OF JOHN FANE, EARL OF WESTMORELAND
(CHIEF SECRETARY HOBART,
AFTERWARDS EARL OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE)
(5 JANUARY, 1 7 9 0 -4 JANUARY, 1795)
House o f Commons 4 February, 1790. Stamp-officers
Salaries (Proposed to cut them down and regulate them.
Rejected by 141 to 81.) (Curran in his speech alludes to the
French Revolution.)
11 February, 1790. Forbes moves an address describing
and censuring several recent pensions. Rejected by 136to 92.
Curran states, afterwards (speech in the House of
Commons, February 12, 1791).
“During the whole of the session of 1790, we have, in the name of
the people of Ireland, demanded from them the Constitution o f Great
Britain, and it has been uniformly denied. We would have passed a law
to restrain the shameful profusion o f a pension-list—it was refused by a
majority. We would have passed a law to exclude persons, who must
ever be the chattels of the government, from sitting in this House.
Refused by a Majority. A bill to make some person, resident among
you, and therefore amenable to public justice, responsible for the acts
o f your governors ... refused. This uniform denial... proof to the People
o f Ireland, that the imputation of corrupt practices is founded in
fact.”
Disputed Election of Lord Mayor in Dublin (1790)

Citizens of Dublin pledged themselves to elect no one as
Lord Mayor or Member of Parliament for the city, who held
a place or pension from the Government.
246 KARL MARX
16 April, 1790. Aldermen choose Alderman James, a
Police Commissioner, Lord Mayor for the ensuing year.
Rejected by the Common Council, ditto seven other names.
They elected Alderman Howison (Napper Tandy led the
popular party). Aldermen re-elect James. Before the Privy
Council. It orders new election. Same farce repeated.
10 July, 1790. Curran pleads before Privy Council for
Howison. Privy Council for James, who resigns on 5 August,
1790. Howison chosen by the Aldermen.
16 July, 1790. Napper Tandy in the Common Council
carried Resolutions censuring the Privy Council, and the
Aldermen, and summoned a meeting of freemen and
freeholders at the Exchange. Adjourned to 3 August to draw
up State of Facts, which was done accordingly.
24 July: Whig Club [passed] similar Resolutions. Their
quarrel with Fitzgibbon.*
Insurrectionary outrages at Dublin on Camden’s arrival.
Fitzwilliam’s recall a triumph for the Separation party. Irish
Republic soon became the object of the United Irishmen and
of the bulk of the Presbyterians of Down, Antrim, Tyrone,
joined by multitudes of Catholics and Protestants in Leinster.
The Catholics of the North were Defenders or Ribbonmen.
Irish House of Commons 4 May, 1795. Second Reading
of the Emancipation Bill Rejected by 155 to 84. [An Insur
rection Bill was passed etc., a law allowing the Lord
Lieutenant to proclaim counties; magistrates obtained power
of breaking into houses, and transporting to the navy all
whom they suspected. Indemnity for magistrates guilty of
illegality—giving the Lord Lieutenant power of arrest without
bail—licensing the introduction of foreign troops (German),
establishing the Yeomanry Corps. ]
Irish House of Commons 3 February, 1796. Indemnity
B ill
25 February, 1796. Insurrection Bill. {Right of arbitrary
transportation to serve in the navy given to magistrates.}
Curran:
| ‘bill for the rich, and against the poor”.
* Page 9 of the manuscript is missing.—Ed.
Since end of March 1796 whole counties of Ireland

proclaimed.
13 October, 1796. French war. (Hoche was just assembl
ing at Brest, and Wolfe Tone, Grouchy, and a part of the
expedition, reached Ban try Bay on the 22 December.; left it
only the 28.)
Camden opens Parliament. Resistance to*France (Inva
sion! ) and “popular passion and public opinion
Curran. The Government has instigated persecution of
Catholics, for two years they were murdered etc. in one of
the counties. Ponsonby’s Amendment to the Address was
rejected by 149 to 12. Then the Bill (of the Attorney
General) was passed, the Bill to empower the Lord Lieute
nant to take up and detain all such persons, as were suspected
of treasonable practices etc. It was read many times, once or
twice committed for the morrow.
14 October, 1796. Suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act.
17 October, 1796. Catholic Emancipation Bill rejected.
6 January, 1797. Hoche*s Expedition. Pelham brings
down message of Viceroy for new war taxes.
24 February, 1797. Internal Defence. Yeomanry Infantry
etc. (p. 38)*
18 March, 1797. Disarming of Ulster. Message of
Camden. (Proclamation of General Lake. Belfast. 13 March.)
15 May, 1797. Curran, Grattan etc. secede from the
House.
3 July, 1797. House adjourned. Castlereagh Chief
Secretary.
14 October, 1797. O n hanged for having administered
the oath of the United Irishmen to a private soldier (proven
only by an informer etc.)
May, 1795, Organisation of Ulster (United Irishmen)
completed. In the autumn of 1796 it was made military in
Ulster. Towards the middle of 1797, this system spread to
Leinster. Only 19 February, 1798 the Executive of the
United Irishmen resolved
* See p p. 216-17.—Ed.
248 KARL MARX
| ‘that they would not be diverted from their purpose by anything which
could be done in Parliament”.
(Lose time for action.) March 1798 Arthur O’Connor
arrested, at Maidstone, in the act of embarking for France; 12
March, Oliver Bond, McCann etc. at Oliver Bond’s warehouse,
D ublin. Shortly afterwards McNevin, Thomas Emmet,
Sampson. New Directory. John Sheares one of its [memb
ers] . 19 May, just four days before the insurrection was to
take place, Lord Fitzgerald pounced upon, 21 May the two
Sheares. Thus the insurrection began without its designers to
lead it.}
23 May, 1798 the insurrection commenced (Dublin), 17
July, Lord Castlereagh announced its final defeat.
Treason trials were held in February and March 1798
before the beginning o f the insurrection. Free quarters. Slow
tortures, under the pretence of forcing confessions etc.
Summary executions. A t the outbreak of the insurrection
martial law was proclaimed.
25 July, 1798. Negotiations of leaders from gaol with th
Government. Settled 29 July. (Released only by peace of
Amiens, 1802! )
Pitt's Plan to Enforce and Provoke the Rebellion

(p. 41 sqq.)*
1598-99. Elizabeth ( Mountjoy and Carew); same
1798-99.
Earl of Carhampton. General Abercromby.
United Irishmen and Pitt. Prussia and the Poles.
Castlereagh boasted that he had made the conspiracy
explode. He charged the mine as well as fired it.
Pitt 1795 and 1797 opposed debates for pacification of
Ireland in the British Parliament on the pretext that it was an
encroachment on Irish independence.
* See pp. 220-22.-Ed.
LORD CORNWALLIS GOVERNMENT. UNION
Pitt, Castlereagh, Cornwallis. (19 October, 1781 Corn
wallis's Capitulation at York Town, Virginia.)
Cornwallis wants terror to carry the Union.
Happy accident for him:
22 August, 1798, about 1,000 Frendh, under Humb
ert, entered Killala Bay, they carried Castlebar on 27
August.
8 September, surrendered at Ballinamuck. (Hardy's
flotilla taken on 11 October with Tone, who died on 19
November.)
Revival of horrors.
40,000 troops in Ireland. Martial Law continuing (it was
constantly renewed, and discontinued in 1801).
House of Commons 22 January, 1799, legislative Union
was first proposed in the Speech from the Throne (the debate
lasted 22 hours, until the morning o f 23 January). The
Government obtained a majority of one, by the open sale of
a certain Fox, a lawyer.
The second debate, at 5 o'clock on 23 January, 1799,
lasted till the morning of 24. The Government was defeated.
I l l members decided against Union, 105 for. (Voters 216,
Absent 84.)
The Lords Spiritual and Temporal use this House of Com
mons’ Opposition to get money etc. out of the Government,
stipulated for their sale.
Cornwallis bamboozles the Catholic Bishops; their dis
gusting subserviency.
Petitions, Addresses, Dubliners fired into for their rejoic
ings.
5 and 6 February 1800 Union accepted by the Irish
House o f Commons. There is still a minority of 115 of a total
of 273 votes. In the interval between the old and the new
Parliament corruption broadcast (pp. 48, 49*).
Castlereagh's shameless measure.
The House of Commons was surrounded by a British
Regiment.
* See pp. 226-27—Ed.
250 KARL MARX
Castlereagh palpably purchased 25 members before the

second division in 1800, which made a difference of 50 votes
in favour of the Government. Thus Pitt and Castlereagh
carried the Union.
Published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to

Collected Works, second the manuscript
Russian ed., Vol. 45, (written partly in
Moscow, 1975 English and partly in
German). The German
passages have been
translated from the
original
Karl Marx
[ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IRISH QUESTION
(Record of the Speech. From the Minutes
of the General Council Meeting of December 14, 1869)]
Cit. Marx proposed that the Council at its rising should

adjourn to January 4th. He said it would not be advisable to
discuss the Irish during the holiday weeks when the attend
ance of members might be small.202 He considered the solu
tion of the Irish question as the solution of the English, and
the English as the solution of the European.
The proposition was agreed to.

The General Council o f the of the book
First International. 1868-1870.
Minutes, Moscow
Karl Marx
From CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION203
4) Question of separating the General Council from th

Federal Council for England.
Long before the foundation of L ’Egalite, this proposition
used to be made periodically inside the General Council by
one or two of its English members.204 It was always rejected
almost unanimously.
Although revolutionary initiative will probably come
from France, England alone can serve as the lever for a
serious economic revolution. It is the only country where
there are no more peasants and where land property is con
centrated in a few hands. It is the only country where the
capitalist form, i.e., combined labour on a large scale under
capitalist masters, embraces virtually the whole of produc
tion. It is the only country where the great majority o f the
population consists of wages labourers. It is the only country
where the class struggle and organisation of the working class
by the Trades Unions have acquired a certain degree of
maturity and universality. It is the only country where,
because of its domination on the world market, every revolu
tion in economic matters must immediately affect the whole
world. If landlordism and capitalism are classical examples in
England, on the other hand, the material conditions for their
destruction are the most mature here. The General Council
now being in the happy position of having its hand directly
on this great lever of proletarian revolution, what folly, we
might say even what a crime, to let this lever fall mto purely
English hands!
The English have all the material prerequisites necessary
CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION 253
for the social revolution. What they lack is the spirit of
generalisation and revolutionary fervour. Only the General
Council can provide them with this, can thus accelerate the
truly revolutionary movement here, and in consequence,
everywhere. The great effect we have already had is attested
to by the most intelligent and influential of the newspapers
of the ruling classes, as, e.g., Pall Mall Oazette, Saturday
Review, Spectator and Fortnightly Review, not to speak of
the sq-called radicals in the Commons and the Lords who a
little while ago still exerted a big influence on the leaders of
the English workers. They accuse us publicly of having
poisoned and almost extinguished the English spirit of the
working class and of having pushed it into revolutionary
socialism.
The only way to bring about this change is to agitate like
the General Council of the International Association. As the
General Council we can initiate measures (e.g., the founding
of the Land and Labour League^05) which as a result of their
execution will later appear to the public as spontaneous
movements of the English working class.
If a Regional Council were formed outside of the General
Councily what would be the immediate effects?
Placed between the General Council and the General
Trades Union Council, the Regional Council would have no
authority. On the other hand, the General Council of the
International would lose this great lever. If we preferred the
showman’s chatter to serious action behind the scenes, we
would perhaps commit the mistake of replying publicly to
L ’Egalite9s question, why the General Council permits “such
a burdensome combination of functions”.
England cannot be treated simply as a country along with
other countries. She must be treated as the metropolis of
capital.
5) Question o f the General Council Resolution on the
Irish Amnesty.
If England is the bulwark of landlordism and European
capitalism, the only point where one can hit official England
really hard is Ireland.
In the first place, Ireland is the bulwark of English land
lordism. If it fell in Ireland it would fall in England. In
254 KARL MARX
Ireland this is a hundred times easier since the economic
struggle there is concentrated exclusively on landed property,
since this struggle is at the same time national, and since the
people there are more revolutionary and exasperated than in
England. Landlordism in Ireland is maintained solely by the
English army. The moment the forced union between the
two countries ends, a social revolution will immediately
break out in Ireland, though in outmoded forms. English
landlordism would not only lose a great source of wealth, but
also its greatest moral force, i.e., that of representing the
domination of England over Ireland. On the other hand, by
maintaining the power of their landlords in Ireland, the
English proletariat makes them invulnerable in England itself.
In the second place, the English bourgeoisie has not only
exploited the Irish poverty to keep down the working class in
England by forced immigration of poor Irishmen, but it has
also divided the proletariat into two hostile camps. The
revolutionary fire of the Celtic worker does not go well with
the nature of the Anglo-Saxon worker, solid, but slow. On
the contrary, in all the big industrial centres in England there
is profound antagonism between the Irish proletariat and the
English proletariat. The average English worker hates the
Irish worker as a competitor who lowers wages and the
standard of life. He feels national and religious antipathies for
him. He regards him somewhat like the poor whites of the
Southern States of North America regard their black slaves.
This antagonism among the proletarians of England is arti
ficially nourished and supported by the bourgeoisie. It knows
that this scission is the true secret of maintaining its power.
This antagonism is reproduced 9n the other side of the
Atlantic. The Irish, chasea from their native soil by the bulls
and the sheep, reassemble in North America where they con
stitute a huge, ever-growing section of the population. Their
only thought, their only passion, is hatred for England. The
English and American governments (or the classes they
represent) play on these feelings in order to perpetuate the
covert struggle between the United States and England. They
thereby prevent a sincere and lasting alliance between the
workers on both sides of the Atlantic, and consequently,
their emancipation.
CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION 255
Furthermore, Ireland is the only pretext the English
Government has for retaining a big standing army, which, if
need be, as has happened before, can be used against the
English workers after having done its military training in
Ireland.
Lastly, England today is seeing a repetition of what
happened on a monstrous scale in Ancient Ronê. Any nation
that oppresses another forges its own chains.
Thus, the attitude of the International Association to the
Irish question is very clear. Its first need is to encourage the
social revolution in England. To this end a great blow must
be struck in Ireland.
The General Council’s resolutions on the Irish amnesty
serve only as an introduction to other resolutions which will
affirm that, quite apart from international justice, it is a
precondition to the emancipation of the English working
class to transform the present forced union (i.e., the enslave
ment of Ireland) into equal and free confederation if pos
sible, into complete separation if need be .2®6
Written by Marx about Printed according to the text

March 28, 1870 of the document “The General
Published in the journal Council to the Federal Council
Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 2, of Romance Switzerland” in
Nr. 15, 1902 The General Council o f the
Minutes, Moscow
Translated from the French
Karl Marx
THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT
AND THE FENIAN PRISONERS207
London, February 21, 1870

I
The silence which is observed in the European press con

cerning the disgraceful acts committed by this oligarchical
bourgeois government is due to a variety of reasons. Firstly,
the English Government is rich and the press, as you know, is
immaculate. Moreover, the English Government is the model
government, recognised as such by the landlords, by the
capitalists on the Continent and even by Garibaldi (see his
book208): consequently we should not revile this ideal
government. Finally, the French Republicans are narrow
minded and selfish enough to reserve all their anger for the
Empire. It would be an insult to free speech to inform their
fellow countrymen that in the land of bourgeois freedom
sentences of 20 years hard labour are given for offences
which are punished by 6 months in prison in the land of
barracks. The following information on the treatment of
Fenian prisoners has been taken from English journals:
Mulcahy, sub-editor of the newspaper The Irish People,209
sentenced for taking part in the Fenian conspiracy, was
harnessed to a cart loaded with stones with a metal band
round his neck at Dartmoor.
O’Donovan Rossa, owner of The Irish People, was shut
up for 35 days in a pitch-black dungeon with his hands tied
behind his back day and night. They were not even untied to
allow him to eat the miserable slops which were left for him
on the earthen floor.
Kickham, one of the editors of The Irish People, although
he was unable to use his right arm because of an abscess, was
forced to sit with his fellow prisoners on a heap of rubble in
ENGLISH GOVERNMENT AND FENIAN PRISONERS 257
the November cold and fog and break up stones and
bricks with his left hand. He returned to his cell at night
and had nothing to eat but 6 ounces of bread' and a pint of
hot water.
0 Leary, an old man of sixty or seventy who was sent to
prison, was put on bread and water for three weeks because
he would not renounce paganism (this, agparently, is what a
jailer called free thinking) and become either Papist, Prot
estant, Presbyterian or even Quaker, or t% ake up one of the
many religions which the prison governor offered to the
heathen Irish.
Martin H. Carey is incarcerated in a lunatic asylum at
Millbank. The silence and the other bad treatment which he
has received have made him lose his reason.
Colonel Richard Burke is in no better condition. One of
his friends writes that his mind is affected, he has lost his
memory and his behaviour, manners and speech are those of
a madman.
The political prisoners are dragged from one prison to the
next as if they were wild animals. They are forced to keep
company with the vilest knaves; they are obliged to clean the
pans used by these wretches, to wear the shirts and flannels
which have previously been worn by these criminals, many of
whom are suffering from the foulest diseases, and to wash in
the same water. Before the arrival of the Fenians at Portland
all the criminals were allowed to talk with their visitors. A
visiting cage was installed for the Fenian prisoners. It consists
of three compartments divided by partitions of thick iron
bars; the jailer occupies the central compartment and the
prisoner and his friends can only see each other through this
double row of bars.
In the docks you can find prisoners who eat all sorts of
slugs, and frogs are considered dainties at Chatham. General
Thomas Burke said he was not surprised to find a dead mouse
floating in the soup. The convicts say that it was a bad day
for them when the Fenians were sent to the prisons. (The
prison regime has become much more severe.)
9 -2 2 6
258 KARL MARX
I should like to add a few words to these extracts.
Last year Mr. Bruce, the Home Secretary, a great liberal,
great policeman and great mine owner in Wales who cruelly
exploits his workers, was questioned on the bad treatment of
Fenian prisoners and O’Donovan Rossa in particular. At first
he denied everything, but was later compelled to confess.
Following this Mr. Moore, an Irish member in the House of
Commons, demanded an enquiry into the facts. This was
flatly refused by the radical ministry of which the head is
that demigod Mr. Gladstone (he has been compared to Jesus
Christ publicly) and that old bourgeois demagogue, John
Bright, is one of the most influential members.
The recent wave of reports concerning the bad treatment
of the Fenians led several members of Parliament to request
Mr. Bruce for permission to visit the prisoners in order to be
able to verify the falseness of these rumours. Mr. Bruce
refused this permission on the grounds that the prison
governors were afraid that the prisoners would be too excited
by visits of this kind.
Last week the Home Secretary was again submitted to
questioning. He was asked whether it was true that O’Dono-
van Rossa received corporal punishment (i.e., whipping) after
his election to Parliament as the member for Tipperary.210
The Minister confirmed that he had not received such treat
ment since 1868 (which is tantamount to saying that the
political prisoner had been given the whip over a period of
two to three years).
I am also sending you extracts (which we are going to
publish in our next issue) concerning the case of Michael
Terbert, a Fenian sentenced as such to forced labour, who
was serving his sentence at Spike Island Convict Prison in the
county of Cork, Ireland. You will see that the coroner him
self attributes this man’s death to the torture which was
inflicted on him. This investigation was held last week.
In the course of two years more than twenty Fenian
workers have died or gone insane thanks to the philanthropic
natures of these honest bourgeois souls, backed by the honest
landlords.
You are probably aware that the English press professes a
chaste distaste for the dreadful general security laws which
grace “la belle France”. With the exception of a few short
intervals, it is security laws which formed the Irish Charter.
Since 1793 the English Government has taken advantage of
any pretext to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act (which
guarantees the liberty of the individual)211 regularly and
periodically, in fact all laws, except that of brute force. In
this way thousands of people have been arrested in Ireland on
being suspected o f Fenianism without ever having been tried,
brought before a judge or court, or even charged. Not con
tent with depriving them of their liberty, the English Govern
ment has had them tortured in the most savage way imagin
able. The following is but one example.
One of the prisons where persons suspected of being
Fenians were buried alive is Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. The
prison inspector, Murray, is a despicable brute who maltreat
ed the prisoners so cruelly that some of them went mad. The
prison doctor, an excellent man called M*Donnell (who also
played a creditable part in the enquiry into Michael Terbert’s
death), spent several months writing letters of protest which
he addressed in the first instance to Murray himself. When
Murray did not reply he sent accusing letters to higher
authorities, but being an expert jailer Murray intercepted
these letters.
Finally M’Donnell wrote directly to Lord Mayo who was
then Viceroy of Ireland. This was during the period when the
Tories were in power (Derby and Disraeli). What effect did
his actions have? The documents relating to the case were
published by order of Parliament and ... Dr. M’Donnell
was dismissed from his post! ! ! Whereas Murray retained
his.
Then the so-called radical government of Gladstone came
to power, the warm-hearted, unctuous, magnanimous Glad
stone who had wep o passionately and so sincerely before
the eyes of the whole of Europe over the fate of Poerio and
other members of the bourgeoisie who were badly treated by
King Bomba.212 What did this idol of the progressive
bourgeoisie do? While insulting the Irish by his insolent
replies to their demands for an amnesty, he not only con
firmed the monster Murray in his post, but endowed the
position of chief jailer with a nice fat sinecure as a token of
260 KARL MARX
his personal satisfaction! There’s the apostle of the philan
thropic bourgeoisie for you!
But something had to be done to pull the wool over the
eyes of the public. It was essential to appear to be doing
something for Ireland, and the Irish Land Bill213 was pro
claimed with a great song and dance. All this is nothing but a
pose with the ultimate aim of deceiving Europe, winning over
the Irish judges and advocates with the prospect of endless
disputes between landlords and farmers, conciliating the land
lords with the promise of financial aid from the state and
deluding the more prosperous farmers with a few mild con
cessions.
In the long introduction to his grandiloquent and con
fused speech Gladstone admits that even the “benevolent”
laws which liberal England bestowed on Ireland over the last
hundred years have always led to the country’s further
decline.214 And after this naive confession the same man
persists in torturing those who want to put an end to this
harmful and stupid legislation.
II
The following is an account taken from an English news
paper of the results of an enquiry into the death of Michael
Terbert, a Fenian prisoner who died at Spike Island Prison
due to the bad treatment which he had received.
“On Thursday last Mr. John Moore, Coroner of the Middleton dis
trict, held an inquest at Spike Island Convict Prison, on the body of a
convict... named Michael Terbert, who had died in hospital.
“Peter Hay, governor of the prison, was called first. He deposed—
‘The deceased, Michael Terbert, came to this prison in June, 1866; I
can’t say how his health was at the time; he had been convicted on the
12th of January, 1866, and his sentence was seven years* penal servitu
de; he appeared delicate for some time past, as will appear from one of
the prison books, which states that he was removed on the recommen
dation of medical officers, as being unfit for cellular discipline.’ Witness
then went into a detail of the frequent punishments inflicted on the
deceased for breach of discipline, many of them for the use ‘of disres
pectful language to the medical officer’.
“Jeremiah Hubert Kelly deposed—‘I remember when Michael
Terbert came here from Mountjoy Prison; it was then stated that he was
unfit for cellular discipline—that means being always confined to a cell;
certificate to the effect was signed by Dr. M’Donnell:... I found him,
however, to be in good health, and I sent him to w ork: I find by the
record that he was in hospital from the 31st January, 1869, until the
6th February, 1869; he suffered then from increased affection of the
heart, and from that time he did not work on the public works, but
in-doors, at oakum; from the 19th March, 1869, until the 24th March,
1869, he was in hospital, suffering from the same affection of heart;
from the 24th April till the 5th May he was*also in hospital from
spitting of blood; from the 19th May till the 1st June he was in hospital
for heart disease; from the 21st June till the 22nd June he was under
hospital treatment for the same; he was also in hospital from the 22nd
July till the 15th August, for the same—from 9th November till the
13th December for debility, and from 20th December to the 8th
February, when he died from acute dropsy; on the 13th November he
first appeared to suffer from dropsy, and it was then dissipated; I visit
the cells every day, and I must have seen him when under punishment
from time to time; it is my duty to remit, by recommendation, that
punishment, if I consider the prisoner is not fit to bear it; I think I did
so twice in his case.’
‘“As a medical man, did you consider that five days on bread and
water per day was excessive punishment for him, notwithstanding his
state of health in Mountjoy and here? ’—‘I did not; the deceased had a
good appetite; I don’t think that the treatment induced acute dropsy,
of which he died’....
“Martin O’Connell, resident apothecary of Spike Island, was next
examined—Witness mentioned to Dr. Kelly last July that while the
deceased was labouring under heart disease, he should not have been
punished;... he was of opinion that such punishment as the deceased got
was prejudicial to his health, considering that he was an invalid for the
past twelve months ... he could not say that invalids were so punished,
as he only attended cells in Dr. Kelly’s absence; he was certain, con
sidering the state of the deceased man’s health, that five days con
tinuously in cells would be injurious to his health;... TTie Coroner then
... dealt forcibly with the treatment which the prisoner had received ...
alternating between the hospital and the punishment cell.
“The jury returned the following verdict: ‘We find that Michael
Terbert died in hospital at Spike Island Convict Prison, on the 8th of
February, 1870, of dropsy; he was twenty-five years of age, and
unmarried. We have also to express in the strongest terms our total
disapproval of the frequent punishment he suffered in cells on bread
and water for several days in succession during his imprisonment in
Spike Island, where he had been sent in June, 1866, from Mountjoy
Prison, for the reason that in Dr. M’Donnell’s opinion he was unfit for
cellular discipline at Mountjoy; and we express our condemnation of
such treatment.’”215
Published in the newspaper Translated from the French
L*Intemationale Nos. 59 and 60,
February 27 and March 6, 1870
[RECORD OF KARL MARX’S SPEECH CONCERNING
THE “BEE-HIVE” NEWSPAPER216
(From the Minutes of the General Council Meeting
of April 26, 1870)
Cit. Marx proposed that the Council should cut off all
connections with the Bee-Hive. He said it had suppressed our
resolutions and mutilated our reports and delayed them so
that the dates had been falsified, even the mention that
certain questions respecting the Irish prisoners were being
discussed had been suppressed.
Next to that, the tone of the Bee-Hive was contrary to
the Rules and platform of the Association. It preached
harmony with the capitalists, and the Association had
declared war against the capitalists’ rule.
Besides this, our branches abroad complained that by
sending our reports to the Bee-Hive we gave it a moral sup
port and led people to believe that we endorsed its policy. We
would be better without its publicity than with it.
On the Irish Coercion Bill217 it had not said a word
against the government.

Russian ed., Vol. 16, o f the First International.
Frederick Engels
HISTORY OF IRELAND218
NATURAL CONDITIONS
At the north-western comer of Europe lies the land

whose history will occupy us, an island of 1,530 German or
32,500 English square miles. But another island, three times
as large, lies obliquely interposed between Ireland and the
rest of Europe. For the sake of brevity we usually call this
island England; it blocks Ireland off completely towards the
north, east and south-east, and allows a free view only in the
direction of Spain, Western France and America.
The channel between the two islands, 50-70 English miles
wide at the narrowest points in the south, 13 miles wide at
one point in the north and 22 miles wide at another, allowed
the Irish Scots to emigrate from the north to the neighbour
ing island and to found the Kingdom of Scotland even before
the fifth century. In the south it was too wide for Irish and
British boats and a serious obstacle even for the flat-bot-
tomed coastal vessels of the Romans. But when the Frisians,
Angles and Saxons, and after them the Scandinavians, were
able to venture beyond the sight of land on the open seas in
their keeled vessels, this channel was an obstacle no longer;
Ireland fell a victim to the raiding expeditions of the Scan
dinavians, and presented an easy booty for the English. As
soon as the Normans had built up a powerful, unified govern
ment in England, the influence of the larger island made itself
felt—in those times this meant a war of conquest.219
If during the war a period set in when England gained
control of the sea, this precluded the possibility of successful
foreign intervention.
When the larger island finally became unified into one
264 FREDERICK ENGELS
state, the latter had to strive to assimilate Ireland completely.
If this assimilation had been successful, its whole course
would have become a matter of history. It would be subject
to its judgement but could never be reversed. But if after 700
years of fighting this assimilation has not succeeded; if
instead each new wave of invaders flooding Ireland is as
similated by the Irish; if, even today, the Irish are as far from
being English, or West Britons, as they say, as the Poles are
from being West Russians after only 100 years of oppression;
if the fighting is not yet over and there is no prospect that it
can be ended in any other way than by the extermination of
the oppressed race—then, all the geographical pretexts in the
world are not enough to prove that it is England’s mission to
conquer Ireland.
To understand the nature of the soil of present-day

Ireland we have to return to the distant epoch when the
so-called Carboniferous System was formed.*
The centre of Ireland, to the north and south of a line
from Dublin to Galway, forms a wide plain rising to 100-300
feet above sea-level. This plain, the foundation so to say of
the whole of Ireland, consists of the massive bed of limestone
(carboniferous limestone), which forms the middle layer of
the Carboniferous System, and immediately above which lie
the coal-measures of England and other places.
In the south and the north, this plain is encircled by a
mountain chain which extends mainly along the coast, and
consists almost entirely of older rock-formations which have
broken through the limestone. These older rock-formations
contain granite, mica-slate, Cambrian, Cambro-Silurian,
Upper-Silurian, Devonian, together with argillaceous slate and
sandstone, rich in copper and lead, found in the lowest layer
* Unless otherwise stated, all the geological data given here is from
J . Beete Jukes, The Student's Manual of Geology. New Edition.
Edinburgh, 1862. Jukes was the local superior during the geological
survey of Ireland and therefore the prime authority on this territory,
which he treats in special detail.
HISTORY OF IRELAND 265
of the Carboniferous System; apart from this they contain a
little gold, silver, tin, zinc, iron, cobalt, antimony and
manganese.
The limestone itself rises to mountains only in a few
places: it reaches 600 feet in the centre of the plain, in
Queen’s County,220 and a little over 1,000 feet in the west,
on the southern shore of Galway Bay (Burden Hills).
At several points in the southern half of the limestone
plain there are to be found isolated coal-bearing mountain
ridges of considerable extent and from 700 to 1,000 feet
above sea-level. These rise from depressions in the limestone
plain as plateaus with rather steep escarpments.
“The escarpments in these widely separated tracts of coal-measures
are so similar, and the beds composing them so precisely alike, that it is
impossible to suppose otherwise than that they originally formed con
tinuous sheets of rock, although they are now separated by sixty or
eighty miles.... This belief is strongly confirmed by the fact that there
are often, between the two larger areas, several little outlying patches in
which the coal-measures are found capping the summits of small hills,
and that wherever the undulation of the limestone is such as to bring its
upper beds down beneath the level of the present surface of the ground,
we invariably find some of the lower beds of the coal-measures coming
in upon them. (Jukes, pp. 285-86.)
Other circumstances, which are too detailed for us here
and can be found in Jukes, pages 286-89, contribute to the
certainty that the whole Irish central plain arose through
denudation, as Jukes says, so that the lower layers of lime
stone were exposed after the coal-measures and the high
limestone deposits—of an average thickness of at least
2,000-3,000 and possibly 5,000-6,000 feet of stone—had
been washed away. Jukes even found another small coal-
measure on the highest ridge of the Burren Hills, County
Clare, which are pure limestone and 1,000 feet high (p. 513).
Some fairly considerable areas containing coal-measures
have survived in Southern Ireland; but only a few of these
contain enough coal to justify mining. Moreover, the coal
itself is anthracite, that is, it contains little hydrogen and
cannot be used for all industrial purposes without some addi
tion.
There are also several not very extensive coal-fields in
Northern Ireland in which the coal is bituminous, that is,
ordinary coal rich in hydrogen. Their stratification does not
coincide exactly with that of the southern coal deposits. But
a similar washing away process did occur even here. This is
shown by the fact that large fragments of coal, as well as
sandstone and blue clay belonging to the same formation, are
to be found on the surface of limestone valleys to the south
east of such a coal-field in the direction of Belturbet and
Mohill. Large blocks of coal have been discovered by well-
sinkers in this area of the drift; and in some cases the quanti
ty of coal was so considerable that it was thought that deeper
shafts must lead to a coal-bed. (Kane, The Industrial Resour
ces o f Ireland, 2nd edition, Dublin, 1845, p. 265.)
It is obvious that Ireland’s misfortune is of ancient origin;
it begins directly after the carboniferous strata were deposit
ed. A country whose coal deposits are eroded, placed near a
larger country rich in coal, is condemned by nature to remain
for a long time the farming country for the larger country
when the latter is industrialised. That sentence, pronounced
millions of years ago, was carried out in this century. We shall
see later, moreover, how the English assisted nature by crush
ing almost every seed of Irish industry as soon as it ap
peared.
More recent Secondary and Tertiary layers221 occur
almost exclusively in the north-east; amongst these we are
interested chiefly in the beds of red marl in the vicinity of
Belfast, which contain almost pure rock-salt to a thickness of
200 feet (Jukes, p. 554), and the chalk overlaid with a layer
of basalt which covers the whole of County Antrim. General
ly speaking, there are no important geological developments
in Ireland oetween the end of the Carboniferous Period and
the Ice Age.
It is known that after the Tertiary Epoch there was an era
in which the low-lying lands of the medium latitudes of
Europe were submerged by the sea^ and in which such a low
temperature prevailed in Europe that the valleys between the
protruding island mountain tops were filled with glaciers
which extended down to the sea. Icebergs used to separate
themselves from these glaciers and carry rocks of all sizes
which had been detached from the mountains, out to sea.
When the ice melted, the rocks and other debris were deposit
ed—a process still daily occurring on coasts of the polar
regions.
During the Ice Age, Ireland too, with the exception of
the mountain tops, was submerged by the sea. The degree of
submergence may not have been the same everywhere, but an
average of 1,000 feet below the present level can be accepted;
the granite mountain chains south of Dublin must have been
submerged by over 1,200 feet.
If Ireland had been submerged by only 500 feet, only the
mountain chains would have remained exposed. These would
then have formed two semi-circular groups of islands around
a wide strait extending from Dublin to Galway. A still greater
submergence would have made these islands smaller and
decreased their number, until, at a submergence of 2,000
feet, only the most extreme tips would have risen above the
water. *
As the submersion slowly proceeded, the limestone plains
and mountain slopes must have been swept clean of much of
the older rock covering them; subsequently there followed
the depositing of the drift peculiar to the Ice Age on the
whole of the area covered by water. Pieces of rock eroded
from the mountain islands and fine fragments of rock scraped
away by the glaciers as they pushed their way slowly and
powerfully through the valleys—earth, sand, gravel, stones,
rocks, worn smooth within the ice but sharp-edged above
it—all this was carried out to sea and gradually deposited on
the sea-bed by icebergs which were detaching themselves
from the shore. The layer formed in this way vanes according
to circumstances and contains loam (originating from argil
laceous slate), sand (originating from quartz and granite),
limestone gravel (derived from limestone formations), marl
(where finely-crumbled limestone mixes with loam) or
mixtures of all these components; but it always contains a
mass of stones of all sizes, sometimes rounded, sometimes
sharp, ranging up to colossal erratic boulders, which are com
* Ireland has an area of 32,509 English square miles. 13,243 square
miles are 0-250 feet above sea-level; 11,797 are 251-500 feet above
sea-level; 5,798 are 501-1,000 feet above sea-level; 1,589 are
1 , 001 -2,000 feet above sea-level; 82 square miles are over 2,001 feet
above sea-level.
moner in Ireland than in the North-German Plain or between
the Alps and the Jura.
During the subsequent re-emergence of the land from the
sea, this newly-formed surface was given roughly its present
structure. In Ireland, little washing away appears to have
taken place then; with few exceptions varying thicknesses of
drift cover all the plains, extend into all the valleys, and are
also often found high up on the mountain slopes. Limestone
is the most frequently occurring stone in them, and for this
reason the whole stratum is usually called limestone gravel
here. Big blocks of limestone are also extensively strewn over
all the lowlands, one or more in nearly every field; apart from
limestone, a lot of other local rocks, especially granite, are
naturally to be found near the mountains they originated
from. From the northern side of Galway Bay granite appears
commonly in the plain extending south-east as far as the
Galty Mountains and more rarely as far as Mallow (County
Cork).
The north of the country is covered with drift to the
same height above sea-level as the central plain; a similar
deposit, originating from the local, mainly Silurian rocks, is
to be found between the various more or less parallel
mountain chains running through the south. This appears
plentifully in Flesk and Laune valley near Killamey.
The glacier tracks on the mountain slopes and valley bot
toms are Common and unmistakable, particularly in the
south-west of Ireland. Only in Oberhasli and here and there
in Sweden do I remember seeing more sharply-stamped ice-
trails than in Killamey (in the Black Valley and the Gap of
Dunloe).
The emergence of the land during or after the Ice Age
seems to have been so considerable that Britain was for a
time connected by dry land not only with the Continent, but
also with Ireland. At least this seems the only way the simi
larity between the fauna of these lands can be explained.
Ireland has the following extinct large mammals in common
with the Continent: the mammoth, the Irish giant stag, the
cave-bear, a kind of reindeer, and so on. In fact, an
emergence of less than 240 feet over the present level would
be enough to connect Ireland with Scotland, and one of less
than 360 feet would join Ireland and Wales with wide bridges
of land.* The fact that Ireland emerged to a higher level after
the Ice Age than at present is proved by the underwater peat
bogs with upright tree trunks and roots which occur all
around the coast, and which are identical in every detail with
the lowest layers of the neighbouring inland peat bogs.
______ r
From an agricultural point of view, Ireland’s soil is almost

entirely formed from the drift of the Ice Age, which here,
thanks to its slate and limestone origin, is not the barren sand
with which the Scottish, Scandinavian and Finnish granites
have covered such a large part of North Germany, but an
extremely fertile, light loam. The variety in the rocks, whose
decomposition contributed and is still contributing to this
soil, provides it with a corresponding variety of the mineral
elements required for vegetable life; and if one of these, say
lime, is greatly lacking in the soil, plenty of pieces of lime
stone of all sizes are to be found everywhere—quite apart
from the underlying limestone bed—so it can be added quite
easily.
When the well-known English agronomist, Arthur Young,
toured Ireland in the 1770s? he did not know what amazed
him more: the natural fertility of the soil or the barbaric
manner in which the peasants cultivated it. “A light, dry,
soft, sandy, loam soil” prevails where the land is good at all.
In the “Golden Vale” of Tipperary and also elsewhere he
found:
“the same sort of sandy reddish loam I have already described, incom
parable land for tillage”. From there, in the direction of Clonmel, “the
whole way through the same rich vein of red sandy loam I have so often
mentioned: I examined it in several fields, and found it to be of an
extraordinary fertility, and as fine turnip land as ever I saw”.
Further:
“The rich land reaches from Charleville, at the foot of the mount
ains, to Tipperary, by Kilfenning, a line of twenty-five miles, and across
* See Map 15a in Stielers Handatlas, 1868. This map, as well as
No. 15d, specially of Ireland, picture the ground structure very clearly.
from Ardpatrick to within four miles of Limerick, sixteen miles.” “The
richest in the country is the Corcasses on the Maag, about Adair, a tract
of five miles long, and two broad, down to the Shannon.... When they
break this land up, they sow first oats, and get 20 barrels an acre, or 40
common barrels, and do not reckon that an extra crop; they take ten or
twelve in succession, upon one ploughing, till the crops grow poor, and
then they sow one of horse beans, which refreshes the land enough to
take ten crops of oats more; the beans are very good.... Were such
barbarians ever heard of? ”
Further, near Castle Oliver, County Limerick,
“the finest soil in the country is upon the roots of mountains; it is a
rich, mellow, crumbling, putrid, sandy loam, eighteen inches to three
feet deep, the colour a reddish brown. It is dry sound land, and would
do for turnips exceedingly well, for carrots, for cabbages, and in a word
for everything. I think, upon the whole, it is the richest soil I ever saw,
and such as is applicable to every purpose you can wish; it will fat the
largest bullock, and at the same time to equally well for sheep, for
tillage, for turnips, for wheat, for beans, and in a word, for every crop
... you must examine into the soil before you will believe that a
country, which has so beggarly an appearance, can be so rich and
fertile.”
On the river Blackwater near Mallow,
“there are tracts of flat land in some places one quarter of a mile
broad; the grass everywhere remarkably fine.... It is the finest sandy
land I have anywhere seen, of a reddish-brown colour, would yield the
greatest arable crops in the world, if in tillage; it is five feet deep, and
has such a principle of adhesion, that it bums into good brick, yet it is a
perfect sand.... The banks of this river, from its source to the sea, are
equally remarkable for beauty of prospect, and fertility of soil.”—
“ Friable, sandy loams, dry but fertile, are very common, and they form
the best soils in the kingdom, for tillage and sheep. Tipperary and
Roscommon abound particularly in them. The most fertile of all are the
bullock pastures of Limerick, and the banks of the Shannon in Clare,
called the Corcasses.... Sand, which is so common in England, and yet
more common through Spain, France, Germany, and Poland, quite
from Gibraltar to Petersburg, is nowhere met with in Ireland, except for
narrow slips of hillocks, upon the sea coast.' Nor did I ever meet with,
or hear of a chalky soil.”*
Young’s judgement on the soil of Ireland is summarised
in the following sentences:
* Arthur Young, A Tour in Ireland, 3 vols. London, 177..., Vol. 2,
pp. 28, 135, 143,154, 165; Vol. 2, Part II, p. 4.
“If I was to name the characteristics of an excellent soil, I would
say that upon which you may fat an ox and feed off a crop of turnips.
By the way, I recollect little or no such land in England, yet it is not
uncommon in Ireland.” (Vol. 2, p. 271.)—“Natural fertility, acre for
acre over the two kingdoms, is certainly in favour of Ireland.” (Vol. 2;
Part II, p. 3.)—“ As far as I can form a general idea of the soil of the two
kingdoms, Ireland has much the advantage.” (Vol. 2, Part II, p. 9.)
In 1808-10, Edward Wakefield, an Englishman likewise
versed in agronomy, toured Ireland and recorded the result of
his observations in a valuable work.* His remarks are better-
ordered, more extensive and fuller than those in Young’s
travel-book; on the whole, both agree.
Wakefield found little disparity in the nature of the soil
in Ireland on the whole. Sand occurs only on the coast (it is
so seldom found inland that large quantities of sea sand are
transported inland for improving the turf and loam soils);
chalky soil is unknown (the chalk in Antrim is, as has already
been mentioned, covered with a layer of basalt, the products
of the decomposition of which produce a highly fertile soil.
In England the chalky soils are the worst), “...tenacious clays,
such as those found in Oxfordshire, in some parts of Essex,
and throughout High Suffolk, I could never meet with....”
The Irish call all loamy soils clay; there might be real clay in
Ireland as well, but not on the surface as in several parts of
England in any case. Limestone or limestone gravel is to be
found everywhere. “The former is a useful production, and is
converted into a source of wealth that will always be
employed with advantage.” Mountains and peat bogs certain
ly reduce the fertile surface considerably. There is little
fertile land in the north; yet even here there are highly
luxuriant valleys in every county, and Wakefield unexpected
ly found a highly fertile tract even in furthest Donegal
amongst the wildest mountains. The extensive cultivation of
flax in the north is in itself sufficient proof of fertility, as this
plant does not thrive in poor soil.
“A great portion of the soil in Ireland throws out a luxuriant herb
age, springing up from a calcareous subsoil, without any considerable
* Edward Wakefield, An Account o f Ireland, Statistical and Polit

ical, London, 1812, 2 vols.
depth. I have seen bullocks of the weight of 180 stone, rapidly fatten
ing on land incapable of receiving the print of a horse’s foot, even in the
wettest season, and where there were not many inches of soil. This is
one species of the rich soil of Ireland, and is to be found throughout
Roscommon, in some parts of Galway, Clare, and other districts. Some
places exhibit the richest loam that I ever saw turned up by a plough;
this is the case throughout Meath in particular. Where such soil occurs,
its fertility is so conspicuous, that it appears as if nature had
determined to counteract the bad effects produced by the clumsy
system of its cultivators. On the banks of the Fergus and Shannon, the
land is of a different kind, but equally productive, though the surface
presents the appearance of a marsh. These districts are called ‘the
caucasses* [so designated by Wakefield as distinct from Young]; the
substratum is a blue silt, deposited by the sea, which seems to partake
of the qualities of the upper stratum; for this land can be injured by no
depth of ploughing.
“In the counties of Limerick and Tipperary there is another kind of
rich land, consisting of a dark, friable, dry, sandy loam which, if
preserved in a clean state, would throw out com for several years in
succession. It is equally well adapted to grazing and tillage, and I will
venture to say, seldom experiences a season too wet, or a summer too
dry. The richness of the land, in some of the vales, may be accounted
for by the deposition of soil carried thither from the upper grounds by
the rain. The subsoil is calcareous, so that the very richest manure is
thus spread over the land below, without subjecting the farmer to any
labour.” (Vol. l,p p . 79, 80.)
If a thinnish layer of heavy loam lies directly on lime
stone, the land is not suited to tillage and bears only a miser
able crop of grain, but it makes excellent sheep-pastures. This
improves it further by producing a thick grass mixed with
white clover and....* (Vol. 1, p. 80.)
Dr. Beaufort** states that there occur in the west, partic
ularly in Mayo, many turloughs—shallow depressions of
different sizes, which fill with water in the winter, although
not visibly connected with streams or rivers. In the summer
this drains away through underground fissures in the lime
stone, leaving luxurious firm grazing-ground.
“Independently of the caucasses,” Wakefield continues, “the richest
soil in Ireland is to be found in the counties of Tipperary, Limerick,
* There is an omission in the manuscript. According to Wakefield
it is “wild bumet”.—Ed.
** Beaufort, Revd. Dr., Memoir o f a Map o f Ireland, 1792, pp.
75-76. Quoted in Wakefield, Vol. 1, p. 36.
Roscommon, Longford, and Meath. In Longford there is a farm called
Granard Kill, which produced eight crops of potatoes without manure.
Some parts of the County of Cork are uncommonly fertile, and upon
the whole, Ireland may be considered as affording land of an excellent
quality, though I am by no means prepared to go the length of many
writers, who assert, that it is decidedly acre for acre richer than
England.” (Vol. l,p . 81.)
The last observation, directed against Young, rests on a
misunderstanding of Young’s opinion, quoted above. Young
does not say tftat Ireland’s soil is more productive than
England’s, each taken in their present state of cultivation—
which is naturally far higher in England; Young merely states
that the natural fertility of the soil is greater in Ireland than
in England. This does not contradict Wakefield.
After the last famine, in 1849, Sir* Robert Peel sent a
Scottish agronomist, Mr. Caird, to Ireland to report on means
of improving agriculture there. In a publication issued soon
afterwards he said about the west of Ireland—the worst
stricken part of the country apart from the extreme north
west:
“ I was m uch surprised to find so great an exten t o f fine fertile land.
The interior o f the country is very level, and its general character stony
and dry; the soil dry and friable. The humidity of the climate causes a
very constant vegetation, which has both advantages and disadvantages.
It is favourable for grass and green crops,** but renders it necessary to
employ very vigorous and persevering efforts to extirpate weeds. The
abundance of lime everywhere, both in the rock itself, and as sand and
gravel beneath the surface, are of the greatest value.”
Caird also confirms that County Westmeath consists of
the finest pasture land. Of the region north of Lough Corrib
(County Mayo) he writes:
“The greater part of this farm” (a farm of 500 acres) “is the finest
feeding land for sheep and cattle—dry, friable, undulating land, all on
limestone. The fields of rich old grass are superior to anything we have,
except in small patches, in any part of Scotland I at present remember.
The best of it is too good for tillage, but about one half of it might be
* In the manuscript the word “Ministry” appears above the
“Sir”.-£rf.
** “Green crops” embiace all cultivated fodder crops, as well as
carrot, beetroot, turnip and potato, that is, everything except com,
grasses and garden plants.
profitably brought under the plough.... The rapidity with which the
land on this limestone subsoil recovers itself, and, without any seeds
being sown, reverts to good pasture, is very remarkable.”*
Finally we note a French authority**:
“Of the two divisions of Ireland, that of the north-west, embracing
a fourth of the island, and comprehending the province of Connaught,
with the adjacent counties of Donegal, Clare, and Kerry, resembles
Wales, and even, in its worst parts, the Highlands of Scotland. Here
again are two millions of unsightly hectares, the frightful aspect of
which has given rise to the national proverb, ‘Go to the devil or Con
naught’.*** The other, or south-east and much larger division since it ...
includes the provinces of Leinster, Ulster and Munster, equal to about
six millions of hectares, is at least equal in natural fertility to England
proper. It is not all, however, equally good; the amount of humidity
there is still greater than in England. Extensive bogs cover about a tenth
of the surface; more than another tenth is occupied with mountains and
lakes. In fact, five only out of eight millions of hectares in Ireland are
cultivated [pp. 9, 10]. Even the English admit that Ireland, in point of
soil, is superior to England.... Ireland contains eight millions of
hectares. Rocks, lakes, and bogs occupy about two millions of these,
and two millions more are indifferent land. The remainder—that is to
say, about half the country—is rich land, with calcareous subsoil. What
better could be conceived? ” (P. 343.)
We see therefore that all authorities agree that Ireland’s
soil contains all the elements of fertility to an extraordinary
degree. This, not only in its chemical ingredients but also in
its structure. The two extremes of heavy impenetrable clay,
completely impermeable, and loose sand, completely
permeable, do not occur. But Ireland has another disadvant
age. While the mountains are mainly along the coast, the
watersheds between the inland river basins are mostly low-
lying, and therefore the rivers are not capable of carrying all
the rain water out to sea. Thus extensive peat bogs arise
inland, especially on the watersheds. In the plain alone
* Caird, The Plantation Scheme, or the West o f Ireland as a Field
for Investment. Edinburgh, 1850. He also wrote travel reports on the
condition of agriculture in the main counties of England for The Times
of 1850-51. The above quotations are found on pp. 6, 17-18, 121.
** Leonce de Lavergne, Rural Economy o f England, Scotland and
Ireland. Translated from the French. Edinburgh, 1855.
** * This expression, as will be seen later, owes its origin not to the
dark mountains of Connaught, but to the darkest period in the entire
history of I r e l a n d . 2 22
1,576,000 acres are covered with peat bogs. These are largely
depressions or troughs in the land, most of which were once
shallow lake basins which were gradually overgrown with
moss and marsh plants and were filled up with their decom
posing remains. As with our north-German moors, their only
use is for turf cutting. With the present system of agriculture
cultivation can only gradually reclaim their edges. The soil in
these former lake basins is mainly marl and its lime content
(varying from 5 per cent to 90 per cent) is due to the shells
of fresh-water mussels. Thus the material for their develop
ment into arable land exists within each of these peat bogs.
Apart from this, most of them are rich in iron ore. Besides
these low-lying peat bogs, there are 1,254,000 acres of
mountain moor. These are the result of deforestation in a
damp climate and are one of the peculiar beauties of the
British Isles. Wherever flat or almost flat summits were
deforested—and this occurred extensively in the 17th century
and the first half of the 18th century to provide the iron
works with charcoal—a layer of peat formed under the in
fluence of rain and mist and gradually spread down the slopes
where the conditions were favourable. Such moors cover the
ridges of the mountain chain dividing Northern England from
north to south almost as far as Derby; and are found in
abundance wherever substantial mountain ranges are marked
on the map of Ireland. Yet, the peat bogs of Ireland are by
no means hopelessly lost to agriculture; on the contrary, in
time we shall see what rich fruits some of these, and the two
million hectares of the “indifferent land” contemptuously
mentioned by Lavergne, can produce given correct manage
ment.
Ireland’s climate is determined by her position. The Gulf

Stream and the prevailing south-west winds provide warmth
and make for mild winters and cool summers. In the south
west the summer lasts far into .October which, according to
Wakefield (Vol. 1, p. 221), is there regarded as the best
month for sea bathing. Frost is rare and of short duration,
snow usually melts immediately on the low-lying land. Spring
weather prevails throughout the winter in the inlets of Kerry
and Cork, which are open to the south-west and protected
from the north; here, and in certain other places, myrtle
thrives in the open (Wakefield mentions a country-residence
where it grows into trees 16 feet high and is used to make
stable-brooms, Vol. 1, p. 55), and laurel, arbutus and other
evergreen plants grow into substantial trees. In Wakefield’s
time, the peasants in the south were still leaving their
potatoes in the open all winter—and they had not been frost
bitten since 1740. On the other hand, Ireland also suffers the
first powerful downpour of the heavy Atlantic rain clouds.
Ireland’s average rainfall is at least 35 inches, which is con
siderably more than England’s average, yet is definitely lower
than that of Lancashire and Cheshire and scarcely more than
the average for the whole of the West of England. In spite of
this the Irish climate is decidedly pleasanter than the English.
The leaden sky which often causes days of continual drizzle
in England is mostly replaced in Ireland by a continental
April sky; the fresh sea-breezes bring on clouds quickly and
unexpectedly, but drive them past equally quickly, if they do
not come down immediately in sharp showers. And even
when the rain lasts for days, as it does in late autumn, it does
not have the chronic air it has in England. The weather, like
the inhabitants, has a more acute character, it moves in
sharper, more sudden contrasts; the sky is like an Irish
woman’s face: here also rain and sunshine succeed each other
suddenly and unexpectedly and there is none of the grey
English boredom.
The Roman, Pomponius Mela, gives us the oldest report
on the Irish climate (in De situ orb is) in the first century of
our era:
“Above Brittaine is Ireland, almost of like space but on both sides
equall, with shores evelong, o f a evyll ay re to rypen things that are
sown, but so aboundant o f Grasse which is not onelie rancke but also
sweete, that the Cattell may in small parte of the daye fyll themselves,
and if they bee not kept from feedying, they burste with grazing over
long.”
“Coeli ad maturanda semina iniqui, verum adeo luxuriosa
herbis non laetis modo sed etiam dulcibus! ” We find this
part amongst others translated into modem English by
Mr. Goldwin Smith, Professor of History formerly of Oxford
and now in Cornell University, America. He reports that it is
difficult to gather in the harvest of wheat in a large part of
Ireland and continues:
“Its [Ireland] natural way to commercial prosperity seems to be to
supply with the produce of its grazing and dairy farms the population
o f England”*
From Mela to Goldwin Smith and up to the present day,
how often has this assertion been repeated—since 1846,223
especially by a noisy chorus of Irish landowners—that Ireland
is condemned by her climate to provide not Irishmen with
bread but Englishmen with meat and butter, and that the
destiny of the Irish people is, therefore, to be brought over
the ocean to make room in Ireland for cows and sheep!
It can be seen that to establish the facts on the Irish
climate is to unravel a topical political question. And indeed
the climate only concerns us here insofar as it is important
for agriculture. Rain measurements, at their present incom
plete stage of observations, are only of secondary importance
for our purpose; how much rain falls is not so importarit as
how and when it falls. Here agronomical judgements are most
important.
Arthur Young considers that Ireland is considerably
damper than England; this is the cause of the amazing grass-
bearing qualities of the soil. He speaks of cases when tumip-
and stubble-land, left unploughed, produced a rich harvest of
hay in the next summer, a thing of which there is no example
in England. He further mentions that the Irish wheat is much
lighter than that grown in drier lands; weeds and grass spring
up in abundance under even the best management, and the
harvests are so wet and so troublesome to bring in that
revenue suffers greatly. (Young’s Tour, Vol. 2, p. 100.)
At the same time, however, he points out that the soil in
Ireland counteracts this dampness of the climate. It is gen
* Goldwin Smith, Irish History and Irish Character, Oxford and
London, 1861.—What is more amazing in this work, which, under the
mask of “objectivity”, justifies English policy in Ireland, the ignorance
of the professor of history, or the hypocrisy of the liberal bourgeois?
We shall touch on both again later.
erally stony, and for this reason lets the water through more
easily.
“Harsh, tenacious, stoney, strong loams, difficult to work, are not
uncommon [in Ireland]; but they are quite different from English
clays. If as much rain fell upon the clays of England (a soil very rarely
met with in Ireland, and never without much stone) as falls upon the
rocks of her sister-island, those lands could not be cultivated. But the
rocks here are clothed with verdure;—those of limestone with only a
thin covering of mold, have the softest and most beautiful turf imagin
able.” (Vol. 2, Part II, pp. 3-4.)
The limestone is known to be full of cracks and fissures
which let the excess water through quickly.
Wakefield devotes to the climate a very comprehensive
chapter in which he summarises all the earlier observations up
to his own time. Dr. Boate (Natural History of Ireland,
1645)224 describes the winters as mild, with three or four
periods of frost every year, each of which usually lasts for
only two or three days; the Liffey in Dublin freezes over
scarcely once in 10 to 12 years. March is usually dry and fine,
but then the weather becomes rainy; there are seldom more
than two or three consecutive dry days in summer; and in the
late autumn it is fine again. Very dry summers are rare, and
dearth never occurs because of drought, but mostly because
of too much rain. It seldom snows on the plains, so cattle
remain in the open all the year round. Yet years of heavy
snow do occur, as in 1635, when the people had difficulty in
providing shelter for the cattle. (Wakefield, Vol. 1, p. 216
and following.)
In the beginning of the last century, Dr. Rutty (Natural
History o f the County of Dublin) made accurate meteoro
logical observations which stretched over 50 years, from
1716 to 1765. During this whole period the proportion of
south and west winds to north and east winds was 73:37
(10,878 south and west against 6,329 north and east). Pre
vailing winds were west and south-west, then came north
west and south-east, and most rarely north-east and east. In
summer, autumn and winter west and south-west prevail.
East is most frequent in spring and summer, when it occurs
twice as frequently as in autumn and winter; north-east is
most frequent in spring when, likewise, it is twice as frequent
as in autumn and winter. As a result of this, the temperatures
are more even, the winters milder and the summers cooler
than in London, while on the other hand the air is damper.
Even in summer, salt, sugar, flour, etc., soak dampness out of
the air, and com must be kiln-dried, a practice unknown in
some parts of England. (Wakefield, Vol. 1, pp. 172-81.)
Rutty could at that time only compare ^rish climate with
that in London, which, as in all Eastern England, is drier, to
be sure. If material on Western and especially North-Western
England had been at his disposal, he would have found that
his description of the Irish climate—distribution of winds
over the year, wet summers, in which sugar, salt, etc., are
ruined in unheated rooms—fits this area completely, except
that Western England is colder in winter.
Rutty also kept data on the meteorological aspect of the
seasons. In the fifty years referred to, there were 16 cold, late
or too dry springs: a little more than in London; further, 22
hot and dry, 24 wet, and 4 changeable summers: a little
damper than in London, where the number of dry and wet
summers is equal; further, 16 fine, 12 wet, 22 changeable
autumns: again a little damper and more changeable than in
London; and 13 frosty, 14 wet and 23 mild winters: which is
considerably damper and milder than in London.
According to measurements made in the Botanical
Gardens in Dublin, the following total amount of rain fell
each month in the ten years between 1802 and 1811 (in
inches): December: 27.31; July: 24.15; November: 23.49;
August: 22.47; September: 22.27; January: 21.67; October:
20.12; May: 19.50; March: 14.69; April: 13.54; February:
12.32; June: 12.07. Average for the year: 23.36 (Wakefield,
Vol. 1, p. 191). These ten years were unusually dry. Kane
(Industrial Resources, p. 73) gives an average of 30.87 inches
for 6 years in Dublin and Symons (English Rainfall) puts it at
29.79 inches for 1860-62. Because of the fleeting nature of
local showers in Ireland, such measurements mean very little
unless they extend over many years and are undertaken at
many stations. This is proved among other things by the fact
that, of the three stations measuring rainfall in Dublin in
1862, the first recorded 24.63, the second 28.04, and the
third 30.18 inches as the average. The average amount of
rainfall recorded by 12 stations in different parts of Ireland
in the years 1860-62, was not quite 39 inches according to
Symons (individual averages varied from 25.45 to 51.44
inches).
In his book about Ireland’s climate, Dr. Patterson says:
“The frequency of our showers, and not the amount of rainfall
itself, has caused the popular notion about the wetness of our cli
mate.... Sometimes the spring sowing is a little delayed because of wet
weather, but our springs are so frequently cold and late that early
sowing is not always advisable. If frequent summer and autumn showers
make our hay and corn harvests risky, then vigilance and diligence
would be just as successful in such exigencies as they are for the English
in their ‘catching’ harvests, and improved cultivation would ensure that
the seed-corn would aid the peasants* efforts.” *
In Londonderry the number of rain-free days each year
between 1791 and 1802 varied from 113 to 148—the average
for the period was over 126. In Belfast the same average
emerged. In Dublin it varied from 168 to 205, average 179
(Patterson, ibid.).
According to Wakefield, Irish harvests fall as follows:
wheat mostly in September, more rarely in August, occasion
ally in October; barley usually a little later than wheat; and
oats approximately a week after barley, therefore usually in
October. After considerable research, Wakefield concluded
that not nearly enough material existed for a scientific
description of the Irish climate, but nowhere does he state
that it provides a serious obstacle to the cultivation of com.
In fact he finds, as we shall see, that the losses incurred
during wet harvest times are due to entirely different causes,
and states so quite explicitly:
“The soil of Ireland is so fertile, and the climate so favourable, that
under a proper system of agriculture, it will produce not only a suf
ficiency of com for its own use, but a superabundance which may be
ready at all times to relieve England when she may stand in need of
assistance.” (Vol. 2, p. 61.)
At that time, of course—1812—England was at war with
the whole of Europe and America,225 and it was much more
* Dr. W. Patterson, An Essay on the Climate o f Ireland, Dublin,
1804, p. 164.
difficult to import com—corn was the primary need. Now
America, Rumania, Russia and Germany deliver sufficient
com, and the question now is rather one of cheap meat. And
because of this Ireland’s climate is no longer suited to til-
lage.
Ireland has grown com since ancient times. In her oldest
laws, recorded long before the arrival of Englishmen, the
“sack of wheat” is already a definite measurement of value.
Fixed quantities of wheat, malt-barley and oatmeal are quite
regularly mentioned in the tributes of inferiors to tribal and
otner chiefs.* After the English invasion, the cultivation of
com diminished because of the continual battles, without
ever ceasing completely; it increased between 1660 and 1725
and decreased again from 1725 to about 1780; more com as
well as a greater quantity of potatoes was again sown
between 1780 and 1846, arid since then they have both given
way to the steadily advancing cattle pastures. If Ireland were
not suited to the cultivation of corn, would it have been
grown for over a thousand years?
Of course there are regions, in which because of the
proximity of mountains the rainfall is always greater, and
which are less* suited to wheat-growing—notably in the south
and west. Besides the good years, a series of wet summers will
often occur there, as between 1860-62, which do great harm
to the wheat. Wheat, however, is not Ireland’s principal grain,
and Wakefield even complains that too little oi it is grown for
lack of a market—the only one being the nearest mill. For the
most part, barley is grown only for the secret distilleries
(secret because of taxation). Ireland’s principal grain was and
still is oats. In 1810 no less than 10 times as much oats was
grown as of all the other sorts of com put together. As oats
are harvested after wheat and barley, the harvest is usually in
late September or October when the weather is usually fine,
* Ancient Laws and Institutes o f Ireland—Senchus Mor. Two

volumes. Dublin, printed for Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, and
published by Alexander Thom (London, Longmans) in 1865 and
1869.226 See Vol. 2, pp. 239-51. The value of one sack of wheat was 1
screpall (denarius) or 20-24 grains of silver. The value of the screpall is
fixed by Dr. Petrie in Ecclesiastical Architecture o f Ireland, anterior to
the Anglo-Norman Invasion, Dublin, 1845, 4°, pp. 212-19.
especially in the south. And in any case, oats can take a
considerable amount of rain.
We have already seen that Ireland’s climate, as far as the
amount and distribution of rain throughout the year is con
cerned, corresponds almost entirely with that of the North-
West of England. The rainfall is much greater in the
mountains of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and North Lan
cashire (in Coniston 96.03, in Windermere 75.02 inches,
average in the years 1860-62), than in certain stations in
Ireland known to me, and yet hay is made and oats are grown
there. In the same years the rainfall varied in South Lan
cashire from 25.11 in Liverpool to 59.13 in Bolton, the
average being about 40 inches; in Cheshire it varied from
33.02 to 43.40 inches, the average being approximately 37
inches. In Ireland, as we saw, it was not quite 39 inches in the
same years. (All figures from Symons.) In both counties com
of all kinds, and in particular wheat, is cultivated; Cheshire
carried on mainly cattle-rearing and dairy farming until the
last epidemic of cattle-plague, but since most of the cattle
perished the climate suddenly became quite admirably suited
for wheat-growing. If there had been an epidemic of cattle-
plague in Ireland causing devastation similar to that in
Cheshire, instead of preaching that Ireland’s natural occupa
tion is cattle-raising, they would point to the place in Wake
field which says that Ireland is destined to be England’s
granary.
If one looks at the matter impartially and without being
misled by the cries of the interested parties, the Irish
landowners and the English bourgeois, one finds that Ireland,
like all other places, has some parts which because of soil and
climate are more suited to cattle-rearing, and others to tillage,
and still others—the vast majority—which are suited to both.
Compared with England, Ireland is more suited to cattle-
rearing on the whole; but if England is compared with
France, she too is more suited to cattle-rearing. Are we to
conclude thatj the whole of England should be transformed
into cattle pastures, and the whole agricultural population be
sent into the factory towns or to America—excepit for a few
herdsmen—to make room for cattle, which are to be exported
to France in exchange for silk and wine? But that is exactly
what the Irish landowners who want to put up their rents and
the English bourgeoisie who want to decrease wages demand
for Ireland: Gold win Smith has said so plainly enough. And
yet the social revolution inherent in this transformation from
tillage to cattle-rearing would be far greater in Ireland than in
England. In England, where large-scale agriculture prevails
and where agricultural labourers have already Jjeen replaced
by machinery to a large extent, it would mean the trans
plantation of at most one million; in Ireland, where small and
even cottage-farming prevails, it would mean the transplanta
tion of four million: the extermination of the Irish people.
It can be seen that even the facts of nature become points
of national controversy between England and Ireland. It can
also be seen, however, how the public opinion of the ruling
class in England—and it is only this that is generally known
on the Continent—changes with the fashion and in its own
interests. Today England needs grain quickly and depend
ably—Ireland is just perfect for wheat-growing. Tomorrow
England needs meat—Ireland is only fit for cattle pastures.
The existence of five million Irish is in itself a smack in the
eye to all the laws of political economy, they have to get out
but whereto is their worry!
ANCIENT IRELAND
The writers of ancient Greece and Rome, and also the
fathers of the Church, give very little information about
Ireland.
Instead there still exists an abundant native literature, in
spite of the many Irish manuscripts lost in the wars of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It includes poems,
grammars, glossaries, annals and other historical writings and
law-books. With very few exceptions, however, this whole
literature, which embraces the period at least from the eighth
to the seventeenth centuries, exists only in manuscript. For
the Irish language printing has existed only for a few years,
only from the time when the language began to die out. Of
this rich material, therefore, only a small part is available.
Amongst the most important of these annals are those of
Abbot Tigemach (died 1088), those of Ulster, and above all,
those of the Four Masters. These last were collected in
1632-36 in a monastery in Donegal under the direction of
Michael O’Clery, a Frainciscan monk, who was helped by
three other Seanchaidhes (antiquarians), from materials
which now are almost all lost. They were published in 1856
from the original Donegal manuscript which still exists,
having been edited and provided with an English translation
by O’D onovan.* The earlier editions by Dr. Charles
O Connor (the first part of the Four Masters, and the Annals
o f Ulster) are untrustworthy in text and translation.227
The beginning of most of these annals presents the mythi
cal prehistory of Ireland. Its base was formed by old folk-
legends, which were spun out endlessly by poets in the 9th
and 10th centuries and were then brought into suitable
chronological order by the monk-chroniclers. The Annals of
the Four Masters begins with the year of the world 2242,
when Caesair, a granddaughter of Noah, landed in Ireland
forty days before the Flood; other annals have the ancestors
of the Scots, the last immigrants to Ireland, descend in direct
line from Japheth and bring them into connection with
Moses, the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, as the German
chroniclers of the Middle Ages connected the ancestors of the
Germans with Troy, Aeneas or Alexander the Great. The
Four Masters devote only a few pages to this legend (in which
the only valuable element, the original folk-legend, is not
distinguishable even now); the Annals of Ulster leave it out
altogether; and Tigemach, with a critical boldness wonderful
for his time, explains that all the written records of the Scots
before King Cimbaoth (approximately 300 B.C.) are un
certain. But when new national life awoke in Ireland at the
end of the last century, and with it new interest in Irish
literature and history, just these monks’ legends were count
ed to be their most valuable constituent. With true Celtic
enthusiasm and specifically Irish naivete, belief in these
stories was declared an intrinsic part of national patriotism,
* Annala Rioghachta Eirednn. Annals o f the Kingdom o f Ireland by
the Four Masters. Edited, with an English Translation, by Dr. John
O’Donovan. Second edition, Dublin, 1856, 7 volumes in 4°.
and this offered the supercunning world of English scholar
ship—whose own efforts in the field of philological and
historical criticism are gloriously enough well known to the
rest of the world—the desired pretext for throwing everything
Irish aside as arrant nonsense.*
Since the thirties of this century a far more critical spirit
has come into being in Ireland, especially through Petrie and
O’Donovan. Petrie’s already-mentioned researches prove that
the most complete agreement exists between the oldest
surviving inscriptions, which date from the 6th and 7th
centuries, and the annals; and O’Donovan is of the opinion
that these begin to report historical facts as early as the
second and third centuries of our era. It makes little differ
ence to us whether the credibility of the annals begins several
hundred years earlier or later since, unfortunately, during
that period they are almost wholly fruitless for our purpose.
They contain snort, dry notices of deaths, accessions to the
throne, wars, battles, earthquakes, plagues, Scandinavian raid
ing expeditions, but little that has reference to the social life
of the people. If the whole juridical literature of Ireland were
published, the annals would acquire a completely different
meaning; many a dry notice would obtain new life through
explanations found in the law-books.
Almost all of these law-books, which are very numerous,
still await the time when tney will see the light of day. On
the insistence of several Irish antiquarians, the English
Government agreed in 1852 to appoint a commission for
* One of the most naive products of that time is The Chronicles o f
Eri, being the History o f the Goal Sciot Jber, or the Irish People, trans
lated from the original manuscripts in the Phoenician dialect o f the
Scythian language by O ’Connor, London, 1822, 2 volumes. The Phoeni
cian dialect of the Scythian language is naturally Celtic Irish, and the
original manuscript is a verse chronicle chosen at will. The publisher is
Arthur O’Connor, exile of 1798 22 &9 uncle of Feargus O’Connor who
was later leader of the English Chartists, an ostensible descendant of the
ancient O’Connors, Kings of Connaught, and, after a fashion, the Irish
Pretender to the throne. His portrait appears in front of the title, a man
with a handsome, jovial Irish face, strikingly resembling his nephew
Feargus, grasping a crown with his right hand. Underneath is the
caption O’Connor—cear-rige, head of his race, and O’Connor, chief of
the prostrate people of his nation :‘Soumis, pas vaincus’ [Subdued, not
conquered]”.
publishing the ancient laws and institutions of Ireland. But
the commission consisted of three lords (who are never far
away when there is state money to be spent), three lawyers
o f the highest rank, three Protestant clergymen, and
Dr. Petrie and an official who is the chief surveyor in Ireland.
Of these gentlemen only Dr. Petrie and two clergymen,
Dr. Graves (now Protestant Bishop of Limerick) and
Dr. Todd, could claim to understand anything at all about
the tasks of the commission, and of these three Petrie and
Todd have since died. The commission was instructed to
arrange the transcription, translation and publication of the
legal content of the ancient Irish manuscripts, and to employ
the necessary people for that purpose. It employed the two
best people that were to be had, Dr. O’Donovan and Profes
sor O’Curry, who copied, and made a rough translation of, a
large number of manuscripts; both died, however, before
anything was ready for publication. Their successors, Dr.
Hancock and Professor O’Mahony, then took up the work, so
that up to the present the two volumes already cited, con
taining the Senchus Mor, have appeared. According to the
publishers’ acknowledgement only two of the members of
the commission, Graves and Todd, have taken part in the
work, through some annotations to the proofs. Sir Th. Lar-
com, a member of the commission, placed the original
maps of the survey of Ireland at the disposal of the pub
lishers for the verification of place names. Dr. Petrie soon
died, and the other gentlemen confined their activities
to drawing their salaries conscientiously for 18
years.
That is how public works are carried out in England, and
even more so in English-ruled Ireland. Without jobbery,*
they cannot begin. No public interest may be satisfied
without a pretty sum or some fat sinecures being siphoned
off for lords and government proteges. With the money that
the wholly superfluous commission has wasted the entire
* The using of public office to one’s private advantage or to that of
relations and friends, and likewise the using of public money for in
direct bribery in the interests of a party, is called jobbery in England.
An individual transaction is called a job. The English colony in Ireland
is the main centre of jobbery.
unpublished historical literature could have been published in
Germany—and better.
The Senchus Mor has until now been our main source for
information about conditions in ancient Ireland. It is a collec
tion of ancient legal decisions which, according to the later
composed introduction, was compiled on the orders of
St. Patrick, and with his assistance brought rinto harmony
with Christianity, rapidly spreading in Ireland. The High King
of Ireland, Laeghaire (428-458, according to the Annals of
the Four Masters), the Vice-Kings, Core of Munster and
Daire, probably a prince of Ulster, and also three bishops:
St. Patrick, St. Benignus and St. Caimech, and three lawyers:
Dubthach, Fergus and Rossa, are supposed to have formed
the “commission” which compiled the book—and there is no
doubt that they did their work more cheaply than the
present commission, who only had to publish it. The Four
Masters give 438 as the year in which the book was written.
The text itself is evidently based on very ancient heathen
materials. The oldest legal formulas in it are written in verse
with a precise metre and the so-called consonance, a kind of
alliteration or rather consonant-assonance, which is peculiar
to Irish poetry and frequently goes over to full rhyme. As it
is certain that old Irish law-books were translated in the
fourteenth century from the so-called Fenian dialect (Berla
Feini), the language of the fifth century, into the then
current Irish (Introduction (Vol. 1), p. xxxvi and follow
ing) it emerges that in the Senchus Mor too the metre has
been more or less smoothed out in places; but it appears
often enough along with occasional rhymes and marked con
sonance to give the text a definite rhythmical cadence. It is
generally sufficient to read the translation in order to find
out the verse forms. But then there are also throughout it,
especially in the latter half, numerous pieces of undoubted
prose; and, whereas the verse is certainly very ancient and has
been handed down by tradition, these prose insertions seem
to originate with the compilers of the book. At any rate, the
Senchus Mor is quoted frequently in the glossary composed
in the ninth or tenth century, and attributed to the King and
Bishop of Cashel, Cormac, and it was certainly written long
before the English invasion.
All the manuscripts (the oldest of which appears to date
from the beginning of the 14th century or earlier) contain a
series of mostly concordant annotations and longer com
menting notes on this text. The annotations are in the spirit
of old glossaries; quibbles take the place of etymology and
the explanation of words, and comments are of varying
quality, being often badly distorted or largely incompre
hensible, at least without knowledge of the rest of the law
books. The age of the annotations and comments is un
certain. Most of them, however, probably date from after the
English invasion. As at the same time they show only a very
few traces of developments in the law outside the text itself,
and these are only a more precise establishment of details,
the greater part, which is purely explanatory, can certainly
also be used with some discretion as a source concerning
earlier times.
The Senchus Mor contains:
1. The law of distraint [Pfandungsrecht] , that is to say,
almost the whole judicial procedure;
2. The law of hostages, which during disputes were put
up by people of different territories;
3. The law of Saerrath and Daerrath (see below)229; and
4. The law of the family.
From this we obtain mucn valuable information on the
social life of that time, but, as long as many of the expres
sions are unexplained and the rest of the manuscripts is not
published, much remains dark.
In addition of literature, the surviving architectural
monuments, churches, round towers, fortifications and
inscriptions also enlighten us about the condition of the
people before the arrival of the English.
From foreign sources we need only mention a few
passages about Ireland in the Scandinavian sagas and the life
of St. Malachy by St. Bernard,230 which are not fruitful
sources, and then come immediately to the first Englishman
to write about Ireland from his own experience.
Sylvester Gerald Barry, known as Giraldus Cambrensis,
Archdeacon of Brecknock, was a grandchild of the amorous
Nesta, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, Prince of South Wales,
and mistress of Henry I of England and the ancestor of
HISTORY OF RELAND 289
almost all the Norman leaders who took part in the first
conquest of Ireland. In 1185 he went with John (later
“Lackland”) to Ireland and in the following years wrote,
first, the Topographia Hibemica, a description of the land
and the inhabitants, and then the Hibernia Expugnata, a
highly-coloured history of the first invasion. It is mainly the
first work which concerns us here. Writteur in highly preten
tious Latin and filled with the wildest belief in miracles and
with all the church and national prejudices of the time and
the race of its vain author, the book is nevertheless of great
importance as the first at all detailed report by a foreigner.*
From here on, Anglo-Norman sources about Ireland
naturally become more abundant; however, little knowledge
is gained about the social circumstances of the part of the
island that remained independent, and it is from this that
conclusions regarding ancient conditions could be drawn. It is
only towards the end of the 16th century, when Ireland as a
whole was first systematically subjugated, that we find more
detailed reports about the actual living conditions of the Irish
people, and these naturally contain a strong English bias. We
shall find later that, in the course of the 400 years which
elapsed since the first invasion, the condition of the people
changed little, and not for the better. But, precisely because
of this, these newer writings—Hanmer, Campion, Spenser,
Davies, Camden, Moryson and others232—which we shall
have to consult frequently, are one of our main sources of
information on a period 500 years earlier, and a welcome and
indispensable supplement to the poor original sources.
The mythical prehistory of Ireland tells of a series of
immigrations which took place one after the other and
mostly ended with the subduing of the island by the new
immigrants. The three last ones are: that of the Firbolgs, that
of the Tuatha-de-Dananns, and that of the Milesians or Scots,
the last supposed to have come from Spain/Popular writing
* Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, London, Longmans,
1863.23*—A (weak) English translation of the historical works includ
ing the two works already mentioned was published in London by
Bohn in 1863 (The Historical Works o f Giraldus Cambrensis).
10-226
of history changed Firbolgs (fir—Irish fear, Latin vir, Gothic
vair—man) into Belgian without further ado; the Tuatha-de-
Dananns (tuatha—Irish people, tract of land, Gothic thiuda)
into Greek Danai or German Danes as they felt the need.
O’Donovan is of the opinion that something historical lies at
the basis of at least the immigrations named above. Accord
ing to the annals there occurred in the year 10 A.D. an in
surrection of the aitheach tuatha (which Lynch, who is a
good judge of the old language, translated in the seventeenth
century as: plebeiorum hominum gens), that is, a plebeian
revolution, in which the whole of the nobility (saorchlann)
was slain. This points to the dominion of Scottish conquerors
over the older inhabitants. O’Donovan draws the conclusion
from the folk-tales that the Tuatha-de-Dananns, who were
later transformed in folk-lore into elves of the mountain
forest, survived up to the 2nd or 3rd century of our era in
isolated mountain areas.
There is no doubt that the Irish were a mixed people even
before large numbers of English settled among them. As early
as the twelfth century, the predominant type was fair-haired
as it still is. Giraldus (Top. Hib. Ill, 26) says of two strangers*
that they had long yellow hair like the Irish. But there are
also even now, especially in the west, two quite different
types of black-haired people. The one is tall and well-built
with fine facial features and curly hair, people whom one
thinks that one has already met in the Italian Alps or
Lombardy; this type occurs most frequently in the south
west. The other, thickset and short in build, with coarse,
lank, black hair and flattened, almost negroid faces, is more
frequent in Connaught. Huxley attributes this dark-haired
element in the originally light-haired Celtic population to an
Iberian (that is, Basque) admixture,233 which would be
correct in part at least. However, at the time when the Irish
come clearly into the light of history, they have become a
homogeneous people with Celtic speech and we do not find
anywhere any other foreign elements, apart from the slaves ac
quired by conquest or barter, who were mostly Anglo-Saxons.
The reports of the classical writers of antiquity about
that people do not sound very flattering. Diodorus recounts
that those Britons who inhabit the island called Iris (or Irin?
it is in the accusative, *1 piv) eat people.234 Strabo gives a
more detailed report:
“Concerning this island [Jeme] I have nothing certain to tell,
except that its inhabitants are more savage than the Britons, since they
are man-eaters as well as heavy eaters [7ro\i>i//cryoi ; according to anoth
er manner of reading 7T0 TJ\l^&y0 L — herbivorous], and since, further,
they count it an honourable thing, when their fathers die, to devour
them, and openly to have intercourse, not only with*the other women,
but also with their mothers and sisters.”235
The patriotic Irish historians have been more than a little
indignant over this alleged calumny. It was reserved to more
recent investigation to prove that cannibalism, and especially
the devouring of parents, was a stage in the development of
probably all nations. Perhaps it will be a consolation to the
Irish to know that the ancestors of the present Berliners were
still honouring this custom a full thousand years later:
“Aber Weletabi, die in Germania sizzent, tie wir Wilze heizen, die ne
scament sih nieht ze chedenne daz sie iro parentes mit meren rehte ezen
sulin, danne die wurme.”* (Notker, quoted in Jacob Grimm’s Rechtsal-
terturner, p. 488.)
And we shall see the consuming of human flesh reoccur
more than once under English rule. As far as the phanero-
gamy (to use an expression of Fourier’s236), which the Irish
are reproached with, is concerned: such things occurred
amongst all the barbarous peoples, and much more amongst
the quite unusually gallant Celts. It is interesting to note that
even then the island carried the present native name: Iris, Irin
and Jeme are identical with Eire and Erinn; and how even
Ptolemy already knew the present name of the capital,
Dublin, Eblana (with the right accent ’'EjSXa'i'o: ).237 This is
all the more noteworthy since the Irish Celts have since
ancient times given this city another name, Athcliath, and for
them Duibhlinn—the black pool—is the name of a place on
the River Liffey.
Moreover we also find the following passage in Pliny’s
Historiae Naturalis, IV, 16:
“The Britons travel there” (to Hibernia) “in boats of willow-
branches across which animal-skins have been sewn together.”
* “But the Weletabi who reside in Germany, which we call Wilze,
who are not ashamed to say that they have a greater right to eat their
parents than the worms have.”—Ed.
10*
And later Solinus says of the Irish:
“They cross the sea between Hibernia and Britannia in boats of
willow-branches, which they overlay with a cover of cattle-hide.”
(C. Jul. Solini, Cosmographia, Ch. 25.)
In the year 1810, Wakefield found that on the whole
west coast of Ireland “no other boats occurred except ones
which consisted of a wooden frame covered over with a
horse- or ox-hide”. The shape of these boats varies according
to the district, but they are all distinguished by their
extraordinary lightness, so that mishaps rarely occur on
them. Naturally they are of no use on the open sea, for which
reason fishing can only take place in the creeks and amongst
the islands. Wakefield saw these boats in Malbay, County
Clare. They were 15 feet long, 5 feet wide and 2 feet deep.
Two cowhides with the hair on the inside and tarred on the
outside were used for one of these, and they were arranged
for two rowers. Such a boat cost about 30 shillings.
(Wakefield, Vol. 2, p. 97.) Instead of woven willows—a
wooden frame! What an advance in 1,800 years and after
nearly 700 years of the “civilising” influence of the foremost
maritime nation in the world!
As for the rest, several signs of progress can be seen.
Under King Cormac Ulfadha, who was placed on the throne
in the second half of the third century, his son-in-law, Finn
McCumhal, is said to have reorganised the Irish militia—the
Fianna Eirionn*—probably on the lines of the Roman legion
with differentiation between light troops and troops of the
line; all the later Irish armies on which we have detailed
information have the following categories of troops: the
kerne—light troops—and the galloglas—heavy troops or troops
of the line. Finn’s heroic deeds are celebrated in many old
songs, some of which still exist; these and perhaps a few
Scottish-Gaelic traditions form the basis of Macpherson’s
Ossian (Irish Oisin, son of Finn), in which Finn appears as
Fingal and the scene is transferred to Scotland.23** In Irish
* Feini, Fenier, is the name given to the Irish nation throughout the
Senchus Mor. Feinechus, Fenchus, Law of the Fenians, often stands for
the Senchus or for another lost law-book. Feine, grad feine also desig
nates the plebs, the lowestrfree class, of people.
folk-lore Finn lives on as Finn Mac-Caul, a giant, to whom
some wonderful feat of strength is ascribed in almost every
locality of the island.
Christianity must have penetrated Ireland quite early, at
least the east coast of it. Otherwise the fact that so many
Irishmen played an important part in Church-history even
long before Patrick cannot be explained. I^lagius the Heretic
is usually taken to be a Welsh monk from Bangor; but there
was also an ancient Irish monastery, Bangor, or rather
Banchor at Carrickfergus. That he comes from the Irish
monastery is proved by Hieronymus, who describes him as
being “stupid and heavy with Scottish gruel” (“s c o t o r u m
p u l t i b u s p r a e g r a v a t u s ” ) ? % $ This is the first mention of Irish
oatmeal gruel (Irish lite, Anglo-Irish stirabout, which even
then, before the introduction of potatoes, was the staple
food of the Irish people and after that continued to be so
alongside with the latter. Pelagius’s chief followers were
Celestius and Albinus, also Scots, that is, Irishmen. According
to Gennadius,240 Celestius wrote three detailed letters to his
parents from the monastery, and from them it can be seen
that alphabetical writing was known in Ireland in the fourth
century.
The Irish people are called Scots and the land Scotia in all
the writings of the early Middle Ages; we find this term used
by Claudianus, Isidorus, Beda, the geographer of Ravenna,
Eginhard and even by Alfred the Great: “Hibernia, which we
call Scotland” (“Igbemia the ve Scotland hatadh” ).241 The
present Scotland was called Caledonia by foreigners and
Alba, Albania by the inhabitants; the transfer of the name
Scotia, Scotland, to the northern area of the eastern isle did
not occur until the eleventh century. The first substantial
emigration of Irish Scots to Alba is taken to have been in the
middle of the third century; Ammianus Marcellinus already
knows them there in the year 360.242 The emigrants used
the shortest sea-route, from Antrim to the peninsula of
Kintyre; Nennius explicitly says that the Britons, who then
occupied all the Scottish lowlands up to the Clyde and Forth,
were attacked by the Scots from the west, by the Piets from
the north .243 Further, the seventh of the ancient Welsh
historical Triads244 reports that the gwyddyl ffichti (see
below) came to Alba over the Norse Sea (Mor Llychlin) and
settled on the coast. Incidentally, the fact that the sea
between Scotland and the Hebrides is called the Norse Sea
shows that this Triad was written after the Norse conquest of
the Hebrides. Large numbers of Scots came over again at
about the year 500, and they gradually formed a kingdom,
independent of both Ireland and the Piets. They finally
subdued the Piets in the ninth century under Kenneth
MacAlp in and created the state to which tne name Scotland,
Scotia was transferred, probably first by the Norsemen about
150 years later.
Invasions of Wales by the gwyddyl ffichti or Gaelic Piets
are mentioned in ancient Welsh sources (Nennius, the Triads)
of the fifth and sixth centuries. These are generally accepted
as being invasions of Irish Scots. Gwyddyl is the Welsh form
of gavidheal, as the Irish call themselves. The origin of the
term Piets can be investigated by someone else.
Patricius (Irish Patrick, Patraic, as the Celts always pro
nounce their c as k in the Ancient Roman way) brought
Christianity to dominance in the second quarter oi the fifth
century without any violent convulsions. Trade with Britain
which had been of long standing, also became livelier at this
time; architects and building workers came over and the Irish
learned from them to build with mortar, while up to then
they had only known dry-stone building. As mortar building
occurs between the seventh and twelfth centuries, and then
only in church buildings, that is proof enough that its
introduction is connected with that of Christianity, and
further, that from then on the clergy, as the representative of
foreign culture, severed itself completely from the people in
its intellectual development. Whilst the people made no, or
only extremely slow, social advances, there soon developed
amongst the clergy a literary learning which was extra
ordinary for the time and which, in accordance with the
custom then, manifested itself mostly in zeal for converting
heathens and founding monasteries. Columba converted the
British Scots and the Piets; Gallus (founder of St. Gallen) and
Fridolin the Allemanni, Kilian the Franks on the Main,
Virgilius the city of Salzburg. All five were Irish. The Anglo-
Saxons were also converted to Christianity mainly by Irish
missionaries. Furthermore, Ireland was known throughout
Europe as a nursery of learning, so much so that Charlemagne
summoned an Irish monk, Albinus, to teach at Pavia, where
another Irishman, Dungal, followed him later. The most
important of the many Irish scholars, who were famous at
that time but are now mostly forgotten, was the “Father”, or
as Erdmann calls him, the “Carolus Magnul”* of philosophy
in the Middle Ages—Johannes Scotus Erigena. Hegel says of
him, “Real philosophy began first with h i m . ” 2 4 5 He alone
understood Greek in Western Europe in the ninth century,
and by his translation of the writings attributed to Dionysius
the Areopagite, he restored the link with the last branch of
the old philosophy, the Alexandrian Neoplatonic s c h o o l.2 4 6
His teaching was very bold for the time. He denied the “eter
nity of damnation”, even for the devil, and brushed close to
Pantheism. Contemporary orthodoxy, therefore, did not fail
to slander him. It took a full two hundred years before the
branch of learning founded by Erigena was developed by
Anselm of Canterbury.**
Before this development of culture could have an effect
on the people, it was interrupted by the raids of the
Norsemen. The raids, which form the main staple product of
Scandinavian, and particularly Danish, patriotism, occurred
too late, and the nations from which they originated were
too small for them to result in conquest, colonisation, and
the forming of states on a large scale as had been the case
with the earlier invasions of the Germans. Their advantage
which they bequeathed on historical development is in
finitesimal in comparison with the immense and fruitless
(even for the Scandinavians themselves) disturbances they
caused.
Ireland was far from being inhabited by a single nation at
the end of the eighth century. Supreme royal power over the
* Charlemagne.—Ed.
** More about Erigena’s doctrine and works is to be found in
Erdmann’s Grundriss der Geschichte der Philo sop hie, 2. Aufl., Berlin,
1869, Bd. I, S. 241-47. Erigena, who was not a clergyman, shows real
Irish wit. Wien Charles the Bald, King of France, who was sitting
opposite him at table, asked him the difference between a Scot and a
sot, Erigena answered :“The width of a table.”
whole island existed only in appearance, and by no means
always at that. The provincial kings, whose number and
territories were continually changing, fought amongst them
selves, and the smaller territorial princes likewise carried on
their private feuds. On the whole, however, these internal
wars seem to have been governed by certain customs which
held the ravages within definite limits, so that the country
did not suffer too much. But this was not to last. In 795, a
few years after the English had been first raided by the same
plundering nation, Norsemen landed on the Isle of Rathlin,
off the coast of Antrim, and burnt everything down; in 798,
they landed near Dublin, and after this they are mentioned
nearly every year in the annals as heathens, foreigners,
pirates, and never without additional reports of the losccadh
(burning down) of one or more places. Their colonies on the
Orkneys, Shetlands and Hebrides (Southern Isles, Sudhreyjar
in the old Norse sagas) served them as operational bases
against Ireland, and against what was later known as Scot
land, and against England. In the middle of the ninth
century, they were in possession of Dublin,* which, accord
ing to Giraldus, they rebuilt for the first time into a proper
city. He also attributes the building of Limerick and Water
ford to them. The name Waterford is only a nonsensical
anglicisation of the ancient Norse Vedhrafiordhr, which
means either storm-bay [ Wetterfdhrde] or ram-bay [Widder-
bucht\ Naturally, as soon as the Norsemen settled down in
the land, their prime necessity was to have fortified harbour-
towns. The population of these long remained Scandinavian,
but in the twelfth century it had long since assimilated Irish
speech and customs. The quarrelling of the Irish princes
amongst themselves greatly simplified pillage and settlement
for the Norsemen, and even the temporary conquest of the
whole island. The extent to which the Scandinavians con
sidered Ireland as one of their regular pillage grounds is
* The assertion of Snorri in the Haraldsaga, 247 that Harald Har-
fagr’s sons, Thorgils and Frodi, were the first of the Norsemen to
occupy Dublin—that is, at least 50 years later than stated—is in direct
contradiction with all Irish accounts which are unimpeachable for this
period. Evidently Snorri is confusing Harald Harfagr’s son Thorgils with
the Thorgils (Turgesius) mentioned later.
shown by the so-called death-song of Ragnar Lodbrok, the
Krakumal, composed about the year 1000 in the snaketower
of King Ella of Northumberland.248 In this song all the
ancient pagan savagery is massed together, as if for the last
time, and under the pretext of celebrating King Ragnar’s
heroic deeds in song, all the Nordic peoples’ raids in their
own lands, on coasts from Dimamunde to Wanders, Scotland
(here already called Skotland, perhaps for the first time) and
Ireland are briefly pictured. About Ireland is said:
“We hew’d with our swords, heap’d high the slain,
Glad was the wolf’s brother of the furious battle’s feast;
Iron struck brass-shields; Ireland’s ruler, Marsteinn,
Did not starve the murder-wolf or eagle;
In Vedhrafiordhr the raven was given a sacrifice.
We hew’d with our swords, started a game at dawn,
A merry battle against three kings at Lindiseyri;
Not many could boast that they fled unhurt from there.
Falcon fought wolf for flesh, the wolf’s fury devoured many;
The blood of the Irish flow’d in streams on the beach
in the battle.”*
By the first half of the ninth century, a Norse Viking
Thorgils, called Turgesius by the Irish, had succeeded in
submitting all Ireland to his rule. But, with his death in 844,
his kingdom fell apart, and the Norsemen were driven out.
* “Hiuggu ver medh hiorvi, hverr lathverr of annan;

gladhr vardh gera brodhir getu vidh soknar laeti,
let ei om ne ylgi sa er Irlandi styrdhi,
(mot vardh malms ok ritar) Marsteinn konungr fasta;
vardh i Vedhra firdhi valtafn gefit hrafni.
Hiuggu ver medh hiorvi, hadhum sudhr at momi
leik fyrir Lindiseyri vidh lofdhunga threnna;
farr atti thvi fagna (fell margr i gyn ulfi,
haukr sleit hold medh vargi), at hann heill thadhan kaemi;
Yra blodh i oegi aerit fell um skaeru.”
Vedhrafiordhr is, as we have said, Waterford; I do not know wheth
er Lindiseyri has been discovered anywhere. On no account does it
mean Leinster as Johnstone translates it249; eyri (sandy neck of land,
Danish ore) points to a quite distinct locality. Valtafn can also mean
falcon feed and is generally translated as such here, but as the raven is
Odin’s holy bird, the word obviously has both meanings.
The invasions and battles continued with varying success.
Finally, at the beginning of the eleventh century, Ireland’s
national hero, Brian Borumha, originally King of only a part
of Munster, gained the kingship of all Ireland and gave the
decisive battle to the concentrated force of the invading
Norsemen on the 23rd April (Good Friday), 1014, at
Clontarf, close to Dublin, as a result of which the power of
the invaders was broken forever.
The Norsemen who had settled in Ireland, and on whom
Leinster was dependent (the King of Leinster, Maolmordha,
had come to the throne in 999 with their help and was
maintained there by it), had sent messengers to the Hebrides,
the Orkneys, Denmark and Norway asking for reinforce
ments, in anticipation of the impending decisive battle. Help
came to them in large numbers. The N i d l s s a g a ^ ^ O recounts
how Jarl Sigurd Laudrisson armed himself for the departure
on the Orkneys, and how Thorstein Siduhallsson, Hrafn the
Red and Erlinger of Straumey went with him, and how he
arrived in Dublin (Durflin) with all his army on Palm Sunday.
“Brodhir had already arrived with his whole force. Brodhir tried to
learn by means of sorcery how the battle would turn out, and the
answer was this: if the battle was fought on a Friday, King Brian would
win the victory but die; and that if it was fought before that time, then
all who were against him would fall. Then Brodhir said that they should
not fight before Friday.”
There are two versions of the battle itself, that of the
Irish . annals and the Scandinavian one of the Nialssaga.
According to the latter:
“King Brian had come up to the fortified town” (Dublin) “with his
entire army, and on Friday the army” (of the Norsemen) “issued from
the town. Both hosts arranged themselves in battle array. Brodhir
headed one wing, King Sigtrygg” (King of the Dublin Norsemen accord
ing to the Annals o f Inisfallen) “the other. We must say that King Brian
did not wish to give battle on Good Friday; therefore a shield-burg was
set about him and his army stationed in front of that. Ulf Hraeda
headed the wing facing Brodhir, and Ospak and his sons headed the
wing facing Sigtrygg, but Kerthialfadh stood in the middle and had the
flag carried before him.”
When the battle began Brodhir was driven into a wood by
Ulf Hraeda where he found safety. Jarl Sigurd had a hard
struggle against Kerthialfadh, who fought his way to the flag
and slew the flag-bearer as well as the next man who seized
the flag; then all refused to carry the flag and Jarl Sigurd
took the flag from the staff and hid it in his clothing. Soon
after he was pierced by a spear, and with this his part of the
army appears to have been defeated. Meanwhile Ospak
attacked the Norsemen in the rear and defeated Sigtrygg’s
wing after a hard fought battle.
“Thereupon the entire host took to flight. Thorstein Hallson
stopped while the others were fleeing and tied his shoe thong. Then
Kerthialfadh asked him why he was not running too.
“ ‘Because I can’t get home this evening anyway,’ said Thorstein, ‘as
I live out in Iceland! ’ Kerthialfadh spared him.”
Brodhir now saw from his hiding-place that Brian’s army
was pursuing those who fled from the battle and that few
people remained at the shield-burg. Then he ran out of the
wood, broke through the shield-burg and slew the King.
(Brian, who was 88, was obviously not capable of joining in
the battle and had remained in the camp.)
“Then Brodhir shouted: ‘Let it pass from mouth to mouth that
Brodhir felled Brian! ’ ”
But the pursuers returned, surrounded Brodhir and seized
him alive.
“Ulf Hraeda slit open his belly, led him round and round an oak-
tree, and in this way unwound all his intestines out of his body, and
Brodhir did not die before they were all pulled out of him. Brodhir’s
men were slain to the last man.”
According to the Annals o f Inisfallen the Norse army was
divided into three sections. The first consisted of the Dublin
Norsemen and 1,000 Norwegian volunteers, who all wore
long shirts of mail. The second was made up of the Irish
auxiliary forces from Leinster under King Maolmordha. The
third consisted of reinforcements from the Islands and
Scandinavia under Bruadhair, the commander of the fleet
that had brought them, and Lodar, the Jarl of the Orkneys.
Against these Brian also placed his troops in three sections;
but the names of the leaders given here do not correspond
with those given in the Nialssaga, and the account of the
battle is insignificant. The following account, given in the
Four Masters, is shorter and clearer:
“A.D. 1013 [given here as everywhere mistakenly for 1014]. The
foreigners of the west of Europe assembled against Brian and Maelsea-
chlainn” (usually called Malachy, King of Meath under Brian’s High
Kingship); “and they took with them ten hundred men with coats of
mail. A spirited, fierce, violent, vengeful, and furious battle was fought
between them—the likeness of which was not to be found at that time—
at Cluaintarbh” (Meadow of the Bulls, now Clontarf) “on the Friday
before Easter precisely. In this battle were slain Brian ... in the eighty -
eighth year of his age; Murchadh, his son, in the sixty-third year of his
age; Conaing,... the son of Brian’s brother; Toirdhealbhach, son Of
Murchadh...” (there follow a multitude of names). “The” (enemy)
“forces were afterwards routed by dint of battling, bravery, and strik
ing, by Maelseachlainn, from Tulcainn to Athcliath” (Dublin), “against
the foreigners and the Leinstermen; and there fell Maolmordha, son of
Murchadh, son of Finn, King of Leinster.... There was a countless
slaughter of the Leinstermen along with them. There were also slain
Dubhgall, son of Amhlanibh” (usually called Anlaf or Olaf), “and
Gillaciarain, son of Gluniaim, two tanists of the foreigners, Sichfrith,
son of Lodar, Earl of the Orkneys (iarla I nsi h Oirc)\ Brodar, chief of
the Danes, who was the person that slew Brian. The ten hundred in
armour were cut to pieces, and at the least three thousand of the
foreigners were there slain.”
The Nialssaga was written in Iceland approximately 100
years after the battle; the Irish annals are based, at least in
part, on contemporary information. The two are completely
independent of each other. Yet not only do they correspond
in all the main points, but they also complete each other. We
can only find out who Brodhir and Sigtrygg were from the
Irish annals. Sigurd Laudrisson is the name of Sichfrith,
Lodar’s son. Sichfrith is in fact the correct Anglo-Saxon form
of the ancient Norse name, Sigurd. In Ireland, Scandinavian
names appear—on coins as well as in the annals—mainly in
their Anglo-Saxon forms, not in the ancient Norse. In the
Nialssaga the names of Brian’s generals are adapted for easier
pronunciation by the Scandinavians. One of the names, Ulf
Hraeda, is, in fact, ancient Norse, but it would be risky as
some do to conclude from this that Brian had Norsemen in
his army too. Ospak and Kerthialfadh appear to be Celtic
names; the latter might be a distortion of the Toirdhealbhach
mentioned in the Four Masters. The date of the battle—given
as the Friday after Palm Sunday in the one, and as the Friday
before Easter in the other—is the same in both, as is also the
place of the battle. Although this is given as Kantaraburg
(otherwise Canterbury)251 in the Nialssaga, it is also explicit
ly said to be close to the gates of Dublin. The course of the
battle is reported more precisely in the Four Masters: The
Norsemen attacked Brian’s army on the Plain of Clontarf.
From there they were thrown back beyond the Tolka, a little
stream near the northern part of Dublin, towards the city.
Both report that Brodhir slew King BrizJn, but more detailed
accounts are given only in the Norse source.
In can be seen that our reports on this battle are quite
informative and authentic, considering the barbarity of that
time. There are not many eleventh-century battles on which
such reliable and corroborating accounts are available from
both sides. This does not prevent Professor Goldwin Smith
from describing it as a “shadowy conflict” (Ir. His., p. 48).
Certainly, the most robust facts quite often take on a “shad
owy” form in our Professor’s head.
After their defeat at Clontarf, the Norse raids became less
frequent and less dangerous. The Dublin Norsemen soon
came under the domination of the neighbouring Irish princes,
and, after one or two generations, were assimilated by the
native population. The only compensation the Irish got for
the devastation caused by the Scandinavians was three or
four cities and the beginnings of a trading bourgeoisie.
The further back we go into history, the more the char

acteristics distinguishing different peoples of the same race
disappear. This is partly because of the nature of the sources,
which in the measure in which they are older become thinner
and contain only the most essential information, and partly
because of the development of the peoples themselves. The
less remote the individual branches are from the original
stock, the nearer they are to each other and the more they
resemble each other. Jacob Grimm has always quite correctly
treated the information given by Roman historians, who
described the War of the Cimbri, 252 Adam of Bremen and
Saxo Grammaticus, all the literary written records from
Beowulf and Hildebrandslied to the Eddas253 and the sagas,
all the books of law from the Leges barbarorum254 to the
ancient Danish and ancient Swedish laws and the old
Germanic judicial procedures as equally valuable sources of
information on the German national character, customs and
legal conditions. A specific characteristic may be of purely
local significance, but the character reflected in it is common
to the whole race; and the older the sources used, the more
local differences disappear.
Just as the Scandinavians and the Germans differed less in
the seventh and eighth centuries than they do today, so also
must the Irish Celts and the Gallic Celts have originally
resembled each other more than present-day Irishmen and
Frenchmen. Therefore we should not be surprised to find in
Caesar’s description of the Gauls many features which are
ascribed to the Irish by Giraldus some twelve hundred years
later, and which, furthermore, are discernible in the Irish
national character even today, in spite of the admixture of
Germanic blood....
Published in the book Translated from the German

Marx-Engels Archives, Vol.X,
Russ, ed., Moscow, 1948
Frederick Engels
From THE PREPARATORY MATERIAL

FOR THE “HISTORY OF IRELAND” 255
r
DRAFT PLAN
1. Natural conditions
2. Ancient Ireland
3. English conquests
1) First invasion
2) Pale and Irishry
3) Subjugation and expropria
tion. 152...-1691
4. English rule
1) Penal Laws. 1691-1780
2) Rebellion and Union. 1780-1801
3) Ireland in the United Kingdom
a) The period of the small peasants. 1801-1846
b) The period of extermination. 1846-1870

Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. X,
NOTES FOR THE “ HISTORY OF IRELAND”

Ir[ish] literature?—17th century, poet[ical], histor
ical], juridical], then completely suppressed due to the
extirpation of the Ir [ish] literary language—exists only in
manuscript—publication is beginning only now—this is [pos
sible] only with an oppressed people. See Serbs, etc.
The English knew how to reconcile people of the most
diverse races with their rule. The Welsh, who held so tena
ciously to their nationality and language, have fused com
pletely with the British Empire. The Scottish Celts, though
rebellious until 1745256 and since almost completely exter
minated first by the government and then by their own aris
tocracy, do not even think of rebellion. The French of the
Channel Isles fought bitterly against France during the Great
Revolution. Even the Frisians of Heligoland,*57 which
Denmark sold to Britain, are satisfied with their lot; and a
long time will probably pass before the laurels of Sadowa and
the conquests of the North-German Confederation258
wrench from their throats a pained wail about unification
with the “great fatherland”. Only with the Irish the English
could not cope. The reason for this is the enormous resilience
of the Irish race. After the most savage suppression, after
every attempt to exterminate them, the Irish, following a
short respite, stood stronger than ever before: it seemed they
drew their main strength from the very foreign garrison
forced on them in order to oppress them. Within two genera
tions, often within one, the foreigners became more Irish
than the Irish, Hibemiores ipsis Hibernis. The more the Irish
accepted the English language and forgot their own, the more
Irish they became.
The bourgeoisie turns everything into a commodity,

hence also the writing of history. It is part of its being, of its
condition for existence, to falsify all goods: it falsified the
writing of history. And the best-paid historiography is that
which is best falsified for the purposes of the bourgeoisie.
Witness Macaulay, who, for that very reason, is the inept
G. Smith’s unequalled paragon.
MATERIAL FOR “HISTORY OF IRELAND” 305
Queen’s Evidence.—Rewards for Evidence.

England is the only country where the state openly dares
to bribe witnesses, [be it] by an offer of exemption from
punishment, be it by ready cash. That prices are fixed for the
betrayal of the sojourn of a political persecutee is com
prehensible, but that they say: who gives me evidence on
grounds o f which somebody can be sentenced as the con
triver of some crime or another—this infamy is something not
only the Code, but also Pr[ussian] common law have left to
Eng[lish] law. That collateral evidence is required alongside
with that given by the informer is useless; generally there is
suspicion of somebody, or else it is fabricated, and the in
former only has to adjust his lies accordingly.
Whether this pretty usage [saubere Usus] has its roots
already in Eng[lish] legal proceedings is hard to say, but it is
certain that it has received its development on Irish soil at the
time of the Tories259 and the penal laws.
On March 15, 1870, when the government removed an

Irish sheriff (Coote of Monaghan) on the plea that he had
packed the jury panel, G. H. Moore, M. P. for Mayo, said in
Parliament:
“If Capt. Coote had done all the things of which he had been
accused, he had only followed the practice which, in political cases,
had been habitually sanctioned by the Institute Executive.”
As one instance out of many that might be cited, he
would mention that though County Cork had a proportion of
500,000 Catholics against 50,000 Protestants, at the time of
the Fenian trials in i<565,260 a jury panel was called, com
posed of 360 Protestants and 40 Catholics!
The German Legion of 1806-13 was also sent to Ireland.

Thus, the good Hanoverians who refused to put up with
French [bondage] rule, were used by the English to preserve
the English rule in Ireland!
The agrarian murders in Ireland cannot be suppressed

because and as long as they are the only effective remedy
against the extermination of the people by the landlords.
They help, that is why they continue, and will continue, in
spite of all the coercive laws Their number varies, as it does
with all social phenomena; they can even become epidemic in
certain circumstances, when they occur at quite insignificant
occasions. The epidemic can be suppressed, but the sickness
itself cannot.

Marx-Engels Archives, VoL X,
CHRONOLOGY OF IRELAND26 1
Immigration of the Scots (Milesians).
200 B.C. ? King Kimbaoth.
A.D. 2? King Conary the Great?
258 ? First Scottish settlement in Albany (Scot
land).
King Cormac Ulfadha.—Finn McCumhal.
396 Irish invasion of Great Britain. King Nial of
the Nine Hostages.
406, Dathy, last of the Irish heathen kings.
403 St. Patrick brought to Ireland from France
as slave. He fled in 410.
422* Returned as converter and died in 465.
684 Egfrid, King of Northumberland, sailed his
navy to Ireland.
* Slip of the pen. St. Patrick begins as missionary in Ireland in
432.-E d.
MATERIAL FOR “HISTORY OF IRELAND** 307
795 First Danish invasion, thenceforth regularly

renewed (first invasion of England in 787).
818-33 King Concobar
839-46 Feidlim, King of Munster.
844 Turgesius died and Danes were expelled.
849 New Danish invasion.
853 Olaf, Ivar and Sitrick arrived. Nose-money
tribute.
901-08 Cormac McCulinan, King of Munster.
902 Leinster expelled Danes from Dublin.
926 Muirkeartach’s first victory over Danes.
937 Battle of Brunanburh. Olaf of Dublin takes
part.262
939 Muirkeartach—ruler of all Ireland.
943 Muirkeartach died.
944 King Donogh died.
969 Mahon, King of Munster, and his brother
Brian Boromhe (King Kennedy’s son) de
feated Limerick Danes at Sulchoide and,
pursuing them, captured Limerick, which
they burned.
976 Mahon assassinated by another chieftain,*
Maolmua. Brian Boru, King of all Munster,
defeated Maolmua and other chieftains
involved in the plot, conquered Iniscathy
(Shannon estuary) from the Danes and
expelled them from the other Shannon
islands.
980 Malachy the Great (of the Hy Nials) became
King of Tara (at that time there were only
two kingdoms in Ireland—Cashel and Tara);
defeated the Danes at Tara, subjugated them
and freed all Irish war prisoners (c. 2,000).
Leinster and other vassal chieftains [Unter-
fursten] plotted against Brian, but were
foiled.
* Ms. says Fiirst, i.e., prince.—Ed.

982 Malachy overran Brian’s possessions.
983 Malachy overran Leinster. Brian made war.
They signed an agreement consummating
the division of Ireland, with Leinster re
maining a tributary of the Southern King
dom.
988 Another war broke out between the two
with changing fortune, until
997 the agreement formalising the division was
reaffirmed.
998-1000 The two made common cause in war
against Danes, achieving notable success.
1000 Again war between the two; Malachy, the
weaker, submitted before the battle.
1001 Brian Boru became King of Tara and all
Ireland.
1008 Defeated the rebellious Southern Hy Nials
at Athlone. General peace set in.
1013 Sitrick= Sigtrygg, the Danish King of Dub
lin, and his allies from Leinster invaded
Meath, where Malachy was local king, and
defeated him.
Brian denied Malachy help, but in summer
marched against and ravaged Leinster.
1014 Large-scale invasion of Ireland by the
Norsemen. They made Dublin their main
base. Brian marched on Dublin. Battle of
Clontarf on April 23 (Good Friday). The
Danes defeated (described in Nialssaga; see
Dietrich, [Altnordisches Lesebuch] p. 52).
Brian was assassinated in his tent by the
Norwegian Admiral Brodar; his son Mor-
rough fell too. After the battle strife broke
out anew over succession and supremacy.
1015 Malachy again became King of Ireland and
repulsed a new Danish invasion. Numerous
inland risings and new clashes with the
Danes who never recovered after Clontarf.
1022 Malachy abdicated and withdrew to a
cloister, where he soon died. No new su-
preme king was elected; Wars of succession

followed in Munster until
1064 Turlough, Brian Boru’s nephew, became
King and
1072 annexed Dublin, Leinster and Meath.
1070 Murchad, the first Irish King of the Dublin
Danes, who now assimilate rapidly.
Ulster was also finally subjugated by
Turlough.
1086 Turlough died. Wars of succession fol
lowed.
1090 Treaty of Lough Neagh: Murkertach, son
of Turlough, made King of the South, and
Domnal O’Lochlin, chief of the Hy Nials,
King of the North. But war broke out be
tween them at once, lasting 28 years. In
1103 Mouirkertach was defeated.
1114 Mouirkertach, who fell sick, abdicated in
favour of Dermot, his brother.
1121 Domnal O’Lochlin died. New wars of suc
cession followed.
1088 Tigemach (pronounced Tiama), the chron
icler, died.
1086 Marianus Scotus died in Mayence.
1136 Tordelvac O’Connor, King of Connaught,
made King of all Ireland, but continuously
attacked by the kings of Munster, until
1151 the Momons were totally defeated at Moin-
mor and Munster was subjugated. But a
rising followed at once
1153 by Murtogh O’Lochlin, King of Tyrone,
chief of Ulster and member of the Hy
Nials, who, however, was also defeated.
1152 Synod in Kells. Resolutions against simony,
usury, priest marriage and concubinage.
Later, a prescript by Cardinal Legate
Paparo, introducing payment of tithe in
Ireland.
1156 Tordelwach died. His son Roderic O’Con
nor—King of Connaught; but Murtogh
O’Lochlin made King of all Ireland, meet
ing but little resistance from Roderic.
Otherwise, peace.
1166 Murtogh died. Roderic O’Connor became
King of Ireland. Held
1167 counsel with all chiefs and prelates at
Athboy, where a retinue of 30,000 people
gathered. This was exactly four years
before the English invasion!
1153 Dermot McMurchad, King of Leinster, ab
ducted DervorgiDa, wife of Tiernan O’Ruark,
chief of Breffny in East Connaught.
1154 Tordelwach forced him to return her and
protected O’Ruark. However, his successor
O’Lochlin sided with Dermot, while
Roderic again on O’Ruark’s side.
1166 Roderic sent reinforcements to help
O’Ruark and drove out Dermot, who fled
1168 to England and appealed tor help to Henry
II. The latter had soon after 1155 obtained
from Pope Adrian IV (an Englishman by
name of Breakspear) a bull allowing him to
return for recognising extended temporal
papal court authority to conquer Ireland in
order to reform the Irish church, with
every Irish household paying the Pope Id.
yearly.
1169-71 Conquest of South and East Ireland by the
English.263
1173 Marauding by the English.
1174 Strongbow and Hervey of Mount Maurice
defeated by Donald O^Brian.General upris
ing. Raymond Le Gros brought 30 knights,
100 men-at-arms and 30 archers from
England and restored order. He became
Strongbow’s son-in4aw and enfeoffed
Idrone, Fethard and Glascarrig;, captured
limerick from Donald O’Brian.
1175 O’Brian beleaguered Limerick, but was
defeated at Cashel. Here Irishmen, the
Draft plan for the History of Ireland
princes of Ossory and Kinsale, sided with

the English. Roderic and O’Brian accepted
defeat. Roderic was reaffirmed as King of
all Ireland under English suzerainty, exclu
sive of Leinster, Meath and the coast from
Waterford to Dungarvan. These were put
directly under English rule. Roderic
acknowledged that the Kings of England
were for all time Lords Paramount in
Ireland and the fee of the soil should be in
them. Meanwhile, old laws remained and
chieftains retained full power in Roderic’s
possessions, making war on each other as
before.
1176 Strongbow died.
1177 English invasion of Ulster under de Courcy
failed. Ditto of Connaught under Milo de
Cogan without pretext and just as unsuc
cessful. The Irish laid waste the land and
withdrew to the hills, attacking the English
as the latter withdrew, and defeating them.
1178 De Courcy defeated in Ulster and pressed
back to Downpatrick.
1182 De Cogan (Milo) assassinated in Desmond.
Uprising in Munster. Strife among Irish, as
a result of which Roderic abdicated in
favour of his son, Connor Manmoy.
1184-85 New reinforcements of the English. Contin
uous plunder of the country, especially of
Ulster, by the English.
1185 John (Lackland), 12 years old, sent to
Ireland as Lord. His retinue insulted the
Irish chiefs, and a general uprising broke
out. Irish clans, long subdued in the Pale,
were driven out by the English and their
land confiscated. Even Welsh were mistreat
ed by John’s men. Now the Irish began a
small war with some success, destroying
isolated forts and detachments. But soon
they resumed wars against each other, so
#14 FREDERICK ENGELS
that by and large the English held their
ground.
1189 Henry II died. Uprisings against the English
broke out continuously until the end of the
century. Continuous internal wars between
the Irish and those Irishmen who fought on
the side of the English.
1198 Strife broke out among the English barons.
After Roderic’s death a war of succession
began in Connaught between his sons
Carrach, supported by William de Burgh (of
the Fitz-Adelms), and Cathal, backed by J.
de Courcy and Walter de Lacy.
Soon thereafter the rivalry between John
1205 de Courcy and Hugh de Lacy culminated in
de Courcy’s capture by the King and the
transfer of his county in Ulster to de Lacy.
1205-16 Ireland mostly quiet until John’s death.
1216 HENRY III. Ten years old. Earl Pembroke,
Strongbow’s heir in Leinster, Earl Marshal
of England, appointed administrator.
Magna Carta264 extended to Ireland (i.e.,
for the English).
1219-20 War between William Earl Pembroke (son
of the above) and Hugh de Lacy over some
border land, with O’Neill of Tyrone helping
de Lacy.
1245 Maurice Fitz-Gerald, Lord Justice of Ireland,
supplied an Irish army which included
Feidlim, King of Connaught, to aid King
Henry in the war against Wales. This
campaign was conducted voluntarily by the
Irish barons, for they were not obligated to
serve outside Ireland; “may this not be con
sidered a precedent”.*
1244 Henry ordered the indigenous Irish chiefs
and 1254 to provide him with troops in Scotland and
* Undertaking given by Henry III to the Anglo-Irish barons in the
Act of the 28th year of his reign.—Ed.
Gascogne. Nothing is known of whether
they complied.
1255 Irish troops sailed to help Earl of Chester
and the Welsh against the English, but were
defeated before landing by Prince Edward
(later I). Thereupon, Irish troops dis
patched to help the King against the Welsh.
1259 Uprising of the McCarthys of Desmond,
almost all of whose land was given over to
the Geraldines.265 The Geraldines were
expelled, but the success was not last
ing, because other chiefs denied
help.
1264 Feud between the de Burghs and Geraldin
es, until finally the Irish Parliament (?) in
Kilkenny and the new Lord Justice Barry
put an end to it.
1270 A new strong uprising of the Irish,but only
destruction and a small war resulted;
English power remained vigorous.
1272 EDWARD I. Early in his reign, the Irish (of
the Pale) petitioned that English law be ex
tended to them.
That same year, 1272, the Irish rose again.
Invasion of Ireland by Scots, followed
by a raid of Scotland by Richard de
Burgh and Sir Eustace de Poer with Irish
troops employing their favourite method
of smoking the Scots out of the
caves.
1276-80 Many wars against the Irish.
1277 Wars of succession between the O’Brians of
Thomond; Thomas de Clare, son of Earl of
Gloucester, took advantage of this to estab
lish himself in the country. In the mean
time, the Irish warred among themselves in
Connaught, of which Lord Justice Robert
de Ufford wrote the King that it would be
fine if the rebels killed each other, because
it did not cost the King’s treasury anything
and would help instil peace in the country
(Vol. Ill, p. 33*).
1280 Edward called on lords spiritual and tempo
ral and all the other Englishmen in Ireland
to hold counsel about the petition asking
for the Irish to be placed under English
law. He was in favour (the Irish promised
8,000 marks for it), because the laws of the
From Irish were “hateful in the sight of God”
Davies** and so unjust that they could not be con
sidered as laws, though he did not wish to
act without the consent of the lords.
However, the barons appear not to have
taken any notice, with still only a few Irish
men admitted within the pale of English
law.
Feuds between the de Burghs and the
Geraldines, likewise between other barons,
throughout Edward’s reign. Similar strife
between the Irish chiefs.
At last,
1295 Lord Justice Sir John Wogan convened
Parliament to settle the feuds, devising an
armistice that lasted two years. This Parlia
ment was, of course, no more than a
gathering of barons and prelates. For its
decisions see excerpts [from Moore,
History of Ireland, Book of Excerpts II,] p.
12 .
1299 When Anglo-Irish auxiliary troops set out
for the Scottish war267 an uprising oc
curred in the Maraghie mountains and in
Oriel. Peace ensued for a number of years
after the troops returned.
1303 Again, Anglo-Irish troops from Ulster set
out for Scotland.
* Th. Moore, History o f Ireland, Vol. Ill, Paris, 1840, p. 33 —Ed.

** John Davies, Historical Tracts, London, 1786.—Ed.
1306 Irish rising in Meath crushed in the Battle
of Glenfell.
1307 Irish rising in Offaley and Connaught.
1307 EDWARD II.
1309 Parliament in Kilkenny: acts against gross
or 1310 exactions and general misconduct of the
nobility. r
1312 The Byrnes and O’Tooles of Wicklow
marched on Dublin, while English
bondsmen [Lehnsleute] in Oriel rebelled.
1307 Robert Bruce, who had fled to Rachlin
Island, Antrim County, where he was in
hiding all winter, helped by the Irish, set
out for Galloway with 300 Scotsmen and
700 Irish troops, but was intercepted by
Duncan M’Dowal, a local chief, at embarka
tion and defeated.
1315 After Robert Bruce’s victory at Bannock
burn in 1314,268 Edward Bruce and 6,000
men landed in Antrim, the Irish joining him
en masse, and conquered Ulster; he was
crowned King of Ireland in Dundalk, de
feated the English under de Burgh on the
Banne River, Down County, and waited for
reinforcements from Scotland. While Feid-
lim O’Connor of Connaught marched off
with the English, Roderic O’Connor re
belled; Connaught was swept by insurrec
tion; but Feidlim defeated Roderic, who
was killed in battle; whereupon Feidlim
banded with Bruce. Munster too, rose
against the English; even several of the
great lords (English) and many English
people made common cause with Bruce.
The latter defeated the English in Meath,
marched on Kildare and defeated them
once more; an insurrection in Leinster,
especially Wicklow (Byrnes, O’Tooles
and O’Moores), held in check by the
English.
1343 Sir Ralph Ufford, husband of the Countess
Dowager of Ulster, was made Lord Justice,
and
1345 convened Parliament in Dublin, while
Desmond convened one in Callan; Ufford
came to grips with him and compelled him
to comply. Ufford died in 1346, and the
King’s fight against the lords seems to have
ended for a time.
1353 The confiscated possessions (1342) were
returned.
1361 Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of
Edward, appointed Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. Marched without the Irish lords,
whom he slighted, against O’Brian of
Thomond, and was defeated; then he called
on them for help, and the latter defeated
the Irish.
1364 Lionel returned to England.
1367 Parliament of Kilkenny.269 At this time,
Ireland was so peaceful that the King’s writ
ran in Ulster and Connaught and the
revenues of those provinces were regularly
accounted for in the Exchequer.
1369-70 New risings of the O’Tooles and others in
Leinster, and of O’Connor and O’Brian in
the south-west; they were suppressed.
1364 Dublin University founded.*
1377 RICHARD //. Almost every Parliament
(English) of his reign demanded supplies
and men for war in Ireland.
1394 Richard landed in Waterford with 4,000
horsemen and 30,000 archers to reconquer
Ireland. The chiefs of Leinster and Ulster,
numbering 75, expressed submission. Those
of Ulster were to pay the bonaght270 to
the Earl of Ulster, while those of Leinster
* The official founding date of Dublin University (Trinity College)
is
relinquished all their land and promised
help against all other Irish, for which they
would keep land thus conquered.
1395 No sooner Richard and his army returned
than raids were renewed into the Pale.
1399 Richard marched against Ireland again, but
in his absence t
1399 HENRY IV, Bolingbroke of Lancaster,
usurped the English throne and took
Richard prisoner on his return.
1402 The O’Bymes of Wicklow were defeated by
John Drake, Mayor of Dublin.
1407 War against McMorrough of Leinster; yield
ed no decisive results, though by and large
favourable for the English.
1410 Parliament in Dublin. An Act made it
treason to exact coynye and livery.271
During an excursion by Thomas Le Bo til
ler, Prior of Kilmainham and Lord Justice,
with 1,500 kerns (Irish infantry) against
O’Byrne, half went over to the enemy and
the English had to withdraw. An Act was
introduced whereby the Irish were pro
hibited to migrate without special lic
ence to assure enough hands for the
fields.
1413 HENRY V.
1414 Talbot victorious over Irish borderers.*
1417 200 Irish horsemen and 300 infantry under
Thomas Butler, Prior of Kilmainham, went
to France as auxiliary troops272: the
horsemen on ponies, unsaddled, clothed in
armour, the infantry with shields, spears
and large knives. They fought very well and
won much acclaim.
1421 New wars with the Irish, the latter being
defeated in Leinster and Oriel.
1422 HENRY VI.
* The reference is to the borders of the Pale.—Ed.
11-226
1432 Sir Thomas Stanley, Lord Lieutenant, re
pulsed unusually strong Irish attacks.
1438 For the second time an Act was passed in
English Parliament that all people bom in
Ireland (except beneficed clergymen,
English estate holders and a few others)
must at once return to the country of their
birth. A similar act was passed in Irish
Parliament to curb the exodus to England.
1449 Duke of York, heir of Earl March and as
such Earl of Ulster and Cork, Lord of Con
naught, Clare, Trim and Meath, hence
nominally Lord of */ 3 of Ireland, was
appointed Lord Lieutenant for ten years.
As usual, wars and feuds continued.
Throughout the hundred years, the govern
ment contended with financial difficulties.
Ireland’s annual deficit was about £1,500.
1450 York returned to contest the English
throne.
1460 York defeated and killed at Wakefield,273
where he was accompanied by “the flower
of all the English colonies (in Ireland),
specially of Ulster and Meath, whereof
many noblemen and gentlemen were slain
at Wakefield” (Davies).*
1460 EDWARD IV.
1463-67 Earl of Desmond became Lord Lieutenant;
ascendancy of the Geraldines. Carlow,
Ross, Dunbar’s Island and Dungarvan
bestowed to Desmond; he was also made
beneficiary of a large annuity chargeable on
the principal seigniories belonging to the
Crown in the Pale. But Desmond was too
Irish and too popular, and hence.
1467 Lord Worcester became his successor,
imprisoning Desmond, indicting him under
the Statute of Kilkenny for alliance and
* John Davies, Historical Tracts, London, 1786.—Ed.
MATERIAL FOR “HISTORY OF IRELAND”___________________________ 323
intermarriage with the Irish. (It was
through this marital connection with the
Irish that Desmond was able to uphold the
King’s authority in Munster; as for the
Statute, it was long out of use in the
south.) Parliament of Drogheda found
Desmond attainted of treason for “alliance,
fostering, and alterage vfith the King’s
enemies, for furnishing them with horses,
harness, and arms, and supporting them
against the King’s subjects”. He was
beheaded in Drogheda on February 5,
1468.
1468 Worcester recalled, while Earl Kildare, the
Geraldine, though also attainted, was re
stored and even made Lord Lieutenant.
1476 John, Earl of Ormond (attainted under
Edward as follower of Henry VI), restored
to all his possessions and in high favour.
The Butlers rose, the Geraldines fell, but
regained favour in 1478.
1478 Thomas, Earl Kildare, died. His son, Gerald
Fitz-Thomas, Earl Kildare, was made Lord
Deputy (of the Duke of Clarence, who was
Lord Lieutenant).
1483 EDWARD V and RICHARD III.
1485 HENRY VII. Confirmed the Yorkists (the
Geraldines and others) in their Irish offices,
and installed no Lancasterites beside them.
However, Thomas, Earl Ormond (attainted
by Edward IV), was reinstated in his Irish
and English estates and made member of
the English Privy Council (he was brother
of James).
1486 In Dublin, posing as young Earl of War
wick, son of the Duke of Clarence, Lam
bert Simnel was crowned King Edward VI.
Kildare and the Pale, excluding Waterford,
the Butlers and a few foreign bishops,
swore allegiance, and the Duchess of Bur-
11 *
gundy, sister of Edward IV, sent 2,000
German mercenaries under Martin Schwarz,
to support him. These and Irish levies were
then sent to England, landed in Furness,
and pushed forward
1487 to Stoke (Nottinghamshire) on June 6,
where they were annihilated. “The Iryshe-
and these men, although they fought hardly and
were mostly stuck to it valiantly, yet because they were
degenerate after the manner of their country almost
English! 274 naked, without hameys or armour, they
were stricken down and slain like dull and
brute beasts” (Hall).* Simnel was captured
and sent to the royal kitchen as scullion
[Spiessdreher\ (Gordon).** Kildare, whose
power the King feared, was pardoned and
remained Lord Deputy. Dubliners, howev
er, were penalised and their ships, goods
and merchandise given by the King to the
Waterforders.
1488 Sir Richard Edgecomb sent to Ireland with
500 men to receive the new oath and pro
claim the official pardon for the rebellion.
1489 Henry invited the Irish lords to Greenwich
and chastised them; they would have
crowned apes if he had stayed away much
longer, he said, and made ex-King Simnel
serve them at table.
Continuous wars among the natives.
1492 Kildare suddenly deposed and W. Fitz-
Symons, Archbishop of Dublin, made Lord
Deputy. Thereupon the border Trish re
belled and raided the Pale. Perkin Warbeck,
the false Richard of York, landed in Cork;
* Ed. Hall, Chronicle, containing the History o f England during
the Reign o f Henry IV and the Succeeding Monarchs to the End o f the
Reign o f Henry VIII, London, 1809.—
** J . Gordon, A History o f Ireland, from the Earliest Account to
the Accomplishment o f the Union with Great Britain in 1801, vols.
I-IV , London, 1806.-E d.
the city took his side, but Warbeck left at
once, going to the court of the French
King.
1494 Sir Edward Poynings sent to Ireland as
Lord Deputy with 1,000 men and di
verse English jurists. Parliament of Drog
heda. r
Re The Poynings’s Act: no parliament in
Poynings’s Ireland may convene in council (English
Act see Privy Council) without approval of the
Butt.* King. Kildare, too, attainted of treason and
sent to England as prisoner,
1496 but regains favour and is appointed Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. From then on
Kildare was loyal to the King and waged
violent wars against the Irish.
1497 Warbeck, who returned to Ireland (Cork)
from Scotland, was joined by Earl Des
mond, but, after unsuccessfully besieging
Waterford, went to Cornwall. (This is now
contested by virtue of a letter by Henry
VII, according to which Warbeck landed
“in the wylde Irisherie” in difficult circum
stances and would have been captured by
Kildare and Desmond if he had not made a
hasty escape.)
1496-1500 Kildare’s wars against the Irishry in Ulster,
Connaught and Munster (Davies says [in
Hist. Tracts, ed. 1786, p. 48] those were
his “private quarrels”, which is confirmed
in detail by Gordon), all of them victo
rious, until finally Ulick Burke, Lord Clan-
ricarde, called MacWilliam, a son-in-law of
Kildare, chief of a mighty troop of “degen
erate English”, placed himself at the head
of a general uprising in the south and west.
Kildare set out with his entire Anglo-Irish
force and a few Irish and
* J . Butt, The Irish People and the Irish Land, Dublin, 1867.—Ed.
On defeated the rebels in Axtberg (Knoc-
August 19, tuadh), seven miles off Galway: Galway
1504 and Athenry surrendered, and the spirit
of the Irish was thereby broken (? ! )
(in the country where Black Rent27®
was paid until 1528! ! ). Kildare’s ar
rogance as first Irish lord was ever in
evidence in government matters and wars.
1509 HENRY VIII.
Kildare continued his campaigns against the
Irish. In 1509, he undertook a big cam
paign against James, eldest son of Earl Des
mond, O’Brian, etc.
1513 Kildare died. His son Gerald, Lord Deputy,
warred on against the Irish until 1517, was
mostly successful, yet as always the victo
ries were not decisive, and he had to begin
all over again after a few years. However,
like his father, he was very popular among
the Irish, who considered him “rather as
the chief of a great leading sept than as
acknowledged ruler of the whole kingdom”
by virtue of his Irish nature and many fam
ily ties with the Irish. In 1519, Kildare fell
out of favour through Wolsey and was
recalled to England.
1520 Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, was ap
pointed Lord Lieutenant. An Englishman,
he held the Irish in check. He reconciled
two old enemies, Earl Desmond, the assim
ilated Geraldine who often espoused the
Irish cause, with Earl Ormond, follower of
the English, but not for long. On the
whole, he acted skilfully, though this did
not prevent continuous wars. He resigned
1521 and was followed by Sir Piers Butler, eighth
Earl of Ormond who, though married to
the sister of Earl Kildare,
1522-23 destroyed a number of the latter’s castles.
War between the two. At last, Ormond was
dismissed and
1524 Kildare made Deputy.
In 1523, Desmond entered into an alliance
with Francis I of France, who intended to,
but did not, invade Ireland. Desmond was
persecuted, concealed hintself and re
mained undiscovered.
1526 Kildare was again recalled to England and
thrown into the Tower, then released upon
security.
(Ormond relinquished his title of Earl of
Ormond in favour of Sir Thomas Boleyn
and became Earl of Ossory.)
1528 O’Connor of Offaley treacherously cap
tured a Deputy (of the Lord Lieutenant
Richard Nugent, Lord of Delvin). This
O’Connor was Kildare’s son-in-law. Vio
lent strife followed among the Anglo-
Irish.
1530 Kildare returned in the retinue of the new
Lord Deputy, Sir William Skeffington. He
extended his Irish family ties, giving his
daughter away in marriage to Fergananym
O’Carrol, and laid waste the estates of his
rival, Ormond-Ossory.
1532 Kildare again made Lord Lieutenant. Pros
ecuted war against all his enemies as ene
mies of the Crown, and fortified and armed
his castles to resist the King if the necessity
arose; however, he was again recalled to
England, and on his departure
1534 his 21-year-old son Thomas (Lord Thomas
Fitz-Gerald) stayed behind as his Deputy.
The latter was led to believe that his father
had been beheaded in the Tower and that
he, too, and all his family, would suffer the
same fate. He rode to the Council with 140
horsemen, laid down all his insignia of
office, and publicly withdrew his allegiance
to the King. Then he started a rebellion.
The Council took refuge in Dublin Castle,
which Fitz-Gerald beleaguered. Fitz-Gerald
also plundered Ossory’s estates, but with
out marked success. In the meantime,
Dublin townsmen captured the force
besieging the Castle and Fitz-Gerald con
cluded an armistice with Ossory in order to
take Dublin, but was defeated. Ossory
meanwhile (though threatened in the south
by the rebellious Desmond) laid waste
Carlow and Kildare. Fitz-Gerald was
excommunicated because his troops caused
the death of the Archbishop of Dublin.—
The war was fought half-heartedly by both
sides, though most of the Pale was ravaged,
until finally O’Connor (from Offaley) and
then Lord Thomas Fitz-Gerald surrendered
in 1535 and Fitz-Gerald was shipped to
England. He surrendered on a solemn
promise of pardon (Gordon [Vol. I], p.
238).
1536 The five uncles of Fitz-Gerald, of whom
three had opposed the rebellion, and ten
other lords were invited to a feast by Lord
Grey and there put under guard (Gordon
[Vol. I], p. 238) and sent to London. They
and Lord Thomas Fitz-Gerald were execut
ed in Tyburn (the elder Kildare died in
London earlier). Thereby the power of the
Geraldines was providentially terminated.
Only a 12-year-old boy escaped abroad.
1536 ff. Lord Leonard Grey, Lord Deputy, made
war on the indigenous population, especial
ly the O’Connors.
1538 Peaceful expedition (hosting) by Grey to
Galway through Offaley, Ely O’Carrol,
Ormond, Arrah and Thomond. MacWilliam
deposed as chief of Clanricarde and the
captaincy given to Ulick de Burgh, later
Earl of Clanricarde. All chiefs whose pos
sessions Grey crossed, were made to swear
allegiance, but, as Ormond wrote Crom
well, “neither from them nor any other
from all the Irishry” could faith be expect
ed once the troops departed.
1539 Large confederation of thefnorthem chiefs
According and of Desmond and the Fitz-Geralds in
to O’Conor* the south to reinstate Gerald Fitz-Gerald,
the confederation son of the executed Earl Kildare, in his
was directed rights. Gradually, the confederation ex
against the panded. The allies sought the help of the
Reformation Emperor and of France, reviving the idea of
Ireland as an independent kingdom under
O'Neill. The confederates also contacted
the King of Scotland, who was also against
the Reformation,276 now an issue against
the King in Irish matters. (The confedera
tion fell apart after the Battle of Ballahoe
[O’Conor, p. 10], of which no details are
available.)
In the autumn, Lord Grey traversed the
south once more at the head of his troop,
but without any special success, though
compelling Gerald Fitz-Gerald (and his
friends) to flee to France and later to Italy.
(Queen Mary reinstated him.) Otherwise,
there was peace and order in Ireland, and
only the bastard Geraldines (a completely
assimilated family) were, “by the permis
sion of God, killing one another” (Lord
Grey’s letter). John Alen, Lord Chancellor,
wrote Cromwell: “I never did see, in my
time, so great a resort to law as there is this
term, which is a good sign of quiet and
obedience. This country was in no such
quiet these many years.”
* Matthew O’Conor, The History o f the Irish Catholics, Dublin,
1813 .-E d.
1540 Lord Grey recalled and soon executed.
See Gordon Some clashes with the Irish, though noth
ing of significance, for by and large the
country was calm. Sir Anthony St. Leger,
Lord Deputy, subdued the Cavenaghs of
Carlow, the O’Moores of Leix and diverse
other minor clans. O’Connor submitted
too, and so did O’Donnell. As for O’Neill,
the King entered into negotiations with
him.
1541 By an Act of Parliament Henry was pro
claimed King of Ireland.
From now on the Irish chiefs became vas
sals [of the King] and came under English
law (probably a consequence of the unsuc
cessful confederation of 1539).
Turlogh O’Toole of North Wicklow was the
first to go to England of his own volition,
followed by Earl Desmond, who was at
once made member of the King’s Council.
Irish lords and Irish nobles appeared in
1541 Parliament; they had not done so in
many years or had never appeared there
before. Ormond translated the English
speeches to the Irish.
1542 O’Neill submitted and became Earl of
Tyrone, while his son was made Lord
Duncannon.
This time the peace was real; Desmond
even ordered the arrest of two other Ger
aldines engaged in a feud, Lord Roche and
the White Knight,* both were dispatched
to Dublin and slept in the same bed, suffer
ing each other quite well. O’Brian became
Earl Thomond and MacWilliam became
eighth Earl of Clanricarde. These Irish
chiefs were so lacking in money that the
government had to provide them with
* A member of the Geraldines also known as Fitzgibbon.—Ed.
MATERIAL FOR ' ‘HISTORY OF IRELAND” 331
clothes in which to come to Parliament (see
Davies).
All these lords acknowledged the King’s
supremacy.
1544 Again, Irish kerns served in the English
army in France.
1545 Likewise against the Scots, though actually
they did not land in Scotland.
England owed all these successes, the first
real subjugation of Ireland, to St. Leger.
1547 EDWARD VI.
1550 French envoys went to O’Donnell and
O’Neill in Ulster.
1550 New liturgy introduced in Ireland. Long
debates among the clergy, while English
soldiers plundered cloisters and churches,
and destroyed sacred pictures. By and
large, however, only among the higher clas
ses were there a few converts to the new
religion.
1552 War of succession between the sons of Earl
Tyrone (O’Neill) in Ulster. In the south,
feuds between Earl Thomond and his rela
tives, and in Connaught between Clanri-
carde and another de Burgh.
1553 MAR Y. St. Leger reappointed Lord Depu
ty in Ireland until 1558.
Gerald Fitz-Gerald reinstated as eleventh
Earl Kildare (and Baron of Offaley). Con
tinued feuds between the chiefs.
1556? After 13 years an Irish Parliament was
finally reconvened, repealing all acts against
the Pope and others passed since the Act of
the 20th year of Henry VIII.
1557 Leix was incorporated in the Pale as
Queen’s County and Offaley as King’s
County,277 the Moores and O’Connors
having been banished under Edward VI
and now almost all annihilated (see
Gordon).
332
1558 ELIZABETH. New oath of supremacy
taken from which only two Irish bishops
abstained; the entire Irish Parliament took
the oath, making the Reformation in the
Pale official and formalising it on paper. All
acts of 1556 (?) were declared null and
void.
1560 Feud between Shane O’Neill (“The
O’Neill”) and the Dublin government,
which would make Calwahg O’Donnell of
Donegal Earl Tyrconnel if he agreed to help
it, but O’Neill takes him prisoner. Finally,
1561 Shane submits directly to the Queen and
goes to her in England, but encounters diffi
culties in obtaining an audience. When Mat
thew’s son, then Earl of Tyrone, died, he
returned to Ireland and in time claimed su
premacy (independence in all Ulster, but
1564 finally made peace and submitted to the
Queen.
1565 Open war between Desmond and Ormond,
with Desmond wounded and captured by
the latter.
1564 To win the Queen’s favour, O’Neill made
war on the island Scots settled along the
coast of Ulster (Antrim) and defeated
them. But Elizabeth and her representatives
did not keep their word and endeavoured
to trip up O’Neill. Again, a war broke out.
Ulster was ravaged by an English army, but
o’Neill withdrew to his unapproachable
hills. Most of the chiefs of Ulster
1567 submitted, as did O’Neill’s subjects, leaving
O’Neill no choice but to flee to the Antrim
Scots, where he was assassinated on the
instigation of Piers, an English officer (see
Gordon).
1570 Desmond captured and shipped to England.
Rising of the Geraldines under James Fitz-
Maurice, who took Kilmallock and turned
to Spain for help. But order was soon re
stored by Sir John Perrot, Lord President
of Munster, and Fitz-Maurice was com
pelled to submit.
Excommunication of Elizabeth 278 is
joyfully received in Ireland.
Uprising of Clanricarde’s sons.
Thomond (who fled to France) plots to as
sassinate Sir Edward Fitton, Lord Pres
ident of Connaught; later, Thomond
regained the Queen’s favour through the
English Ambassador in France.
Act of attainder against Shane O’Neill,
whereby more than half of Ulster went to
the Crown. The Lord Deputy in Council
was also empowered to accept surrenders
See Davies, and re-grant under English tenure (see Gor
p. 200 ff. don).
Another Act declared the old clan system
of chieftainship totally abolished, unless
granted by the Crown. This reservation
made the Act illusory, for the Crown had
to tolerate what it could not hinder. Seven
new counties with sheriffs (? ) and other
officials established (see Davies), but with
out assizes.
1572 Sir Thomas Smith tried to establish an
English plantation in Ulster, but it was too
weak and the indigenous population wiped
out the colonists.
1579 Landing by James Fitz-Maurice, brother of
Earl Desmond, in Smerwick, Kerry County,
with three ships and 100 men, Catholics of
different nationalities; but he and his Irish
followers were killed when requisitioning in
Tipperary. Thereupon, the invasion was
soon defeated.
Leix and Offaley still rebellious, especially
Rory Oge O’Moore, who was killed in
1578. After the invasion of Smerwick was
repulsed, a rising by Desmond followed,
whose betrayal was now confirmed in
captured papers. He was defeated, his
castles were seized, but he escaped.
1580 Rising in Wicklow under Lord Baltinglass.
Setback for the English infantry, which
ventured into the hills and valleys, in the
V alley of Glendalough, says Gordon
([Vol. I]), p. 271).
Landing of 700 Spaniards in Smerwick
with arms for 5,000. However, their fort
was captured by Lord Grey de Wilton, the
Lord Deputy, and all of them massacred
after surrendering and placing themselves at
the discretion of the victors.
1583 Desmond, who stalked undiscovered in the
south escaping from pursuit, was killed by
peasants whose cattle he seized. He was the
last of the Fitz-Geralds to be Earl Des
mond.
1584 Sir John Perrot was reappointed Lord Dep
uty. He was instructed, among other things,
“to consider how Munster may be
repeopled and how the forfeited lands in
Ireland (Desmond and others) may be
disposed of to the advantage of Queen and
subject”.
1587 As son of Matthew of Dungannon, heir of
the earldom, Hugh O’Neill petitioned Irish
Parliament to name him Earl of Tyrone and
allow him possession of the estates. He led
a troop of horsemen in the service of the
Queen against Desmond, but had secret
designs of becoming more than just Earl of
Tyrone. He was granted the title and then
from the Queen also his possessions on con
dition that he should claim no authority
over the lords bordering on his county.
1588 Sir John Perrot returned to England, saying
he found the Irish much more manageable
than the Anglo-Irish and even the English

Government. Fell into disfavour and died
in the Tower.
The government in Dublin—it was still
Perrot—arrested Hugh O’Donnell, son of the
O’Donnell, and two sons of Shane O’Neill
by resorting to subterfuger(they were given
drink aboard a ship), and brought them to
Dublin as hostages to ensure the loyalty of
the old O’Donnell; they were held in cap
tivity for three years.
1591 “Red Hugh” (O’Donnell) escaped and at
home was (with his father’s consent) pro
claimed chief of Tyrconnel; he concluded
an alliance with O’Neill Tyrone (who had
flirted with both sides, until he had reason
to fear for his life). O’Neill taught his men
war craft (he had a bodyguard of 600 in
fantry and introduced a system of short
term training [Krumpersystem\)y and laid
in equipment and ammunition.
1597 Sir John Norris sent to Ireland with troops
as Lord General to restore the imperilled
authority of the Queen, but died the same
year.
Tyrone declared himself the O’Neill, which
amounted to high treason.* He concluded
an alliance with the other O’Neills, the
Magennisses, M’Mahons and O’Donnells,
and was appointed allied commander; when
\ he heard that 2,000 fresh English troops
were en route, he struck out, capturing and
demolishing Fort Portmor on Blackwater,
but was compelled by Bagenal (his brother-
in-law), who was Marshal of Ireland, to lift
^the siege of Monaghan. However, on getting
* After Shane O’Neill’s rising adoption of this title implied rebellion
against English dominion.—Ed.
1592-96 "reinforcements he made Bagenal retreat.
When the English advanced with fresh
forces, O’Neill set fire to his own town of
Dungannon and many villages, withdrawing
into his forests. It came to light that he had
I offered Ireland to the King of Spain in
. return for 3,000 troops and money sub-
\ sidies. Meanwhile, the insurgents in the
1north, whom Sir John Perrot had armed
/ against the Antrim Scots and who had
I many veteran soldiers among them, were
\now very strong. Hence,
1596 new negotiations were begun. Tyrone sub
mitted, and the insurgents demanded reli
gious freedoms, which were finally granted
by the Queen. But again hopeful news ar
rived of munition shipments from Spain,
prompting Tyrone to blockade
1598 Fort Blackwater; he decisively defeated
Marshal Bagenal (whom he killed with his
own hands), who had hurried to the rescue.
Now, the rest of Ulster rose too.
1599 Devereux, Earl Essex, the Queen’s favour
ite, was sent to Ireland with 20,000 in
fantry and 2,000 cavalry. He wasted the
summer in a march on Munster, his rear
guard being defeated by the O’Moores on
the return march, and finally, after his
army was decimated by disease, went to
Ulster, where O’Neill Tyrone inveigled him
in parleys, and he lost more time. (Tyrone
demanded freedom to practise Catholicism,
confirmation of the Ulster chiefs in their
possessions of the past 200 years, and all
officials and judges and half the garrison to
be Irish.) In the end Essex returned to
England and Charles Blount, Lord Mount-
joy, replaced him as Lord Deputy, with Sir
George Carew (author of Pacata Hibernia)
as Lord President of Munster.
In the meantime, Tyrone went to Munster
to incite the local chiefs, especially James
Fitz-Thomas, Earl of Desmond, and Flor
ence McCarthy. Mountjoy sent strong
troops to the northern border forts of the
Pale, Dundalk, Carlingford, and others,
while marching on Ulster and issuing the
order to cut off Tyrone s retreat at Athlone
or Limerick. But Tyrone escaped by forced
marches, whereupon Mountjoy deployed
strong garrisons to Lough Foyle (Derry? )
and Ballyshannon, which kept the Ulster
people in check.
A campaign against the O’Moores of Leix.
The English totally destroyed the harvest.
1600 Carew planned to assassinate the Sugan
Earl (straw rope earl) of Desmond and
McCarthy. Mountjoy restored order in
Kildare and Carlow, and all Ireland was
subjugated save Tyrone.
Coinage of Ireland embased by Elizabeth.
1601 Two Spanish ships dropped anchor at
Kilbeg, Donegal, bringing arms, equipment
and money for Tyrone.
Twice, a price was set on Tyrone’s head:
£2,000 if alive and £1,000 if dead. But this
was futile, as were the prices on the heads
of the insurgent chiefs hiding in Munster.
However, the Sugan Earl was finally cap
tured. No one could be found for money to
show the way through the forests to
Tyrone’s possessions.
Attempt on Tyrone by an assassin hired by
the English Government; it failed.
On September 22, five thousand Spaniards
landed at Kinsale and occupied the town.
Mountjoy laid siege, with part of the south
ern Catholics declaring against the Span
iards or neutral, while the bulk sided with
them. Tyrone, Tyrrell, O’Donnell, etc.,
marched against Mountjoy and fortified
themselves in a swampy area, cut off his
supplies, but were prevailed upon by the
Spaniards to give battle on December 23
and were totally defeated. O’Donnell
escaped to Spain, Tyrone to his posses
sions, while the Spaniards surrendered
on a promise to be allowed to depart
freely.
O’Donnell was active in Spain for Ireland.
Mountjoy went north and laid waste all
Tyrone.
1602 Fort Dunboy (at Bantry), the last fort of
the Spanish (it belonged to Daniel O’Sul
livan), was captured and its Irish garrison
massacred.
1603 Finally, peace was concluded between
Mountjoy and Tyrone, whereupon the lat
ter submitted, but was confirmed in his
possessions. Then Elizabeth died. All
Ireland was subjugated for the first
time.
JAMES I. Everybody expected him to
restore the Catholic religion. It was at once
reintroduced in Waterford, Cashel, Clonmel
and Limerick, but these were quickly
brought to their senses by Mountjoy.
James, however, demanded that all of
ficials, barristers and graduates of universi
ties gave the oath of supremacy and also
restored the Act of Uniformity.279 He at
once purged the Dublin Council of Cathol
ics. Although the penal laws against the
Papists were upheld, they were not applied.
But in
1605 all Catholic priests were banished on pain
of death (Sir Arthur Chichester, was now
Deputy) and, according to O’Conor,
Catholic church services were banned by
proclamation.
MATERIAL FOR “HISTORY OF IRELAND** 339
Gavelkind and tanistry were again repealed
by a judgement of the King’s Bench,280
the English inheritance law introduced, the
land of Irish smallholders directly con
firmed by the Crown and these placed
directly under Crown protection, whereby
clanship was visibly broken, while all duties
of the clan people were converted into
money rent to their landlord. Yet all this
was done gradually. Tyrone and Roderic
O’Donnell, brother of Red Hugh, went to
England, where the former was confirmed
in his possessions and the latter made Earl
of Tyrconnel. Both of them were so closely
watched by spies that Tyrone complained
he could not drink a full carouse of sack,
but the state was advertised thereof within
a few hours after.
1607 Land litigation between O’Neill Tyrone and
Sir Donogh (Donald Ballagh) O’Shane
(O’Cahan), a neighbouring chief, before the
Lord Deputy and an English court; this
convinced Tyrone that he must either
submit completely, or rebel again. But now
there were English forts and garrisons in his
possessions, and the clanship was weak
ened. Ireland herself was too weak, and
salvation could come only from abroad.
Hence a plot by Tyrone, Tyrconnel and
Richard Nugent,
The Baron Delvin, to rebel with Spanish help.
existence The plot was betrayed by Earl Howth, who
of this plot had just become Protestant. Tyrone and
strongly Tyrconnel were summoned before the Dub
doubted lin Council, escaped to France and from
even there to Brussels. Introduction of English
by Smith law and the many court charges instantly
[Irish lodged against him brought home to
History...], Tyrone that it was all over now with chief
p. 100. See tainship. Finally, he went to Rome, where
[Excerpts] IX, he died in 1616. The main branch of the
[p.] 13.* Hy Nials ended shortly with the assassina
tion of his son in Brussels.
James, meanwhile, found it necessary to
declare publicly that the two earls did not
flee religious persecutions, because never
persecuted on religious grounds. But who
would believe that?
1608 Uprising by Sir Cahir O’Dogherty, Chief of
Inish-Owen, who captured Culmore Fort
by a trick, attacked Derry, and held out for
five months, until finally killed.
Plantation of Ulster, where the Crown
acquired 800,000 acres (English) or almost
all Donegal, Tyrone, Coleraine, Fermanagh,
Cavan and Armagh (supremacy converted
into land holdings! ) through the forfeiture
of Tyrone, Tyrconnel, O’Dogherty, etc.
Each holding was divided into lots of three
classes: 1) 2,000 English acres for servitors
of the Crown, either the great officers of
state or rich adventures from England;
2) 1,500 acres for servitors of the Crown in
Ireland with permission to take either
English or Irish tenants; 3) 1,000 acres for
the natives. The City of London received
large grants in Derry on the condition of
spending £ 20,000 for building the towns of
Derry and Coleraine. A standing army was
formed to guard the Colony. Thus, six out
of 32 counties were expropriated and
thoroughly plundered.
The Brehon Laws281 were simultaneously
completely abolished and replaced by
English law, but, as if to render the state of
outlawry of the Irish complete, while thus
forbidden the use of their own country’s
law, they were still shut out as aliens and
* See p. 258-XII.—
enemies from the law of their masters.
1613 The first Parliament in 27 years, and the
first to represent more than just the Pale,
opened in Dublin. Since the previous Parlia
ment 17 new counties were constituted and
40 boroughs incorporated, of which most
were mere villages consisting of a few
houses built by Ulster undertakers.282
Though the lords of the Pale remonstrated,
new boroughs were constantly fabricated
to assure a Protestant majority, the
manoeuvre proving eminently successful.
This caused recusant members to secede,
but the matter was later settled. No anti-
Catholic bills were tabled, but in recom
pense the Catholics voted for bills of at
tainder against Tyrone, etc.—This was a
despicable thing to do, because nothing had
been proved, but it justified the confisca
tions in Ulster.—Further, a bill was passed
whereby all laws against Irish enemies were
abolished and all put under the jurisdiction
of English law.
1623 Royal proclamation that all Catholic priests
secular and regular had to leave the King
dom in 40 days, after which all persons
were prohibited to converse with them.
1613 Commission instituted to inquire into de
fective titles to land in Ireland and escheat
ed lands. It declared all land between
Arklow and Slane rivers and many estates
See O’Conor, in Leitrim, Longford, Westmeath, King’s
18, 2.283 and Queen’s counties, totalling 82,500
acres, as Crown property. All was confiscat
ed and granted to English and Irish colon
ists as in Ulster.
A feeling of general insecurity arises among
landholders, because resumption by the
Crown under Henry VII of all land granted
since Edward I, as well as the land of
absentees, and various other similar jurid
ical discoveries were now used to contest
everything. Besides, many titles to land had
either been lost or defective. A whole class
of “discoverers” (of flaws in titles) ap
peared, consisting of “needy adventurers
from England”; whenever the. jurymen
decided against the King, they were locked
up. The Attorney General declared that,
with all Irish having been expelled when
possession was first taken of the Pale, no
Irish could have even an acre of free
hold 284 in the five counties.
Wholesale resettlement of clans followed.
Seven clans moved from Queen’s County to
Kerry; 25 landowners, mostly O’Ferrels,
were expropriated without compensation.
Instructive was the case of Byrnes of Wick
low (from Carte’s Life of Ormonde in
Matthew O’Conor’s History o f the Irish
Catholics).285
1625 CHARLES I. Very short of money, he lost
no time in coming to terms with the
Catholic lords and gentry in Ireland. For
three years they paid him £40,000 annual
ly, in return for which he granted the fol
lowing “graces”: “Recusants286 to be al
lowed to practise in courts of law, and sue
the livery of their lands out of the Courts
of Wards, on taking an oath of civil alle
giance instead of the oath of supremacy;
that the claims of the Crown (to defective
titled lands) should be limited to the last
60 years*; that the inhabitants of Con
naught be permitted to make a new enrol
ment of their estates”, i.e., that their
estates should be assured for them (etc.,
* In other words, the King undertook not to claim land held in
hereditary possession for over 60 years.—Ed,
etc., 51 points in all), “and that a Parlia
ment should be held to confirm these
graces and establish every man in the un
disturbed possession of his own land”.
Further, reforms of all kinds, extortions
through courts of law and soldiers, mono
polies and penal laws against religion, and
promise of an “act of oblivion and general
pardon” (see O’Conor). Lord Falkland con
vened Parliament to confirm these graces,
but not under the Great Seal of England (as
required by the Acts of Henry VIII and
Elizabeth); the English Council protested
and Parliament did not take place.
The Lords Justices indulged in flagrant
persecutions, confiscating 16 monasteries
because the Carmelites had held public
services.
1633 Sir ThomasWentworth, later Earl of Straf
ford, Lord Deputy. At that time the Irish
Channel teemed with pirates, and he could
not cross without being escorted by a war
ship. He quickly alienated everybody. Only
a few members of the Privy Council were
admitted to sittings. Ireland was ruled in
accordance with the theory of the absolute
royal prerogative. Catholics and Protestants
alike were compelled by threats and cajol
ery jointly to pay £ 20,000 more in volunta
ry taxes. An order was issued that no one
of any rank could leave Ireland without the
permission of the Lord Deputy, and that
no complaint could be lodged against him
before the English royal court unless first
submitted to him.
Finally, however, a Parliament was neces
sary to obtain money, however much Went
worth dreaded it due to the question of
graces, and particularly the restriction of
Crown claims to 60 years, which made a
difference of <£20,000 annually. Wentworth
saw to it that many army officers were
chosen, which placed him in a position to
tilt the scales between the Catholics and
Protestants and thereby squeeze money out
of both by threats.
1634 Parliament opened. Wentworth insisted on
subsidies at once for a number of years and
the Commons foolishly conceded six sub
sidies, whereupon a convocation of the
clergy also conceded eight subsidies of
£3,000 each. The lords, however, demanded
redress of grievances and confirmation of
graces, to which Wentworth replied brazen
ly that he had never even sent them to the
King (which was untrue).
The same Parliament passed the two Stat
utes of Wills and Uses, whereby the Crown
was allowed to interfere in the upbringing
of the “heirs apparent” of big landowners,
hoping thus gradually to convert them to
Protestantism.
1635 Violation of graces begun in Connaught.
Wentworth Wentworth came before the Grand Jury of
intended to Roscommon, where all landowners were
drive out all gathered (“being anxious,” he said, “to
Connaught have persons of such means as might
landowners answer the King a round fine in the castle
and chamber in case they should prevaricate”),
recultivate and told them that the best means of
the whole enriching the county was a plantation, like
province. Ulster; hence, they should investigate the
Leland, King’s title to the estates concerned. A pro
Vol. Ill,* clamation was issued “that by an easy com
quoted by position they should be allowed to buy
O’Conor. indefeasible titles”. The Justices of the
Peace all being bribed (“more or less in the
* Th. Leland, The History o f Ireland from the Invasion o f Henry II,
vols. I—III, London, 1773.—Ed.
pound of the first year’s rent were
bestowed by the King upon the Lord Chief
Justice and Lord Chief Baron of Ireland”)
while the juries were either packed or in
timidated, the verdicts always favoured the
King, as in the case of Sligo and Mayo. In
Galway, however, there was resistance and
the juries decided against the King, but
Wentworth importuned and harassed the
landowners so that they finally transferred
title to their estates to the King and plead
ed for mercy. But Wentworth now wished
the jury to announce it had judged falsely
and admit perjury. This was rejected,
whereupon the Sheriff was fined £1,000
and the members of the jury £4,000 each
and were to be held in Dublin Castle until
payment and remorse.
Furthermore, people were imprisoned right
and left for harmless speeches and brought
before military courts, which naturally
found them guilty.
1636 To protect the English wool trade Went
worth banned wool exports even to Eng
land, except against licenses sold by him
self, pocketing much money in this way; he
introduced cultivation and weaving of flax
successfully in Ireland (but with profit for
himself).
Wentworth’s principle was to rule Ireland
so that she could not exist without the
Crown. Hence, a government salt monopo
ly was introduced.
1640 When the Scottish war broke out,287
Wentworth was made Earl of Strafford and
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a title no one
Each had held since Essex. A new Irish Parliament
subsidy of voted in four new subsidies. Strafford
about recruited 8,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry
£40,000. to reinforce the troops in Ireland. However,
these 9,000 were nearly all Catholics.
In June, Parliament reconvened and since
Meanwhile most officers were away, the Catholics
(end of 1640) were in the majority. It was now agreed
Long 1 ) to reduce incomes of the priesthood,
Parliament 2) to redistribute the subsidies for this
convened, reason, because the Lord Lieutenant’s
whose distribution was unlawful and unjust.
opposition Charles ordered the page on which
began. these decisions were recorded to be tom
1641 out of the Journal of the Commons and
February Lords.
But Parliament decided to send to Charles a
deputation with a Remonstrance of Griev
ances. Despite Strafford’s objections, the
deputation arrived in England. Apart from
the delay in confirming the graces, the
grievances listed arbitrary interventions
See and decisions by the Lord Lieutenant;
O’Conor.28 8 chicanery of the courts of law, heavy penal
ties to suppress freedom of speech and
press, unlawful powers of special tribunals;
insecurity* of person and property, and
monopoly; total of 16 items.
Strafford indicted by Long Parliament and
executed. His various tyrannies in Ireland
were held up against him, including the
charge that he had established a tobacco
monopoly for his own profit. As to the
charge that he had collected taxes with
military help and applied martial law, he
maintained that this had always been so in
Ireland and that the Provost Marshal had
always hung people “who were going up
and down the country and could not give a
good accord of themselves” (what good
was it, therefore, to introduce English law
if it worked against the nation and could
only be applied per martial law? ).
All that could be said for Strafford was
that he had applied the Penal Code against
Catholics solely to extort money (for the
Crown).
*A new conspiracy in the north: Roger
O’Moore, whose ancestors had been driven
out of Offaley (in Edward’s and Mary’s
reigns), Lord Maguire, Barorvof Iniskillen,
who still had remnants 01 his clan in
Fermanagh, Hugh McMahon, Tyrone’s
grandson, Colonel Bym and Sir Phelim
O’Neill, strongly supported by Irish driven
out by the plantation. Also supported by
many Connaught chiefs recently expelled
by Strafford. Earl Antrim plotted with
them in the name of the King, who would,
since the Irish Government gravitated
towards Parliament deal with them and the
Lords of the Pale, and would depose that
government. Dublin
1641 Castle was to be captured first, October 23,
but the conspiracy was betrayed and Sir
William Parsons, one of the Lords Jus
tices,* had everyone within reach arrested
(McMahon, Maguire, etc.), while O’Moore
and others escaped.
Meanwhile, fighting broke out in Ulster and
Phelim O’Neill, ass and pig (see O’Co
nor289), captured Charlemount by treach
ery; all other castles in the eight northern
counties were attacked and captured, or
quickly starved out. In eight days every*
thing was captured and Phelim had gath
ered 30,000 men.
(The Lords Justices and generally the now
dominant party in Ireland planned to ex
terminate all Irish and Anglo-Irish Catholics
and replace them with English and Scottish
Protestants—see Cromwell’s plan.) After
* The other was Lord Justice John Borlase.—Ed.
outbreak of the revolt in Ulster, a company
was form ed in London in February
[1642], petitioning Parliament to sell the
ten million acres to be confiscated in
Ireland, using the proceeds to prosecute a
war of annihilation; the company offered
to be middleman.
The whole After outbreak of the rebellion in October,
story sounds a large congregation of Catholics in Multi-
apocryphal, famam Abbey, Westmeath County, debate
resting on the the policy of whether to kill or simply
hearsay drive out the Protestants. Phelim settled
evidence of the issue by having Lord Charlemount and
Dr. H. Jones; his other prisoners killed, and by letting all
the Englishmen and Scots be massacred in
congregation three parishes; furious over the fall of
seems never Newry he also ordered the burning of the
to have taken town and cathedral of Armagh despite its
place, or to surrender, and had 100 people killed. It is
have been of possible, however, that the killing of the
a different Catholics of Island-Magee at Carrickfergus
nature. by government troops occurred earlier and
provoked the Catholics.
Leitrim (the O’Rourkes), the O’Ferrells of
Longford (where plantations were also laid
out) and the O’Bymes of Wicklow rebelled
on October 12; Wexford and Carlow, the
Tooles and Cavanaghs, that is, all the Irish
clans driven out by James, joined the rising
and advanced to the walls of Dublin.
Evidently, the All quiet in Munster until December, but
rising was due Lord President Sir William St. Leger
to the refusal provoked the gentlemen to rise under
to convene Philip O’Dwyer by his arrogance and by
Parliament. calling them all rebels. They captured
See O’Conor.290 Cashel.
In Connaught, where Lord Ranelagh was
Lord President, the rising was also general,
compelling Ranelagh to resign. Galway
alone was saved for the government by
MATERIAL F.OR “HISTORY OF IRELAND” 349
Lord Clanricarde (the same Clanricarde
whose property Wentworth and his tribun
als had ravaged), but he, too, was put under
restraint by the Lords Justices. The rising
was just what the latter wanted; they
wished no submission save in battle, for
that entailed forfeiture of lands. Except
Galway and a few castles iff Roscommon all
Connaught was engulfed by the insurrec
tion.
Phelim O’Neill now beleaguered Drogheda;
at Julian’s Town Bridge, three miles from
Drogheda, he drove a small force sent to
relieve the besieged back to Dublin, causing
much fear there; regiments went over to
the rebels and Sir Charles Coote, then
besieging Wicklow, was hastily recalled.
The lords and gents of the Pale, whom the
government had supplied with some arms
but who were at once required to return
them as Catholics and told to leave Dublin
and go to their estates, where they could
do nothing unarmed but submit to the
insurgents and thereby become traitors,
could not hold out any longer. Sir Charles
Coote, Governor of Dublin, roamed up and
down the Pale and did nothing but “kill,
bum, and destroy” in accordance with his
instructions. Men of estate were taken
along as prisoners to assure the King’s
escheats upon attainders, while the rest of
the population were executed under
martial law, including a Catholic priest,
Father Higgins, who was under Earl
Ormond’s protection and had safe-conduct.
The Lords Justices ordered the prisoners,
McMahon and others, to be tortured to
determine whether the King was behind the
rebellion, but in vain.
Drogheda was bravely defended by Sir
Henry Tichboume, a soldier of the Crom
w ell school. He repulsed an escalade.
Whereupon the town was merely blockad
ed, its food stores running low. Finally in
February [1642], after a three months’
siege, Marquis Ormond with 3,000 infantry
and 500 horsemen arrived to relieve the
beleaguered town and the Irish withdrew at
once.
In view of the ravages inflicted by govern
ment troops in the Pale, even by Ormond,
the Catholic Lords of the Pale arranged a
meeting with Roger O’Moore, Bym and
McMahon, whereupon, following the Irish
plea that they had risen for the King’s
rights and that his Irish subjects should be
just as free as those in England, an alliance
was concluded—the first between Irish and
Anglo-Irish of the Pale—and the Pale revolt
ed. This was followed by the desertion of
those few Catholics outside the Pale who
had hesitated.
It appears Catholic priests reappeared from hiding,
that from holding synods in Kells on March 22, 1642,
March to and particularly in Kilkenny in May 1642,
October the deciding to send envoys to the Emperor,
Clergy and the King of France, and the Pope. Soon
then the thereafter money, arms, equipment and
clergy and officers (mostly Irish who had served in
gentry were foreign armies) arrived from all parts of
dominant, Europe to help the Irish. A General As
and from sembly was then instituted in Kilkenny in
October on October with two Chambers: a Council of
the Commons 12 persons to govern the judiciary, the
were also judges, etc., and a Supreme Council, serving
represented. as the provisional government. Supreme
See OyConor. Commanders were appointed for the pro
vinces: Owen O’Neill, the Spanish colonel,
in Ulster, Preston in Leinster, Garret Barry
in Munster and Colonel John Burke in Con
The people of naught. An address was sent to the King,

the Pale were setting forth the grounds for the movement
still craving and the wishes of the Irish Catholics, in
for peace which they called themselves the National
with the Assembly.
government Owen O’Neill had been commander of
and made Arras during the French si$ge in 1640 and
frequent in contrast to Sir Phelim O’Neill was closely
approaches. enough related to the royal family to be
The Irish declared The O’Neill. Besides, he was a
also good officer.
demanded a Thomas Preston, brother of Lord Gor-
reversal of m anstow n, Colonel in Imperial* and
attainders. Spanish service, had distinguished himself
during the Dutch siege of Lowen. He
brought three ships, cannon, small arms
and equipment, with four colonels, several
engineers and 500 other Irish officers.
At this time, Ormond defeated an Irish
detachment under Lord Mountgarret in
Kildare (at Kilrush). Thereafter, Preston
was defeated at Tymahoo and some other
(? ) detachment at Raconell. In spite of
this, the insurgents were doing well. Final
ly, Charles, who needed support against the
English Parliament, authorised Ormond to
negotiate a year’s armistice. The negotia
tions began, and an armistice followed.
Meanwhile, the Lords Justices continued to
act in the spirit of the Parliament. “The
parliament pamphlets were by them re
ceived as oracles, their commands obeyed
as laws, and the extirpation preached as a
gospel.” And to leave the rebels no avenue
of escape, submissions by individuals were
turned down. Even the quietest Catholics
of the Pale, Lord Dunsany, Sir J. Nettervil-
le, and others, were imprisoned, tortured
* Austrian.—Ed.
and arraigned wholesale for high treason on
the strength of thus obtained confessions.
Estates were seized en masse and their
owners flung into gaol. More than “1,000
indictments were found by a Grand Jury
against such men in two days”, and another
about 2,000 were “in reserve on the
record”.
Scarampi, the Pope’s legate, arrived in Kil
kenny with troops and military supplies.
He reinforced the old Irish party, which
primarily proposed to restore the Catholic
religion to its full splendour, refused to
trust the King, denounced the armistice,
paid none of the subsidies demanded by
the King and meant to fight the King and
the English Parliament. The King was not
to be trusted for had he not betrayed Straf
ford after promising that not a hair on his
head would be touched.
1643 The Anglo-Irish moderates were opposed to
this, finally bringing about a year’s armist
ice on the basis of previously negotiated
articles (their content? ). When billets had
been arranged for the respective armies and
the armistice ratified by the Lords Justices
and the Council on September 19, 1643,
the Irish agreed to pay the King <£30,000,
half in money and half in cattle.
At once, five regiments were dispatched
from Ireland to reinforce the King’s army
in England.
Indignation ran high in Ireland, as in
England, over this armistice (that is, among
the Catholics in Ireland and the Parliament
party in England). The Lords Justices and
the Council in Dublin, likewise opposed,
obstructed it in every way they could.
English Parliament pronounced Marquis
Ormond “traitor against the three king-
doms”. The Cavaliers,291 too, were discon

tented. The 20,000 English and Scots in
Ulster “vowed to live and die in opposition
to the cessation”.
Meanwhile, a new Remonstrance to the
King was drawn up by the Catholics in
Trim, enumerating their grievances, de
manding redress and then placing 10,000
troops at the King’s disposal.
That was the famous Remonstrance of
Trim. However, simultaneously, Ormond
marched on Rossa and defeated General
Preston (what about the armistice? ).
Four parties in Ireland: 1) Irish Catholic,
2) Anglo-Irish Catholic (the bulk of the
Confederates was recruited from these two
parties), 3) the King’s party, and 4) the
Puritans.
For all this While Ormond negotiated with the Con
see O’Conor. federates in Kilkenny to extort money for
the King and, if possible, hoodwink them
over the agreed points, the King invited
Confederate delegates to Oxford. The
delegates arrived with brusque demands:
complete freedom of religion and repeal of
the penal laws against Catholics; a free
Parliament with suspension of Poynings’s
Law of 1494 while it sat (because it said
nothing could be done without the English
Council); repeal of all Irish Acts and
Ordinances since August 1641; also a
general amnesty and an Act of Limitation
for Security of Estates; offices should be
impartially granted to Catholics; passage of
an Act establishing the independence of the
Irish state and Parliament from the English;
investigation of the massacres (committed
by both sides during the war). The
delegates of the Irish Protestants (who also
came to Oxford) demanded, on the other
12-226
hand, that all penal laws be preserved, the
Catholic priests banned and Catholics
excluded from all offices. The Solemn
League and Covenant292 was established at
this time; Monroe and his Scots in the
north accepted it at once, and so did most
officers and men of the King’s army under
Ormond. English Parliament put Monroe in
command of all troops in Ulster and he
captured Belfast, where there were many
Royalists, in a surprise attack. Ormond, in
the meantime, obtained the King’s permis
sion to amnesty “as to life and lands” all
rebels returning into the King’s service, as
the chief means of breaking up the Confe
deration, which succeeded in many
respects. O’Neill was now so badly off in
the north that he had to plead for arms and
equipment in Kilkenny, which he received;
he was also appointed commander in Con
naught, while Lord Castlehaven was made
Supreme Commander.
Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo, was now
the Pope’s nuncio, arriving with conside
rable arms and equipment.
1645 Charles commanded Ormond to conclude
peace with the Irish at any cost, in Order to
release the army for England. He was quite
willing to suspend Poynings’s Act “for such
bills as might be agreed upon” and to
abolish the penal laws. But Ormond baulk
ed, possibly because he was too much
a Protestant, but probably because he knew
that it was farthest from Charles’s mind to
keep his word. (? ) Hence,
1646 Lord Herbert, Earl of Glamorgan, was sent
to Kilkenny, concluding a treaty with the
Confederates whereby the latter remained
in possession of all churches and church re
venues that had not in fact passed into
Protestant possession and were allowed to
hold public church services; the Catholic
clergy was not to be punished for exercis
ing their jurisdiction over their parishes. In
return, 10,000 men under Glamorgan wrere
placed at the King’s disposal and two-thirds
of the church revenues fof three years were
allotted for the upkeep of this army. For
this Glamorgan was empowered by Charles
above his signature and private seal. The
treaty consisted of two parts, one public
and the other secret (which contained the
stipulation on religion). It was farthest
from Charles’s mind ever to ratify the
treaty. As Hallam said, “his want of faith
was not to the Protestant but to the
Catholic”.
But the secret was soon out. Sir Charles
Coote, a Puritan, was sent to Connaught to
Capture Sligo, in which he succeeded, but
M. O’Kelly, Catholic Archbishop of Tuam,
tried to recapture it, falling in battle. A
copy of the secret treaty was found in his
belongings and made public at once.
The situation became extremely confused.
Limerick, for example, stood neutral,
because preoccupied with internal con
flicts. In Connaught, three Presidents: one
for the King, another for English Parlia
ment (Coote) and one more for the
Supreme Council of the Confederation.
The King disavowed Glamorgan, the treaty
therefore became null and void, and the
peace earlier concluded by Ormond was
ratified by the Irish Commissioners on
March 28.
Naturally, this did not suit the Covenant
ers, and Monroe had 60 men and 18
women massacred in Newry. O’Neill with
5,000 infantry and 500 cavalry marched
12*
against Armagh towards the end of May
and stationed himself at Benburb, where on
June 5 he was attacked by Monroe, whom
he totally defeated, whereupon Monroe,
who had lost all his artillery, abandoned
Portedown, Downpatrick and other
places.293
Published in the b o o k Translated from the German

M a rx -E n g e ls A r c h iv e s , Vol. X,
[Notes on Goldwin Smith’s book IRISH HISTORY AND
IRISH CHARACTER]
(1),Goldwin Smith,
IR IS H H IS T O R Y A N D IR IS H C H A R A C T E R
(part of it in notebook III under O ’C o n o r .)2 9 4
Goldwin Smith, Irish History and Irish Character, Oxford

and London, Parker, 1861.
The apologetic intentions of this English bourgeois pro
fessor are concealed behind a cloak of objectivity. Even from
a geographical point of view, Ireland, he says, is destined to
be subjugated by England, and he attributes the slow and
incomplete conquest to the width of the Channel and to the
fact that Wales is situated between England and Ireland.
Ireland is said to be a grazing country by nature, see
Leonce de Lavergne.* Smith thinks that
“it is difficult, over a great part of the island to get in a wheat harv
est ... its natural way to commercial prosperity seems to be to supply
with the produce of its grazing and dairy farms the p o p u l a t i o n o f
E n g la n d ” (p. 3).
There are coalfields in Ireland (p. 4).

The climate is supposed to have debilitated the Irish and retarded
their development, in comparison with people who live in a bracing
climate such as the Scandinavians
* See pp. 274-75, 3 3 9 —E d .
(and Laplanders? ). On the other hand, the prospect is held
out to the Irish
of mansions of nobles and merchant princes, such as can now be found
in Scotland
(in the grouse moors and deer forests! ) (p. 5)
He greatly deplores the lack of moderation in Irish elo
quence. Nevertheless the Irishman complements the English
man, and it would be unfortunate if as a result of emigration
the Celtic element were drained off.
Originally the clan or tribe was the social form common to all Celts
(and to other nationalities)
in Wales as well. Soon more intermingling of the different clans took
place in the Irish plain and the ties within the clans were loosened; on
the other hand there existed the rule of the more powerful over those
who were weaker, the beginnings of monarchy. The main prerogative of
the king seems to have been the exaction of tribute, and not as a rule
jurisdiction.
The factional fights of the Irish, two year olds and three year olds,
are vestiges of the old clanships, as are also the county jealousies and
county fights
(cf. the fight between Cork and Tipperary on
the emigrant ship).
The fairies too have their factions and their county fights
(cf. K ohl)2 9 5
The old loyalty to the clan chief and submission to his will explain
much in the Irish character.
The land of the clan was collective property. In this con
text Smith realises that in Ireland it was never the Irishman,
but only the Englishman who held land as private property,
although he merely says that private property confronted the
Irishman only
in the “form of insecurity, degradation, and despair” (p. 21).
Sir John Davies, pp. 135, 136,* writes of the chiefries that
“though they had s o m e p o r t i o n s o f l a n d a l l o t t e d to t h e m ”, they “did
consist chiefly in c u ttin g s a n d c o s h e r ie s a n d o t h e r I ris h e x a c t i o n s ”,
* The following note is written in the margin “Davies, excerpts, pp.
4 f 2”.296 - E d .
the English lawyer says,
“whereby they did spoil and impoverish the people at their pleasure.
And when their chieftains were dead, their sons or next heirs did not
succeed them but their Tanists, who were elective and bought their
election by strong hand ; and by the Irish custom of gavelkind, the
inferior tenancies were partable amongst all the males of the sept both
bastards and legitimate and after partition made, if anyone of the sept
had died, his portion was not divided among his sons, but the chief of
the sept made a new partition of all the lands belonging to the sept and
gave everyone his part according to his antiquity.”
Quoted p. 22.
The English lawyers are supposed to have called this, and tanistry in
particular, “no estate but only a transient and scambling possession”,
and Davies was entirely in agreement with this and also with the king
being obliged to compel the people, if necessary by force, to accept
civility,
i.e. the English law.
How often a new division took place is not clear (! ! ) certainly not
at every death. (See Hallam.*)
Every two or three years, see Davies, excerpts, p. 82.** In
any case it is obvious that because of the English conquest,
the Irish up to 1600 had not yet gone beyond common
property! But Smith (p. 24) asserts that as early as the
“invasion the land which a member of a sept had occupied seems
generally to have passed at his death, as a matter of course, to all his
sons".
This is wrong, see Davies, who considers that partition still
exists at least in the northern part of Ireland.***
Even today “spend me and defend me” is said to be more natural to the
Irish peasant than the relationship of landlord and tenant.
The term gavelkind was introduced into Ireland by English lawyers,
for they confused Irish law with the Kentish gavelkind, which knows no
primogeniture either (p. 25).
* H. Hallam, The Constitutional History o f England from the
Accession o f Henry VII to the Death o f George //, Vol. 1—2, London,
1827.—
** In the manuscript this is written above the preceding quota
tion.—Ed.
* * * In the manuscript this is inserted between the lines.—Ed.
Only trash is contained in St. Bernard’s pronouncements
about the Irish Church, on the basis of which Henry II jus
tified Adrian’s Papal Bull,297 because it was necessary to
bring the whole church under the sway of Rome in the face
of external enemies. St. Bernard alleges:
(1) They pay no first-fruits or tithes. (2) they do not properly marry
(i.e. not in accordance with the formalities prescribed by
Rome)
nor do they go to confession (? ), no one exhorts them to do penance
and no one imposes a penance. Moreover (3) there are far too few
priests. But all this had already been put right by St. Malachy, as
St. Bernard himself admits. (De vita St. Malachiae, chapter 8.)
Giraldus Cambrensis however repeats the same accusations*:
they pay neither tithes nor first-fruits, disregard the “rites of marriage,
do not come to church and marry the wives of deceased brothers”. In
addition one can merely say that the hierarchy is incomplete, there are
too many bishops and for a long time there were no archbishops at all,
and their ordinations are not quite lawful (p. 33).
The only towns were those of the Danes
(says Davies).**
That heathen elements are still evident in their religion is obvious, it
was so everywhere. Thus in Ireland one can find “the pledge of blood”
in addition to the touching of a relic when concluding an agreement,
the noise, orgiastic wakes which accompany funerals, the fact that the
right arm is not baptised etc.
In Germany and England one can find quite different things.
Fosterages and the special emphasis laid on sponsorship (gossipred) and
the lifelong obligations they impose, are probably also of pagan origin.
Giraldus Cambrensis writes: “as for their own brethren and kinsmen,
the Irish persecute them when living, unto death, and avenge them
when slain, while such love and fidelity as they show is confined to
their foster brethren and foster children.” Quoted p. 39.
Marriage however seems to have been in a bad way, for Davies,
p. 146***, speaks of “their common repudiation of their wives, their
promiscuous generation of children, their neglect of lawful matri
mony” ; he associates this with “their uncleanness in apparel, diet, and
* Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio Hibemie (p. 289).—Ed.
** The parenthesis was inserted later.—Ed.
* * * The page reference—which is not given in Smith’s book—was
presumably inserted by Engels later.—Ed.
lodging, and their contempt and scorn of all things necessary for the
civil life of man”.
The fact that in law bastard children are placed on a par with
legitimate children is connected with this but also with com
munal property.
In the last century, the Irish squire is said to have still eaten at the
same table with the retainers of his household, almost like the old clan
chief (p. 39).
The laws of the conquerors against bards and strolling
singers were directly political,
because they were the upholders of the national tradition. As late as the
end of the eighteenth century there were still a few old strolling
bards.
But their Irish can no longer be understood today.
The Normans in Ireland “formed only a military colony or rather
garrison holding its ground against the natives with difficulty and living
m a perpetual state of border war”. From die outset therefore they
tried to gain the “ascendancy”. The P a l e 2 9 8 was a of feudal
England on the other side of the Channel (p. 56).
The English interest and the Anglo-Irish interest in the Pale arose
already at that time. The Irish barons were jealous of the English of
ficials who came from England, etc. And of those who also owned
English estates, and who for the most part were absentees299 and
remained English.
During the Wars of the Roses
the government of the Pale became so weak that it entrusted the polic
ing and keeping order to a private Brotherhood of St. George
(Moore sub anno 1472, not in the Chronology.)300
The statute of Kilkenny301 was merely an act of self-
defence and there was “nothing peculiarly malignant in it”.
That crimes against Irishmen were not punishable is said to
be the natural consequence of the fact that in Ireland two
nations living in the same country were subject to two dif
ferent codes of law!
“An Irishman who had murdered an Englishman would have been only
fined for it by his Brehon!
Proof of this is
the affair of the sheriff whom an Irish chief was prepared to admit into
his territory, provided the government fixed the wergeld to be paid for
him should the case arise.*
The quinque sanguines** are correctly understood as five
clans.
English statesmen, such as Spencer, Davies and Bacon, who were
interested in Ireland regarded “the settlement and subjugation of Wales
by Edward I” as an ideal. t
At any rate Davies,302 see pages 105-07, note

book 3, 2.***
Finally under Poynings’ administration (Henry VII) e v e ry murder
was made punishable according to English law
(i.e. within the Pale). Almost all his laws are said to have
benefited Ireland, because they placed imperial (here it is
simply a euphemism for English) “interests and policy above
ascendancy (! ).
“It can hardly be doubted that the most obnoxious of his statutes, as
they tended to make imperial policy and imperial interests paramount
over the policy and interests of ascendancy, were at the time of their
enactment beneficial to the I ris h p e o p l e ” \ ! (p. 73).
These Acts were effective only within the Pale, and not a
trace of the Irish people could be found there! (Davies,
pp. 136-39.)****
He claims that with Henry VIII and Wolsey “the deep and reflecting
statecraft of a politic age now began to appear” in the Irish administra
tion of the regents sent to Ireland (p. 74).
Yes indeed, the French wars and the Wars of the Roses had
come to an end!
The war against the Geraldines303 in the reign of Henry VIII was
waged by both sides with great cruelty and caused much destruction; in
addition there was treachery and perfidity on the part of the English
against Fitzgerald and his five uncles, and against others as well.
Under Elizabeth “there was corruption, corruption in the very vilest
* Engels made the following note in the margin : “Davies, pp.
134,135; notebook pp. 4, 2; Spencer, p. 20.”—E d .
** Five bloods. See p. 366 —E d .
* * * This note was inserted later.—E d .
** ** xhis parenthesis was inserted later.—E d .
form, corruption which preferred war to peace because war held out
hopes of lucre which peace threatened to destroy”.
Then in the face of the adventures304
“the eagle took wing for the Spanish main, the vultures descended upon
Ireland.
But in Ireland, too, Raleigh had a castle and an estate
granted to him at Lismore. Wakefield, Vol. I, P. 70.*
“a dexterous use of intrigue, chicanery and the art of inciting to rebel
lion, procured for the sharper in Ireland wealth ... in the shape of con
fiscated lands” (p. 79).
In 1561 Shane O’Neill came to England with a guard of gallowglas-
ses,** who were bareheaded, wore glibs, saffron shirts, short skirts and
shaggy cloaks and were armed with hatchets
(at a time when muskets were in use! ).
P. 86. Elizabeth’s expenditure for the war in Iceland amounted to at
least £4-500,000 per annum, hence the counterfeit money, “assuredly
whoever may have profited by the misery and depression of Ireland, it
has not been the English nation”. (\ ! ) “To the English nation Ireland
has been a source of expense, danger, and weakness without intermis
sion from the conquest almost down to the present hour.”
And a qui la faute***? Surely that of the English na
tion!
James is said to have been obliged to create sham boroughs not only
to obtain a majority, but also because there were no real boroughs! ! !
(p. 96).
Just as Potemkin’s villages had likewise been a historical
necessity.305 Good for the reformers.
Sir Thomas Smith’s first colonies “were planted in Down and
Antrim on lands which were presumed in law to be vacant by the
attainder of O’Neill”. This failed, “the native occupants, says Hallam,
not acquiescing in this doctrine of our lawyers”.
Arthegal in Spencer’s Faery Queen is Lord Deputy Gray.
* This note in the margin was inserted later and marked with a
special sign. On Edward Wakefield’s book Account o f Ireland, from
which Engels made detailed excerpts, see pp. 271-73, 280-82 .—Ed.
** See p. 292 .-Ed.
** Whose fault is it? —Ed.
“When the chieftains of the septs O’More and O’Connell * were
attainted, in the reign of Mary
(King’s and Queen’s Counties)306
the sept pleaded that the chieftain could not by his attainder forfeit the
sept land w h ic h h e n e v e r h a d p o s s e s s e d . A feeling that the land was still
theirs and that they were unjustly kept out of their possessions ... is
perhaps not extinct even at the present day” (p. 1|01).
To show his impartiality, Strafford also extorted considerable sums
from the colonists of Londonderry, because they had committed a
small formal breach of the covenant thus arousing the wrath of
London, the mother city, against him and Charles.
“It is not too much to say that the English Puritans regarded the
Irish Catholics, after O’Neill’s massacre, with the rage of the Orange
man307 towards the Papists added to the rage of tne Englishman of
Calcutta towards the Sepoy mutineer” (p. 113),
so that on the whole, Cromwell countenanced as few murders
as he possibly could.
Cromwell’s transportation of Irish rebels to the West
Indies to be employed there as slaves is said to be less harsh
“than the measure which the Catholic House of Austria dealt at the
same time to the Protestants of Bohemia and other conquered pro
vinces in the Thirty Years* War” (p. 114).
To be looked up.308
In defence of the judicial murder of Archbishop Plunket {he says
that ] although Titus Oates* plot was an invention, “there was a Popish
plot for the extirpation of Protestantism and liberty throughout
Europe, of which the King of France** was the powerful head, of which
the Jesuits were the restless and unscrupulous agents, in which the
King*** *he heir presumptive**** to the crown were deeply
engaged and which all but overthrew the religion and liberties of
England in the next reign” (p. 119).
Not a word about the breach of the Treaty of Limer
ick.™*
“James II issued a mandate nominating a Papist to the Professorship
of the Irish language in Trinity College. It turned out that no such
Professorship existed” (p. 135).
* There is a mistake in Smith’s book, it should read “O’Con
nor” not “O’Connell”.—Ifri.
** Louis X IV .-E d.
** * Charles 11.—Ed.
** ** The Duke of York, later James II.—Ed.
The money which the absentees take with them is said to be mainly
expended on unproductive work and thus for the most part lost in any
case; therefore it does not matter much that the money is not spent in
Ireland, (p. 144).
What does the West End of London say to this?
In his M o d e s t P r o p o s a l , Swift speaks of young unemployed Irish
men (A.D. 1729) “who either turn thieves for want of work or leave
their dear native country to fight for the Pretender,* o r s e ll th e m s e lv e s
to th e B a rb a d o es
That is into slavery lasting for a longer or shorter time.
He then proposes that some of the children be assigned to the butcher,
and in his M a x im s he suggests that the Irish be permitted to sell their
surplus population into slavery.
Even before the reign of James II the potato is said to have been the
“symbol and reproach of Ireland”. Under James II “an Irish deputation
was followed about the streets of London by a mob with potatoes
stuck on poles”, (p. 150).
Ireland’s distress ... “overflowed to England, and bringing pauper
ism” (! ) “and disease (! ! ) into our great cities, punished England f o r
w h a te v e r s h a r e s h e m a y h a v e h a d in I r is h w r o n g s ” (p. 151).
According to Phelan’s R e m a in s , Vol. II, p. 42, the landlords pre
ferred Catholic serfs to Protestant tenants, especially because the
former always offered to pay the highest rent. The Protestants there
fore emigrated to America.
(No date mentioned.)
McGeoghegan says in his H is to r y o f I r e l a n d * * : “from calculations
and researches made at the French war-office, it has been ascertained
that from the arrival of the Irish troops in France in 1691, up to 1745,
t h e year of the battle of Fontenoy, more than 450,000 Irishmen died
in the service of France.”
In the independent Irish Parliament before the Union
(according to an inquiry made in 1784 for the benefit of the English
Government) out of “ 300 seats 116 were shared among 25 proprietors
(one nobleman had 16) and that the government could count on 86
votes of members for proprietary seats, the owners of which let them
out for titles, places or pensions^ 12 votes of their own, 45 votes of
placemen, and 32 of gentlemen who had promises or had avowed their
expectations. (Massey, H is to r y o f E n g la n d , Vol. Ill, p. 264.)
* The Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, Chevalier de
St. George.—E d .
** McGeoghegan, H is to r y o f I r e la n d . Translated by O ’Kelly. Dublin
1844. (It was first published in French in Paris, 1758.)—E d .
And what about the English Parliament of the time?
Sir Jonah Barrington was Judge of the High Court of
Admiralty in Ireland.
Pitt would have given parliamentary reform and Catholic
Emancipation to Ireland, but his
“liberal policy ... was fatally arrested and the world (! ) was flung into
dismay, despair of liberty and absolutist reaction, by the tremendous
eruption of absurdity, cruelty, and ultimately of military vanity and
rapacity, which Frenchmen imagine to be the grandest and most
beneficent event in history” (p. 165).
, No trace of objectivity remains here.
“An alien and disaffected element incorporated in a nation can only
be a source of internal division and weakness. It would be better in
every point of view, that the British Empire should be reduced to a
single island, to England, to Yorkshire or Kent, than that it should
include anything which is not really its own” (p. 179).
! ! Donc—\ (Of course) After 700 years of struggle!
Federation, he declares, is impossible between Ireland
and England (he does not speak of a real federation with a
federal parliament responsible for federal affairs, but only of
a personal union).
“This dog-collar-union, two independent parliaments and two in
dependent governments linked together by a nominal allegiance to the
same crown ... must be an irony or a nuisance” and would end either in
complete separation or in the rule of the English parliamentary govern
ment over Ireland too, as between 1782 and 1798, as a result of corrup
tion and intrigue (p. 181).
What about Sweden and Norway? And Austria-Hun
gary ? 310
“The course of events has left no basis whereon Irish nationality
can be established.” The Irish and the English are said to be composed
of the same elements, although in different proportions ... “but what is
of most importance and in fact almost decisive, the language of both
islands is the same” (p. 183).
Hence, the two are one nation and separation of any kind
is absurd! As though the English language had not made the
Irishman even more Irish!
From p. 184 onwards he deals with “the agrarian outrages, of which
the surplus population was the main cause”! I *
Goldwin Smith, conclusion (passages quoted word for word and
addenda)
‘The dampness of the climate, while it is the source of vegetable
wealth and vegetable beauty, could not fail to relax the energies of the
people and to throw them back in the race of nations for preeminence
in things requiring physical exertions. We see this when we compare the
early history of the Irish with that of the Scandinavians, braced to
daring and enterprise by the climate of the North” (p. 4).
Edward III and Henry V fought the battles of Crecy, Poitiers, etc.
in France,3 H “on these famous fields where, in the overthrow of the
French chivalry by peasant hands, feudalism found its grave! ” (p. 65,
see below p. 71)**
Statute o f Kilkenny:
“There is nothing peculiarly malignant in the attem pt of that Statute to
restore a sharp division between the English and the natives. The object
of the framers was not to prevent the beneficial fusion of the two races
into one nation, but to prevent the one which they very naturally and
rightly thought the more civilised, from degenerating into the barbarism
of the other; and at the same time to check the increase of the ‘rebel*
elements in the country ... the same legislators forbid, under the
severest penalties, the making of private war upon the Irishry,312
the exciting them to war” (p. 68).
(Very kind! )
“It sounds shocking that the killing of an Irishman by an English
man should have been no felony and that it should have been a good
plea to an indictment for murder that the murdered person was not an
Englishman nor a member of one of the five ‘bloods’ or septs which had
been admitted within the pale of English law. But nothing more is in
fact implied in this than the Irish were not under the English but under
the native or Brehon jurisdiction. The existence of two races in the
same country under different laws, and with different punishments for
crimes, inconceivable as it appears now”
(he does not know the Levant! ),
“appeared quite natural at a time when the distinction of races was far
stronger and when law was the peculiar custom of the race, not a set of
principles common to all mankind. It would have been the same in
* After this paragraph we find the following note : (For the end
see p. 5).—Ed.
** See p. 367—Ed.
MATERIAL FOR “HISTORY OF IRELAND”________________________ 367
England had the Anglo-Saxons succeeded in obtaining from {William}
the Conqueror ‘the laws of Edward the Confessor*. One kingdom would
then have contained two nations, the Normans and the Saxons, living
under different penal codes. The rule o f impunity held good for both
sides. An Irishman who had murdered an Englishman would have been
only fined for it by his Brehon. The Government having on one oc
casion desired a native chief to receive a sheriff into his territories, the
chief consented, but at the same time desired the Government to say
what sum of money, or eric, they set upon the sjieriff’s head, in order
that, if he was killed, that sum might be duly assessed upon the sept”
(p. 69).
England as a government is said to have always been well
disposed towards Ireland:
“The truth is that the Plantagenet Government, when it found time
to attend to Ireland, intended not evil but good to the Irish people
(p. 68).... The English Government was not unwilling to admit the
Irishry to the English law. Five whole septs” (! ! ) “the five bloods ...
were admitted collectively, and individual denization seems to have
been freely granted” (pp. 68-70).
But the bad Irish barons did not want this and it is they who
frustrated the good intentions of the government (pp. 68,
69).
“The idea that the English Government deliberately excluded the
Irish from the pale of humanity vanishes away” (p. 70).
(Certainly, in his mind! )
“From the ruins of the feudal aristocracy which the Wars o f the
Roses had laid in the dust, arose the powerful monarchy of the Tudors*'
(p. 71).
Hence it had not found its grave as a result of those battles in
France!
“At no period of the struggle** (Henry VIII and Elizabeth) “un
happily could England put forth her whole power to strike, in mercy, a
decisive blow” (p. 77).
During Elizabeth’s reign:
“ Finally, there was corruption; corruption in the very vilest form; cor
ruption which preferred war to peace because war held out hopes of
lucre which peace threatened to destroy. The great events and discov
eries of the Elizabethan era produced a love of adventure which broke
forth in every direction, and varied in the dignity of its objects and its
character, from the height of heroism to the depth of baseness. The
eagles took wing for the Spanish main; the vultures descended upon
Ireland. A daring use of his sword procured for the adventurer in the
Spanish colonies romantic”- (! ) “wealth in the shape of ingots and rich
bales; a dexterous use of intrigue, chicanery and the art of inciting to
rebellion, procured for the sharper in Ireland wealth less romantic but
more solid and lasting in the shape of confiscated lands” (p. 79).
“The reign” (of James I) “began well, with a broad act of oblivion”
(? ). “ Even the arch-rebel Tyrone was received into favour”
(! after all, he had made his peace even before the death of
Elizabeth! ) (p. 94).
In consequence of the judgment of the King’s Bench313 (1605)
which stated that Irish tenure was unlawful, and introduced English
law, “ the chiefs gained a boon by having their demesne lands and their
territorial rights finally made hereditary instead of elective” (p. 95).
Ten years later living in exile and completely expropriated
these chiefs (those of them that had still existed in 1605)
were able to ponder what a boon it was!
“There seems no reason to doubt that it was in honest pursuance of
the same policy o f civilising and conciliating” (! ! ) “the Irish, by giving
them English institutions, that a Parliament more regular and com
prehensive than any which had preceded, was called for all Ireland,
without distinction of race or religion” (? ? ) “It is true that the
Government took active measures to obtain a majority , and that it
created a number of rotten, or rather of sham boroughs. But it does not
seem that freedom of election was otherwise *’ (! ! ) “interfered with”
(• ) (PP. 95-96)....
“It was necessary to create sham boroughs, not only to give the Govern
ment a majority, but also because real boroughs there were none”
(! ! ! ) (p. 96).
“It appears, to say the least, extremely doubtful whether the lands
of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, on which the Ulster colony was planted, had
been forfeited for any real offence and whether the plot in which these
noblemen were alleged to have been engaged, was not invented by the
teeming brain o f officials desirous of sharing their estates. They fled, it
is true, but not from justice; for justice, when the forfeiture of land was
in prospect, there was none”, (p. 100.)
He asserts that in 1640 and 1641, Richelieu and the
Pope* fomented civil war in England and Ireland, and the
Irish officers who had returned from France and Spain also
added fuel to it. Then came the Catholic rising
* Urban V lll.-E d .
“with that great massacre of the Protestants in Ulster which is con
nected with the name of Sir Phelim O’Neill.3 To doubt that there
was a great massacre seems idle, since Clarendon,* a contemporary,
well informed and sober writer, reckoned the number of persons killed
at 40 or 50,000” (! ). “It seems not less idle to doubt which party
struck the first blow; as well might it be doubted which party struck
the first blow in the Sicilian Vespers.3 *5 An abstract of depositions
describing some of the scenes which occurred in the massacre has been
preserved by Rushworth (Collections, Vol. IV, p. 1^)5).** It presents
an appalling but perfectly credible picture of the vengeance which a
people brutalised by oppression wreaks, in the moment of its brief
triumph, on the oppressor. Well might phantoms o f horror haunt the
accursed spots and the ghosts o f the murdered be heard to shriek from
beneath the bridge at Portnadown” (pp. 107-08).
This is again very vague!
“Under the Protectorate” (Cromwell) “... the Protestant com
munity at least (in Ireland) presented a picture o f prosperity such as the
island had never before seen ” (? ? ) (p. 114).
This sycophant regards Macauley as a great writer.
“It would be as easy to sing of the siege of Troy after Homer, as to
write about the siege of Londonderry after Macauley” (p. 120).
While he advises the Irish (see Preface)
“to pay more attention to general causes”
so as to be able to explain away such infamies in an objective
manner, he always attributes the actions of the Irish to petty
parochial causes. Thus under James II:
“The Irish people, it has been justly observed, in entering upon the civil
war, were moved, not by attachment to the House of Stuart or to its
political principles, but, like the Highland Clans, by motives of their
own ... probably the mass of James’s party, though they were fighting
for the Catholic religion, were fighting less for the Catholic religion
than for that old and terrible subject of Irish civil wars, the land” (p.
121 ).
(That is their own land! )
“Land had been the great source of contention and misery in
Ireland throughout her history ” (p. 125).
* E. H. Clarendon, The History o f the Rebellion and Civil War in
Ireland (first ed. 1720).—Ed.
* * A reference to the Historical Collection (a collection of docu
ments in eight volumes, first ed. 1659 to 1701).—Ed.
Not the Englishmen’s greed for land, but the land itself must
be blamed for it. “It’s chitty that’s done it.”
“Their descendants” (the descendants of Cromwell’s landlords)
“became probably the very worst Upper Class with which a country
was ever afflicted. The habits of the Irish gentry grew beyond measure
brutal and reckless, and the coarseness of their debaucheries would have
disgusted the crew of Comus. Their drunkenness, their blasphemy, their
ferocious duelling, left the squires of England far behind” (! ). “If there
was a grotesque side to their vices which mingles laughter to our
reprobation, this did not render their influence less pestilent to the
community of which the malice of destiny had made them the social
chiefs. Fortunately their recklessness was sure, in the end, to work, to a
certain extent, its own cure; and in the background of their swinish an
uproarious drinking bouts, the Encumbered Estates Act rises to our
view” (p. 140).3*6
“In 1778 the increasing spirit o f toleration began sensibly to exert
its power” and the worst penal laws were repealed. In “ 1778 Lord
North proposed (somewhat under duress, it is true) large relaxations of
the iniquitous and absurd restrictions on Irish trade ... two years later
the same minister, taught wisdom by his American disasters, proposed
and carried further concessions. Twenty years more, and Mr. Pitt,
having come into power instinct with all the liberal ideas of the new
era, extinguished one” (! ) “source of misery and discord by giving
Ireland a full measure o f Free Trade”
(that is with England! )
“as an article of the Union” ! ! (pp. 158-59).
The “nice spirit of toleration*’, the “liberal ideas of the
new era”, etc. have brought all this about; and not the
Englishman’s fear of the Americans and French! These are
the “general causes” which have to be kept in mind, but by
no means the real ones!
“Among the phantoms of hatred and suspicion which arose from
this field of carnage, was the horrible idea that the English Government
had intentionally stimulated the Irish people into rebellion in order to
pave the way for the Union. No evidence in support o f this charge can
be produced” (p. 176).
“A nation must be very shallow or very depraved which, in the
meridian light of modem philosophy, can imagine that a mere exten
sion of its territory, unsanctioned by nature and morality, can add to
its greatness” (p. 179).
And this when the English have been engaged in con
quests throughout the century!
Conclusion:
“The original source of the calamities of Ireland was the partial
character of the Norman Conquest, which caused the conquerors
instead of becoming an upper class, to remain a mere hostile settlement
or Pale ... the next great source of mischief was the disruption of
Christendom at the period of the Reformation and the terrible religious
wars which ensued upon that disruption and into which both nations,
in common with the other nations of Europe, were drawn. Then Ireland
became a victim to the attempt of Louis 14th \^ ich was in part a
sequel of the religious wars, to destroy the liberty and religion of
England through his vassals, the House of Stuart. Finally the French
Revolution breaking out into anarchy, massacre and atheism, at the
moment when the Government of England under Pitt had just entered
on the path of reform and toleration, not only arrested political
progress in this as in other cases, but involved Ireland in another civil
war” (p. 193).
Again fine “general causes”! As general as possible!
Preface:
“It” (this book) “would serve a good purpose if it should fall into the
hands of any popular writer on Irish history, and induce him to pay
more attention than writers on that subject have generally paid to
general causes, to cultivate the charities o f history and in the case of the
rulers as well as of the people, to take fair account of misfortunes as
well as of crimes.”
On Ireland’s independence, p. 180:
“Independence would of course be feasible in itself if it could only
be accompanied by geographical separation; but so close a neighbour
hood would involve contact and contact would bring on colli
sion”
(hence as on the Continent where the countries are in direct
contact? );
“rivalry, jealousy, hostility would spring up all the more certainly
because there would be between the two countries the memory of a
former union and of a recent divorce; and Ireland menaced by the
power of England, would become the ward and the vassal of France, or
some other foreign power which for its own purposes would constitute
itself her protector.”
All this applies also to Russia and Poland, to Hungary and
Austria and indeed between 1815 and 1859 to Austria and
Italy, and to every case of subjugation. It is appropriate that
England’s former infamies have to serve as a pretext for the
infamies committed at the present time.
Federation in this case requires two partners of equal strength, “but
it could not be naturally or usefully formed between two states one of
which is far more powerful than the other, since in the Federal Council
the vote of the more powerful would always prevail.”
Published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the

Collected Works, second Russian manuscript (written partly
ed., Vol. 45, Moscow, 1975 in German, partly in
English). The German passages
have been translated from the
original
VARIA ON THE HISTORY

OF THE IRISH CONFISCATIONS317
16th Century. Henry VIII
1536. Parliament in Dublin introduces the Oath of Supremacy and
the King is given the privilege of taking the pick of all ecclesiastical
livings. Quite different in the doing, however, for the subsequent insur
rections were directed, among other things, against the Oath. Yet
refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy was high treason in Ireland just
as in England (Murphy, p. 249).
16th Century. Edward VI and Mary
Confiscations in Queen's and King's Counties. During the reign of
Edward VI, as was usual in Ireland, the O’Moores of Leix and O’Con
nors of Offaley carried on a feud with some lords of the Pale.318 The
government qualified this as rebellion. General Bellingham, later Lord
Deputy, was sent against them and forced them to submit. Advised to
see the King and submit to him in person as O'Neill had done succes
sfully in 1542.* O’Moore and O'Connor, unlike O'Neill, were impri
soned and their estates were confiscated. But that was not the last of it.
The inhabitants declared that the land belonged to the clans, not to the
chiefs, who therefore could not forfeit it, and were, at most, liable to
forfeiting their private domains. They declined to move out. The
Government sent troops, and had the land cleared after unintermittent
fighting and extermination of the population (Murphy, p. 255).
* In Murphy’s book (Ireland, Industrial, Political and Social, Lon

don, 1870) no date is given .—Ed.
This was the pattern [der ganze Grundriss] for all subse
quent confiscations under Elizabeth and James. The Irish
were denied all rights against the Anglo-Irish of the Pale, with
resistance treated as rebellion. That sort of thing became
usual.
By Acts in the 3rd and 4th years of the reign of Philip and Mary, c.
1 and 2, the Lord Deputy, the Earl of Sussex, wsK endowed with “full
power and authority ... to give and to grant to all and every Their
Majesties* subjects, English or Irish ... at his election and pleasure, such
estates in fee simple, fee tail,319 leases for term of years, life or lives”
in these two countries “as for the more sure planting or strength of the
countries with good subjects shall be thought unto his wisdom and
discretion meet and convenient” (Murphy, p. 256).
16 th Century. Elizabeth
English policy under Elizabeth: to keep Ireland in a state
of division and strife.
‘Should we exert ourselves,” the English Government averred, “in
reducing Ireland to order and civility, it must soon acquire power,
consequence and riches. The inhabitants will be thus alienated from
England; they will cast themselves into the arms of some foreign power,
or erect themselves into an independent and separate state. Let us
rather connive at their disorders, for a weak and disordered people can
never attempt to detach themselves from the Crown of England.” Thus
Sir Henry Sidney and Sir John Perrot, successive Lord Deputies (the
last-named the best that they ever had, in 1584-87), about the “horrid
policy” against which they protest (Leland, Vol. II, p. 292* and
Murphy, p. 246). Perrot’s intention of granting the Irish equal rights
with the Anglo-Irish and obviating confiscations was blocked by the
English party in Dublin.
(Yet he it was who had O’Donnell’s son brought aboard a
ship, filled with drink and borne away **)
Tyrone’s rebellion, among other things, against religious persecu
tion: “he and other lords of Ulster entered into a secret combination,
about this time, that they would defend the Roman Catholic religion ...
that they would suffer no sheriffs nor garrisons to be within the com
pass of their territories, and that they would ... jointly resist all inva
sions of the English” (Camden).*** The conduct of Deputy Mountjoy
* Th. Leland, The History of Ireland from the Invasion o f Henry
II f Vol. II, London, 1773. Here and below quoted from Murphy.—Ed.
** Seep. 335 .-Ed.
*** W. Camden, Annals, or the History o f Elizabeth, late Queen of
England, London, 1635. Quoted from Murphy.—Ed.
in this war is described by Camden: “He made incursions on all sides,
spoiled the corn, burnt all the houses and villages that could be found,
and did so gall the rebels, that, pent in with garrisons and straightened
more and more every day, they were reduced to live like wild beasts,
skulking up and down the woods and deserts” (Murphy, p. 251).
See Holinshed Chronicles (p. 460) on how Ireland is laid
waste in this war. Half the population is said to have been
done in.
According to the returns for 1602 by John Tyrrell, the Mayor of
Dublin, prices there climbed: wheat from 36/- to 180/- the quarter,
barley malt from 10/- to 43/- and oat malt from 5/- to 22/- the barrel,
peas from 5/- to 40/- the peck, oats from 3/4 to 20/- the barrel, beef
from 26/8 to 160/- the carcass, mutton ditto from 3/- to 26/-, veal ditto
from 10/- to 29/-, lamb from 1/- to 6/-, and a pig from 8/- to 30/-
(Leland, Vol. II, p. 410).
Desmond had estates confiscated in all counties of Munster except
Clare, and also in Dublin. They were worth £7,000 per annum. Irish
Parliament of 1586 expropriated 140 landowners by confiscation in
Munster alone under the Act of the 28th year of Elizabeth’s reign, c. 7
and 8. McGeoghegan lists the names of the grantees of Desmond’s
estates,* with some families still nearly all in possession until 1847
(? probably cum grano salis)
The annual Crown rent on these estates was 2d to 3d per acre, with
no indigenous Irish admitted as tenants and the government undertak
ing to keep adequate garrisons. ,
Neither provision was observed. Some estates were abandoned by
the grantees and reoccupied by the Irish. Many of the undertakers
stayed in England and appointed agents, who were “ignorant, negligent,
and corrupt” (Leland, Vol. Ill, p. 311).
17th Century. James 1
Penal Laws against Catholics (Elizabeth, in 2nd year of
reign, 1560, c.l, Irish { Statutes, Vol. 1, p. 275j)320 are
applied more and more since the beginning of the reign of
James I, it becoming dangerous to practise Catholicism.
Under Elizabeth 2 cl. 1, the fine of 12d was imposed for every
non-attendance of a Protestant Church service and, in 1605, under
James, imprisonment was added by Royal Proclamation and, hence,
unlawfully. This did not help. Besides, in 1605 all Catholic priests were
ordered out of Ireland in 40 days on pain of death.
* Engels borrows the reference to McGeoghegan’s History of

Ireland (Dublin, 1844) from Murphy’s book.—Ed.
Surrenders o f Estates and Regrants (see Davies, 7 ^321). These
followed the pronouncement of tanistry and g a v e l k i n d 3 2 2 as unlawful
by the Court of King’s Bench in the Hilary Term in the third year of
the reign of James I. A Royal Proclamation stipulated surrender of
estates and regrant under new valid titles. Most Irish chiefs came
forward to receive incontestable title at last, but this was made condi
tional on their giving up the clan relationship in favour of the English
landlord-tenanl relationship (Murphy, p. 261).
This in 1605 (see “Chronology”).*
Plantation o f Ulster. According to Leland, Irish undertenants and
servants were tacitly exempted from the Oath of Supremacy, whereas
all the other planters were compelled to take it.
Carte says** that all Irish settlers, especially natives, who
were allowed part of their land, were exempted, but this was
irrelevant because trial for refusing to take the Oath was
impracticable. The Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster also resist
ed taking the Oath of Supremacy, and this was suffered by
the authorities (Murphy, p. 266). That may have been useful
for the Irish as well.***
Carte estimates the number of English settlers in Ulster in 1641 at
20,000 and of Scottish settlers at 100,000 (Life o f Ormonde, Vol. I, p.
177).
Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy, was rewarded for his services
in this plantation with the territory of Innoshowen (? ) “and all the
lands possessed by O’Dogherty, a tract of country far exceeding the
allotments generally made to northern undertakers” (Leland, Vol. II, p.
438). As early as 1633 these estates were valued at £10,000 per annum
(Strafford's State Letters, Vol. II, p. 294). Chichester was the ancestor
of Marquis of Donegal, who would have £300,000 per annum for his
Belfast estate alone, if another of his ancestors had not surrendered it
to others under long leases (Murphy, p. 265).
The plantation of Ulster culminated the first period, with
a new means discovered for confiscation: defective titles.
This is effective under James and Charles, until Cromwell
* See p. 338.—
** Th. Carte, A History o f the Life o f James, Duke o f Ormonde,
from his Birth in 1610 to his Death in 1688, Vol. I—III, London, 1736.
For quoting this work Engels made use of Murphy’s book and of his
own excerpts from it.—Ed.
* ** In the manuscript the last two sentences are written down in
the right-hand column, opposite the preceding sentence.—
renews the invasion. See extracts from Carte (Life of
Ormonde), 2a,b323 • ,
Another effective pretext for confiscation was that
old Crown rents, long forgotten by Crown and landowners, were still
due from many estates. These were now pulled out and, wherever un
paid, the estate was forfeited. No receipts existed, and that was enough
(Murphy, p. 269).
Concerning the attempt to confiscate Connaught (see
“Chronology”,* and O’Conor, The History of the Irish
Catholics*"*, recall James’s dirty trick [schdne Schwei-
nerei\:
When the people of Connaught surrendered their titles to a specially
appointed Royal Commission in 1616 and had these reconveyed by
new patents, they paying £3,000 for their enrolment in Chancery, the
titles were not registered. A new commission was named on this pretext
in 1623 to declare them null and void by reason of deliberate default,
an oversight that depended not on the landowners but the government.
(See Carte, Life o f Ormonde, Vol. I, pp. 47 and 48.) In the meantime,
James died.
A Court o f Wards for Ireland was established in 1614. Carte avers in
The Life of Ormonde, Vol. I, p. 517, that no lawful basis existed for it
as in England, being meant to bring up Catholic heirs in the Protestant
religion and English customs. Its president was the good** Sir William
Parsons, who had helped plan it.
17th Century. Charles I
That the Irish insisted in the “graces”*** that “three score years’
oossession” (of an estate) “should conclude His Majesty’s title” was
understandable, for this was the “ law o f England” ( Strafford's State
Letters, Vol. I, p. 279), enacted by the Act of the 21st year of James’s
reign (Murphy, p. 274).
Yet English law applied to the Irish only in so far as it
suited the English government.
Strafford wrote the English Secretary of State on December 16,
1634, that in his Irish Parliament “the Protestants are the majority, and
this may be of great use to confirm and settle His Majesty’s title to the
Plantations of Connaught and Ormond; for this you may be sure of, all
the Protestants are for Plantations, all the others are against them ; so as
* See p. 341—Ed.
** The word “good” is missing in Murphy’s book.—Ed.
** * See pp. 342-43.—
these, being the great number, you can want no help they can give you
therein. Nay, in case there be no title to be made good to these
countries in the Crown, yet should not I despair, forth of reasons of
state, and for the strength and security of the Kingdom, to have them
passed to the King by an immediate Act of Parliament (State Letters ,
Vol. I, p. 353).
Outside Connaught, too, monejy was extorted con
tinuously on pain of inquiry into titles.
The O’Bymes of Wicklow, for example, twice paid £15,000 to
preserve a portion of their estates, while the City of London paid
£70,000 to prevent confiscation of its plantations in Colrain and Derry
for alleged breach of covenant (Leland, Vol. Ill, p. 39).
The Court o f High Commission established by Wentworth in the
year 1633, after the English m o d e l , 3 25 “with the same formality and
the same tremendous powers” (Leland, Vol. Ill, p. 29), and this
naturally without Parliament’s consent in order “to bring the people
here to a conformity in religion, and, in the way to that, raise, perhaps,
a good revenue to the Crown” (January 31, 1633, State Letters, Vol. I,
p. 188). The Court saw to it that all newly-appointed officials, doctors,
barristers, etc., and all those who “sued out livery of their estates”
should take the Oath of Supremacy,
which, as McAuley observed, was a religious inquisition
where that of the Star Chamber was political.
Then the Castle Chamber, called Star Chamber3^6 as in England,
which, Lord Deputy Chichester said, was “the proper court to punish
jurors who will not find a verdict for the King upon good evidence”
(oft-quoted passage from Desiderata Curiosa Hibemicae, Vol.
I, p. 262*).
It is said therein that the penalties there employed consisted in
“imprisonment and loss of ears” and “fines, pillory, boring through the
tongue, marking on the forehead with an iron and other infamous
punishments”, as this is also indicated in the indictment of Strafford
(Murphy, p. 279).
When Strafford went to Connaught in 1635, he took with him
4,000 horse “as good lookers on, while the plantations were settling”
(Strafford’s State Letters, Vol. I, p. 454). In Galway he imposed fines
not only on the jury that would not find a verdict for the King, but also
the sheriff “for returning so insufficient, indeed, we conceive, so
packed a jury, in £1,000 to His Majesty”({State Letters}, August 1635,
Vol. I, p. 451).
* Quoted according to Murphy, p. 279.—Ed.

As, by the 28th Act of Henry VIII, c. 5, 6 and 13, all recourse to
the Pope’s jurisdiction was prohibited and all Irish came under the
Protestant ecclesiastical courts, whose verdict could be appealed against
to the King alone. They took cognizance to all marriages, baptisms,
burials, wills, and administrations, and punished recusants for not going
to church under the 2nd Act of Elizabeth, c. 2, and also collected the
tithes. Bishop Burnet ( Life o f Dr. Bedel, Bishop o f Kilmore, p. 89) said
these courts were “often managed by a chancellor that bought his place
and so thought he had a right to all the profits he could make out of it.
And their whole business seemed to be nothing but oppression and
extortion.... The officers of the court thought they had a sort of right
to oppress the natives and that all was well got that was wrung from
them ... they made it their business to draw people into trouble by
vexatious suits, and to hold them so long in that, for 3d, worth of the
tithe of turf, they would be put to a £5 charge”.
In the “graces”, which never materialised,
Protestant clergymen were to have been forbidden “to keep private
prisons of their own” for spiritual offences, so that offenders should be
committed to the King’s public gaols (Murphy, p. 281).
See Spenser, excerpt 5a about the Protestant clergy.327
Borlase and Parsons encouraged the rebellion everywhere. According
to Lord Castlehaven’s Memoirs, they said: “The more rebels, the more
confiscations.” Leland (Vol. Ill, p. 166) too, observes that, as before,
“extensive forfeitures were the favourite object of the chief governors
and their friends”.
By that time, the Irish Royalist army was to have been 50,000
strong through reinforcement from England and Scotland.
See Carte. The Life o f Ormonde, Vol. Ill, p. 61, for the instructions
to the army.3* ®
The motto of the Kilkenny Confederates* was: Pro deo, pro rege,
et patria Hibernia unanimes**; so that is where the Prussians lifted it
from! (Borlase, Irish Rebellion , p. 128).***
1 7th Century. Cromwell
Drogheda Massacre.329 After a successful assault “quarter had been
promised to all who should lay down their arms—a promise observed
until all resistance was at an end. But at the moment that the city was
completely reduced, Cromwell ... issued his fatal orders that the gar
rison should be put to the sword. His soldiers, many of them with
reluctance, butchered the prisoners. The governor and all his gallant
* See pp. 350-56.—Ed.
* * For God, King and Ireland unanimous.—Ed.
** *x Ed. Borlase, The History o f Execrable Irish Rebellion, London,
1680. Quoted from Murphy.—Ed.
officers, betrayea to slaughter by the cowardice of some of their
troops, were massacred without mercy. For five days this hideous
execution was continued with every circumstance of horror” (Leland,
Vol. Ill, p. 350). A number of Catholic ecclesiastics found within the
walls were bayoneted. “Thirty persons only remained unslaughtered ...
and these were instantly transported as slaves to Barbadoes” (Leland,
Vol. Ill, p. 350).
Petty (Political Anatomy o f Ireland, Dublm edition of Petty’s
tracts, 1769, pp. 312-15) estimates that 112,00u British and 504,000
Irish inhabitants of Ireland died in the war of 1641-52. In 1653,
“soldiers’ debentures”330 were sold at 4/- to 5/- in the pound, so that
with 20/- being the price [nominal] of two acres of land, and there
being 8 million acres of good land in Ireland, all Ireland was purchas
able for £1 million, though in 1641 it was worth £8 million. Petty
estimates the value of livestock in Ireland in 1641 at £4 million, and in
1652 at less than £500,000, so that Dublin had to get meat from Wales.
Com was 12/- per barrel in 1641 and 50/- in 1652. Houses in Ireland
worth £2 million in 1641, were worth less than£500,000 in 1653.
Leland, too, admits in Vol. Ill, p. 166 that “the favourite idea of
both the Irish Government and the English Parliament” (from 1642
onwards) “was the utter extermination of all the Catholics of Ireland”.
See Lingard ([History o f England], Vol. VII, 4th ed., p. 102, Note)
on the transportation o f Irish as slaves to the West Indies (figures vary
from 6,000 to 100,000). Of the 1,000 boys and 1,000 girls to be sent
to Jamaica, the commissioners wrote in 1655: “Although we must use
force in taking them up, yet it is so much for their own good and likely
to be of such great advantage to the public, that you may have such
number of them as you shall think fit” (Thurloe’s [Papers], Vol. IV,
p. 23).*
“By the first Act of Settlement, the forfeiture of two-thirds of their
estates had been pronounced against those who had borne arms against
the Parliament and one-third of their estates against those who had
resided in Ireland any time from October 1, 1649, to March 1, 1650,
and had not manifested their constant good affection to Parliament.
The Parliament had power to give them, in lieu thereof, other lands to
the proportion of value thereof.” The second Act concerned resettle
ment
(see Prendergast, Book of Excerpts VII, l a).331
Distribution of land to soldiers was limited to those who had served
under Cromwell from 1649 (Murphy, p. 302).
See Carte, Life o f Ormonde, Vol. II, p. 301, about some cases of
land surveying, especially by a d v e n t u r e r s . 3 3 2
According to Leland (Vol. Ill, p. 397), the Commissioners in
Dublin and Athlone kept considerable domains for themselves.
* Quoted from Murphy, p. 298.—Ed.

A plantation acre is equal to 1 acre, 2 roods, 19 perches, 5 yards,
and 2 1/4 feet imperial statute measure, or 121 plantation acres may be
taken as equal to 196 statute acres (Murphy, p. 302).
17th Century. Charles II
As a result of confiscations under Cromwell and Charles II,
the 7,708,238 statute acres confiscated by Cromwell were distributed
finally, by 1675, as follows:
Statute acres
1) To Englishmen
Adventurers.................................. ................... 787,326
Soldiers ............................................................ 2,385,915
“Forty-Nine” O fficers............................... 450,380
Duke of Y o r k ................................................. 169,431
Pro visors............................................................ 477,873
Duke of Ormond and Colonel Butler . . . . 257,516
Bishops’ Augmentations................................ 31,596.
Total 4,560,037
2) To Irishmen
Decrees of In n ocen ce.................................. 1,176,520
Provisors............................................................ 491,001
King’s Letters of Restitution....................... 46,398
Nominees in Possession................................ 68,360
Transplantation.............................................. .....541,530
Total 2,323,809
Remaining still unappropriated in 1675, being
part of towns or land possessed by En
glish or Irish without title or doubtful. . . . 824,392
Total in statute acres ............................ 7,708,238
On “Forty-Nine” officers see O’Conor and Notes.333
The Duke of York received a grant of all the lands held by the
regicides* who had been attainted. “ Provisors were persons in whose
favour provisoes had been made by the Acts of Settlement (1662) and
of Explanation.3^ Nominees were the Catholics named by the King
restored to their mansions and 2,000 acres contiguous.
At that time the profitable lands of Ireland were estimated at two-
* The reference is to those who were associated with the execution

of Charles I.—Ed.
thirds of all land, or 12,500,000 statute acres. Of the rest, considerable
tracts were occupied without title by soldiers and adventurers. In 1675,
the twelve and a half million acres o f arable were distributed as follows:
Granted to English Protestants of profitable land forfeited
under the Commonwealth . . . . ................ ...............4,560,037
Previously possessed by English Protestant Colonists and
by the C hurch................................................................................ 3,900,000
Granted to the Irish .........................................................K...............2,323,809
Previously possessed by “good affectioned” Irish........................ 600,000
Unappropriated as a b o v e ............................... . . , ................................ 824,391
Statute a c r e s........................................................................... * .12,208,237
[This table] was compiled by Murphy;

the figure of 3,900,000 acres was taken from the Account published,
by the Cromwellian proprietors and the rest on the basis of the
Grace Manuscript quoted by Lingard and the Report of the Commis
sioners to the English House of Commons, December 15, 1699. It
accords with Petty (Political Anatomy ), who wrote: “Of the whole
7,500,000 plantation acres of good land (in Ireland) the English and
Protestants and the Church have this Christmas (1672) 5,140,000
(=8,352,500 statute acres) and the Irish have near half as much”
(Murphy, pp. 314 and 315).
1 7th Century. William 7//33 5
By the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, 2,323,809 statute acres
were granted to the Irish, they having 600,000 previously in
their possession
Totalling............................................................... 2,923,809 statute acres
Of these lands, 1,060,792 plantation acres were escheated under
William worth £211,623 6s, 3d. per annum (Report of the Com
missioners of the House of Commons, 1699) . . . .1,723,787” ”
The r e s t .................................................................................... 1,200,022 ” f
or as Murphy calculated (he probably erred when subtract
ing?) .................................................................................... 1,240,022 ” ”
In addition, restituted by special favour of the King on pardoning
(65 persons) ...................................................................... 125,000 99 99
The Court of Claims restored (792 persons).................. 388,500 99 99
Total ...................................................... ............................................513,500

statute
acres
Making the total possessed by the Irish ..............................1,753,522*
statute acres
Compiled by Murphy on the basis of the Report
of the Commissioners of the House of Commons
(English) in December 1699.
Published in the book! Printed according to

M arx-E ngels Archive5, Vol. X, the manuscript in Ger-
Russ. ed., Moscow, 1948 man and English. Part
of the manuscript trans
lated from the German
* Engels points out that Murphy may have erred in his calculatio
by 4 0 ,0 0 0 acres, in which case the total would have been
1,713,522.—
F rederickEngels
NOTES FOR THE PREFACE TO A COLLECTION

OF IRISH SONGS336 r
Some Irish folk-music is very ancient, some has arisen in

the last three to four hundred years, and some only in the
last century. Especially much was written at that time by one
of the last Irish bards, Carolan. In the past these bards or
harpists—poets, composers and singers in one person—were
quite numerous. Every Irish chieftain had his own bard in his
castle. Many travelled the country as wandering singers,
persecuted by the English, who correctly saw in them the
main bearers of the national, anti-English tradition. Ancient
songs about the victories of Finn Mac Cumhal (whom Mac-
pherson stole from the Irish and turned into a Scot under the
name Fingal in his Ossian, which is entirely based on Irish
songs), about the magnificence of the ancient royal palace of
Tara, the heroic deeds of King Brian Borumha, and later
songs about the battles of Irish chieftains against the Sasse
nach (Englishmen) were all preserved in the living memory of
the nation by the bards. And they also celebrated the ex
ploits of contemporary Irish chieftains in their fight for
independence. When in the 17th century, however, the Irish
people were completely crashed by Elizabeth, James I, Oliver
Cromwell and William of Orange, their landholdings robbed
and given to English invaders, the Irish people outlawed in
their own land and transformed into a nation of outcasts, the
wandering singers were hounded in the same way as the
Catholic priests, and had gradually died out by the beginning
of this century. Their names are lost, of their poetry only
fragments have survived, the most beautiful legacy they have
left their enslaved, but unconquered people, is their music.
Irish poems are all written in four-line verses. For this
reason a four-line rhythm always lies at the basis of most,
especially the ancient, Irish melodies, though sometimes it
may be a little hidden, and frequently a refrain or conclusion
on the harp follows it. Some of these ancient songs are even
now, when in the largest part of Ireland Irish is understood
only by the old people or even not at all, known only by
their Irish names or first words. But the greater, more recent
part, has English names or texts.
The melancholy dominating most of these songs is still
the expression of the national disposition today. How could
it be otherwise amongst a people whose conquerors are al
ways inventing new, up-to-date methods of oppression? The
latest method, which was introduced forty years ago and
pushed to the extreme in the last twenty years, consists in
the mass eviction of Irishmen from their homes and farms—
which, in Ireland, is the same as eviction from the country.
Since 1841 the population has dropped by two and a half
million, and over three million Irishmen have emigrated. All
this has been done for the profit of the big landowners of
English descent, and on their instigation. If it goes on like
this for another thirty years, there will be Irishmen only in
America.
Published in the journal Movi- Translated from the

mento Operaio No. 2, Milano, German
1955
EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS ON IRELAND
MARX TO ENGELS
March 1, 1869
Also received Foster on Saturday evening.* The book is
indeed significant for its time. First, because in it Ricardo’s
theory is fully developed and better than in Ricardo—on
money, rate of exchange etc. Secondly, because one sees here
how those asses, the Bank of England, Commission of In
quiry,337 and the theoreticians, racked their brains over the
problem: England debtor to Ireland. Despite this, the rate of
exchange is always against Ireland and money is exported
from Ireland to England. Foster solves the puzzle for them,
viz., the depreciation of Irish paper money. It is true that two
years before him (1802) Blake had fully elucidated this dif
ference between the nominal and the real rate of exchange,
about which, by the way, Petty had already said all that was
necessary, only after him all this had been forgotten
again.338
The Irish amnesty is the lousiest of its kind ever. D ’abord,
most of the amnestied had almost served the term after
which all penal servitude men are given tickets of leave. And
secondly, the chief ringleaders were kept in gaol “because”
Fenianism is of “American” origin, and hence the more
criminal. That is why such Yankee-Irishmen as Costello are
released while the Anglo-Irish are kept under lock and key.
* J . L. Foster, An Essay on the Principle o f Commercial Exchanges,
and more particularly o f the Exchange between Great Britain and
Ireland, London, 1804.—Ed.
13-226
386 ENGELS TO MARX. SEPTEMBER 27, 1869
If ever a mountain gave birth to a mouse, it is this min
istry of all talents,339 and indeed in every respect.
I sent you earlier the report of Pollock and Knox340 (the
same lousy London police magistrate, formerly a Times man,
who distinguished himself so greatly in the Hyde Park row)
on the treatment of Irish “convicts” in England. One of these
“convicts” has exposed John Bull’s unheard-of infamies and
the lies of that blockhead Knox in The Irishman.
ENGELS TO MARX
September 27, 1869
We returned safely from Ireland on Thursday, a week
ago; were in Dublin, the Wicklow Mountains, Killarney and
Cork. Had quite a good time but both women* came back
even hibemiores than they had been before they left. Weath
er fine on the whole. According to the papers you are having
even worse weather there than we are here.
Learned from Trench’s Realities of Irish Life why Ireland
is so “overpopulated”. That worthy gentleman proves by
examples that on the average the land is cultivated so well by
the Irish peasants that an outlay of £10-15 per acre, which is
completely recouped in 1-4 years, raises its rental value from
1 to 20 and from 4 to 25-30 shillings per acre. This profit is
to be pocketed by the landlords.
Mr. Trench is in turn nicely checked by his own state
ments to Senior, which the latter has had published. Trench
tells the liberal Senior that if he were an Irish peasant he
would be a Ribbonman341 too! ...
Ireland’s trade has grown enormously in the past 14
years. The port of Dublin was unrecognisable. On Queens
town Quay I heard a lot of Italian, also Serbian, French and
Danish or Norwegian spoken. There are indeed a good many
“Italians” in Cork, as the comedy has it. The country itself,
however, seems downright depopulated, and one is immedia
* Engels’s wife Lydia (Lizzy) Bums and Marx’s daughter Eleanor.—
Ed,.
ENGELS TO MARX. NOVEMBER 1, 1869 387
tely led to think that there are far too few people. The state
of war is also noticeable everywhere. There are squads of
Royal Irish all over the place, with sheath-knives, and occa
sionally a revolver at their side and a police baton in their
hand; in Dublin a horse-drawn battery drove right through
the centre of town, a thing I have never seen in England, and
there are soldiers literally everywhere.
The worst about the Irish is that they become corruptible
as soon as they stop being peasants and turn bourgeois. True,
this is the case with most peasant nations. But in Ireland it is
particularly bad. That is also why the press is so terribly
lousy.
ENGELS TO MARX
October 24, 1869
Irish history shows one what a misfortune it is for a
nation to have subjugated another nation. All the abomina
tions of the English have their origin in the Irish Pale. I have
still to plough my way through the Cromwellian period, but
this much seems certain to me, that things would have taken
another turn in England, too, but for the necessity for
military rule in Ireland and the creation of a new aristocracy
there.
ENGELS TO MARX
November 1, 1869
It is really lucky that the Bee-Hive now flaunts its bour
geois colouring as impudently as stupidly. I’ve never seen
such a filthy issue as yesterday’s.34* This cringing before
Gladstone and the whole bourgeois-patronising-philanthropic
tone should soon break the neck of that paper and make it
necessary to have a real workers’ paper. It is very good that
the only workers’ paper is becoming more and more bour
geois precisely at a time when the workers are sobering up
13*
388 ENGELS TO MARX. NOVEMBER 17, 1869
from their liberal intoxication. But Sam Morley should have
had more brains than to place such stupid fools on it and
allow them to lay on the bourgeois varnish so thickly and
obviously.
The Fenian demonstration in London343 is merely
another proof of what the official publicity of the press is
worth. A couple of hundred thousand people assemble and
stage the most imposing demonstration London has seen for
years, and as the interest of respectability requires it, the
entire London press without exception can describe it as a
shabby failure.
MARX TO ENGELS
November 6, 1869
Within the next few days I’ll send you a volume which I
happened to pick up, containing all sorts of pamphlets about
Ireland. Those by Ensor (whom I quoted in Capital344) have
all sorts of piquant things. Ensor was a political economist of
English origin (his father was still living there at the time of
Ensor’s birth), a Protestant, and, in spite of all that, one of
the most resolute Repealers before 1830. Being himself in
different to religious matters, he can be witty in defending
Catholicism against the Protestants. The first pamphlet in the
book is by Arthur O’Connor. I expected more of it, since this
O’Connor played a considerable role in 1798 and I found
good essays by him on Castlereagh’s administration in Cob-
bett’s Political Register. Tussy must look through Cobbett
some time to see what he has on Ireland.
ENGELS TO MARX
November 17, 1869
The best joke of the Irish is to propose O’Donovan Rossa
as candidate for Tipperary. If this succeeds, Gladstone will
find himself in a fine fix. And now another amnesty in Italy!
I hope to read the details about the debates, etc., in the
MARX TO ENGELS. NOVEMBER 18,1869 _________389
International* next Sunday in the Bee-Hive. Should there be
any documents, please send them on to me. Last Sunday the
Bee-Hive had nothing about the International altough it did
report on the wedding of the Duke of Abercorn’s daughters.
Prendergast’s Cromwellian Settlement** is out of print.
You would therefore greatly oblige me by ordering it im
mediately at a second-hand bookseller's. Butt’s Irish People:
none in London. Other Irish pamphlets, for example, those
of Lords Rosse and Lifford: cannot find. Such are the
answers my bookseller received from his London agent, and
he told me at the same time that in general the English book
trade cannot take it upon itself to obtain publications appear
ing in Ireland, since it is not the custom to have a correspond
ent in Dublin, but only in London. I’ll write directly to
Duffy in Dublin.
I’ve found some very useful things about Ireland here:
Wolfe Tone’s Memoirs, etc., in the catalogue. Whenever I ask
for these things in the library, they are not to be found, like
Wakefield.*** Some old fellow must have had all the stuff to
gether and returned it en masse, so that the whole lot is hidden
away somewhere. But in any case these things must be found.
Gold win Smith of Irish History and Irish Character is a
wise bourgeois thinker. Ireland was intended by providence
as a grazing land, the prophet Leonce de Lavergne foretold it,
ergo pereat**** the Irish people!
MARX TO ENGELS
November 18, 1869
The Bee-Hive suppressed the report (by Eccarius) of the
latest meeting***** on the pretext that it had arrived too
late. The real reason was that
* See pp. 162-66—.Ed.
** J . P. Prendergast, The Cromwellian Settlement o f Ireland,
London, 1865.—Erf.
** * E. Wakefield, An Account o f Ireland, Statistical and Political
vols. I-II, London, 1812.—Ed.
**** Therefore perish.—Erf.
***** Of the General Council, International Working Men’s As
sociation—Erf.
390 MARX TO ENGELS. NOVEMBER 18,1869
1) it did not wish it to be known that the General
Council would take up the Irish question at its next meeting;
2) the report contained references objectionable to it
(i.e., to Mr. Potter) about the Land and Labour League.345
In fact, Mr. Potter failed ignominiously as nominee to the
League’s Committee.
Last Tuesday I opened the discussion on point 1: the
attitude of the British Government to the Irish Amnesty
Question. * I spoke for about an hour and a quarter, much
cheered, and then proposed the following resolutions on
Point 1:
“Resolved,
“that in his reply to the Irish demands for the release of
the imprisoned Irish patriots—a reply contained in his letter
to Mr. O’Shea, etc., etc.—Mr. Gladstone deliberately insults
the Irish Nation;
“that he clogs political amnesty with conditions alike
degrading to the victims of misgovemment and the people
they belong to;
“that having, in the teeth of his responsible position,
publicly and enthusiastically cheered on the American slave
holders’ Rebellion, he now steps in to preach to the Irish
people the doctrine of passive obedience;
“that his whole proceedings with reference to the Irish
Amnesty question are the true and genuine offspring of that
‘p olicy of conquest’, by the fiery denunciation of which
Mr. Gladstone ousted his Tory rivals from office;
“that the General Council of the International Working,
Men's Association express their admiration of the spirited,
firm and highsouled manner in which the Irish people carry
on their Amnesty movement;
“that these resolutions be communicated to all branches
of and working men’s bodies connected with, the Interna
tional Working Men's Association in Europe and America.”
Harris (an O’Brien man) seconded my proposal. However,
the President (Lucraft) pointed to the clock (we could stay
until 11 only); the matter was therefore left over to next
Tuesday. All the same, Lucraft, Weston, Hales, etc., in fact
* See pp. 162-66.—Ed.
MARX TO ENGELS. NOVEMBER 26, 1869 391
the whole Council, tentatively declared for the proposal in
informal way.
Milner, another O’Brienite, said the language of the
resolution was too weak (i.e., not declamatory enough);
furthermore, he demands that everything I said to substan
tiate the case should be inserted in the resolutions. (A fine
kettle of fish! )
Thus, with the debate continuing on Tuesday, now the
time for you to tell or write me what you may wish to amend
or add. In the latter case, if, for example, you wish to add a
paragraph about amnesties elsewhere in Europe, say in Italy,
write it at once in the form of a resolution.
ENGELS TO MARX
November 19, 1869
I think an appendix on amnesties in the rest of Europe
would only weaken the resolution, since besides Russia
(which would be very good by itself) Prussia would have to
be mentioned too, because of those condemned for the Guelf
conspiracy.346 On the other hand, I should polish up the
language a bit: Paragraph 2. I should insert “imprisoned” or
something of the sort before “victims”, so that it is evident at
first sight who is meant....
...Lizzy immediately conveyed a vote of thanks to you
for the resolution and is vexed that she cannot be there on
Tuesday.
MARX TO ENGELS
November 26, 1869
Last Tuesday’s sitting* was full of fiery, heated, vehe
ment speech. Mr. Muddlehead** or the devil knows what
* Marx is referring to the General Council of November 23, 1869.
See pp. 167-6S—Ed.
** Marx is referring to Mottershead.—Ed.
392 ENGELS TO MARX. NOVEMBER 29, 1869
that fellow’s name is—a Chartist and an old friend of Har
ney’s—had providently brought Odger and Applegarth along.
On the other hand Weston and Lucraft were absent because
they were attending an Irish ball. Reynolds had published my
resolutions in his Saturday issue and also an abstract of my
speech* (as well as Eccarius could do that; he’s no steno
grapher), and Reynolds had printed it right on the front page
of the paper, after his leading article. This seems to have
scared those flirting with Gladstone. Hence the appearance of
Odger and a long rambling speech by Muddershead, who got
it in the neck badly from Milner (himself an Irishman).
Applegarth sat next to me and therefore c(.id not dare to
speak against them; on the contrary, he spoke for them,
evidently with an uneasy conscience. Odger said that if the
resolutions were rushed to a vote he would have to say aye.
But unanimity was surely better and could be attained by
means of a few minor amendments, etc. I thereupon
declared—as it was precisely he that I wanted to get into a
mess—that he should submit his amendments at the next ses
sion. At the last session, although many of our most reliable
members were absent, we would thus have carried the resolu
tion against one single opposing vote. Tuesday we shall be
there in full force.
ENGELS TO MARX
November 29, 1869
I have discovered here in the Free Library and the
Chetham Library (which you know )347 a large number of
very valuable sources (besides the books with second-hand
information)>but unfortunately neither Young** nor Prender-
gast, nor the English issue of the Brehon Law*** published by
the English Government. However, I have found Wakefield
again and various things by old Petty. Last week I studied the
tracts of old Sir John Davies (Attorney-General for Ireland
-* See pp. 162-66,—Ed.
** A. Young, A Tour in Ireland, vols. I-II, London, 1780.—Ed,
*** See pp. 286-87.-E d.
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN. NOVEMBER 29, 1869 393
under James).* I don’t know whether you’ve read them,
they are the main source, but you must have found quota
tions from them hundreds of times. It is a downright shame
that the original sources are not available everywhere, one
gets infinitely more from them than from elaborations on
them, which make everything that is clear and simple in the
original confused and complicated. The trlfcts show clearly
that communal ownership of land was Anno 1600 still in full
force in Ireland and was adduced by Mr. Davies in his
counsel’s speech on the confiscation of the forfeited land in
Ulster as a proof that the land did not belong to individual
owners (peasants) and hence belonged either to the Lord,
who had forfeited it, or else from the very start to the
Crown. I’ve never read anything more beautiful than this
speech. Reallotments were made every two or three years. In
another pamphlet he describes in detail the incomes, etc., of
the head of the clan. I’ve never seen these things quoted, and
if they are of any use to you, I’ll send you details of them. At
the same time I’ve caught Monsieur Goldwin Smith beautiful
ly. That man never read Davies and that is why he makes the
most absurd assertions to exonerate the English. But I shall
get that fellow.
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN
November 29, 1869
You will probably have seen in the Volksstaat348 the
resolutions against Gladstone proposed by me on the ques
tion of the Irish amnesty.** I have now attacked Gladstone—
and it has attracted attention here—just as I had formerly
attacked Palmerston.*** The demagogic refugees here love to
fall upon the continental despots from a safe distance. That
sort of thing attracts me only when it is done vultu instantis
tyranra.****
* John Davies. Historical Tracts, London, 1786.—Ed.
** See pp. 165-66—Ed.
*** See pp. 80-81.-£d.
** ** Right to the face of the tyrant.—Ed,
394 MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN. NOVEMBER 29, 1869
Nevertheless, both my utterance on this Irish amnesty
question and my further proposal to the General Council to
discuss the attitude of the English working class to Ireland
and to pass resolutions on it have of course other objects
besides that of speaking out loudly and decidedly for the
oppressed Irish against their oppressors.
I have become more and more convinced—and the only
question is to drive this conviction home to the English work
ing class—that it can never do anything decisive here in
England until it separates its policy with regard to Ireland
most definitely from the policy of the ruling classes, until it
not only makes common cause with the Irish but actually
takes the initiative in dissolving the Union established in
1801 and replacing it by a free federal relationship. And this
must be done, not as a matter of sympathy with Ireland but
as a demand made in the interests of the English proletariat.
If not, the English people will remain tied to the leading-
strings of the ruling classes, because it will have to join with
them in a common front against Ireland. Every one of its
movements in England herself is crippled by the strife with
the Irish, who form a very important section of the working
class in England. The prime condition of emancipation
here—the overthrow of the English landed oligarchy—remains
impossible because its position here cannot be stormed so
long as it maintains its strongly entrenched outposts in
Ireland. But there, once affairs are in the hands of the Irish
people itself, once it is made its own legislator and ruler, once
it becomes autonomous, the abolition of the landed aristo
cracy (to a large extent the same persons as the English land
lords) will be infinitely easier than here, because in Ireland it
is not merely a simple economic question but at the same
time a national question, since the landlords there are not,
like those in England, the traditional dignitaries and represen
tatives of the nation, but its mortally hated oppressors. And
not only does England’s internal social development remain
crippled by her present relations with Ireland; her foreign
policy, and particularly her policy with regard to Russia and
the United States of America, suffers the same fate.
But since the English working class undoubtedly throws
the decisive weight into the scale of social emancipation
MARX TO ENGELS. DECEMBER 4, 1869
generally, the lever has to be applied here. As a matter of
fact, the English republic under Cromwell met shipwreck in -
Ireland. Non bis in ideml * But the Irish have played a
capital joke on the English government by electing the “con
vict felon” O’Donovan Rossa to Parliament. The government
papers are already threatening a renewed suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act,349 a renewed system oLterror. In fact,
England never has and never can—so long as the present rela
tions last—rule Ireland otherwise than by the most abomin
able reign of terror and the most reprehensible corruption.
MARX TO ENGELS
December 4, 1869
Dear Fred,
The resolutions were carried unanimously, despite
Odger’s constant verbal amendments. I let him have his way
on one point only, agreeing to omit the word “deliberate”
before “insults” in paragraph 1 .** I did that on pretence that
everything a Prime Minister publicly did must be presumed
eo ipso to be deliberate. The true reason was that I knew that
as soon as the first paragraph was accepted in substance, all
further resistance would be useless. I’m sending you two
National Reformers containing a report on the first two
meetings,*** but nothing yet about the last. This report is also
badly written and lots of things are definitely wrong (due to
misunderstanding), yet it is better than Eccarius’s reports in
Reynolds' s. They are by Harris, whose currency panacea
you’ll also find in the latest issue of the National Reformer.
With the exception of Mottershead, who acted like John
Bull, and Odger, as always, like a diplomat, the English
delegates behaved excellently. The general debate on the
attitude of the English working class to the Irish question
begins on Tuesday. 0
* Not twice for the same thing! —Ed.
** See p. 168—Ed.
*** Reference is to the meetings of the General Council on
November 16 and 23, 1869.—Ed.
396 ENGELS TO MARX. DECEMBER 9, 1869
Here one has to fight not only prejudices, but also the
stupidity and wretchedness of the Irish leaders in Dublin. The
Irishman (Pigott) knew about the proceedings and resolutions
not only from Reynolds's, to which he subscribes and which
he often quotes. They (the resolutions) were sent him direct
ly by an Irishman* as early as November 17. Up to now,
deliberately not a word. The ass acted in a similar way during
our debates and the petition for the three Manchester
men.** The “Irish” question must be treated as something
quite separate, apart from the rest of the world, namely, it
must be concealed, that English workers sympathise with the
Irish! What a stupid beast! And this in respect of the Inter
national which has press organs all over Europe and the
United States! This week he received the resolutions offi
cially, signed by the Foreign Secretaries. They’ve also been
sent to the People.*** Nous verrons. Mottershead subscribes
to The Irishman and will not fail to use this opportunity to
poke fun at the “highsouled” Irishmen.
But I’ll play a trick on Pigott. I’ll write to Eccarius today
and ask him to send the resolutions with the signatures, etc.,
to Isaac Butt, who is President of the Irish Working Men’s
Association. Butt is not Pigott.
ENGELS TO MARX
December 9, 1869
I half expected that about The Irishman. Ireland still
remains the sacra insula, whose aspirations must on no
account be mixed up with the profane class struggles of the
rest of the sinful world. Partially, this is certainly honest
madness on the part of these people, but it is equally certain
that it is partially also a calculated policy of the leaders in
order to maintain their domination over the peasant. Added
to this, a nation of peasants always has to take its literary
* Probably by G. Milner.—Ed.
** See pp. 485-89-E d.
** * Probably to The New-York Irish People.—Ed.
MARX TO ENGELS. DECEMBER 10, 1869 397
representatives from the bourgeoisie of the towns and their
ideologists, and in this respect Dublin (I mean Catholic
Dublin) is to Ireland much what Copenhagen is to Denmark.
But to these gentry the whole labour movement is pure
heresy and the Irish peasant must not on any account be
allowed to know that the socialist workers are his sole allies
in Europe. ~
In other respects, too, The Irishman is extremely lousy
this week. If it is ready to retreat in this way, the minute it is
threatened with a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the
former sabre-rattling was all the more out of place. And now
even the fear that some more political prisoners may be elect
ed! On the one hand, the Irish are warned, and quite rightly,
not to let themselves be inveigled into unlawful action; on
the other, they are to be prevented from doing the only
lawful thing that is pertinent and revolutionary and alone
able to break successfully with the established practice of
electing place-hunting lawyers and to impress the English
liberals. It is obvious that Pigott is afraid that others might
outstrip him.
You will remember, by the way, that O’Connel always
incited the Irish against the Chartists although or, to be
more exact, because they too had inscribed Repeal on their
banner.
MARX TO ENGELS
December 10, 1869
The way I shall put forward the matter next Tuesday is
this: that quite apart from all phrases about “international”
and “humane” justice for Ireland—which are taken for grant
ed in the International Council—it is in the direct and
absolute interest o f the English working class to get nd of
their present connection with Ireland. And this is my fullest
conviction, and for reasons which in part I cannot tell the
English workers themselves. For a long time I believed that it
would be possible to overthrow the Irish regime by English
working-class ascendancy. I always expressed this point of
398 MARX TO ENGELS. DECEMBER 10, 1869
view in the New-York Tribune* Deeper study has now con
vinced me of the opposite. The English working class will
never accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland.
The lever must be applied in Ireland. That is why the Irish
question is so important for the social movement in general.
I have read a lot of Davies in extracts. The book itself I
had only glanced through superficially in the Museum.** So
you would do me a great favour if you would copy out for
me the passages relating to common property. You must get
“Curran’s Speeches” edited by Davies (London: James
Duffy, 22, Paternoster Row). I meant to give it to you when
you were in London. It is now circulating among the English
members of the Central Council and God knows when I shall
see it again. For the period 1779-1800 (Union) it is of
decisive importance, not only because of Curran's Speeches
(especially those held in courts; I consider Curran the only
great lawyer (people’s advocate) of the eighteenth century
and the noblest personality, while Grattan was a parlia
mentary rogue), but because you will find quoted there all
the sources for the United Irishmen $ 51 This period is of the
highest interest, scientifically and dramatically. Firstly, the
deeds of the English in 1588-89 repeated (and perhaps even
intensified) in 1788-89. Secondly, a class movement can
easily be traced in the Irish movement itself. Thirdly, the
infamous policy of Pitt. Fourthly, and that will be very
irksome to the English gentlemen, the proof that Ireland
came to grief because, in fact, from a revolutionary stand
point, the Irish were too far advanced for the English King
and Church mob, while on the other hand the English reac
tion in England had its roots (as in Cromwell’s time) in the
subjugation of Ireland. This period must be described in at
least one chapter.3 5 2 Put John Bull in the pillory!...
As to the present Irish movement, there are three
important factors: 1 ) opposition to lawyers and trading polit
icians and blarney; 2) opposition to the dictates of the
priests, who (the superior ones) are traitors, as in O’Connell’s
time as well as in 1798-1800; 3) the coming out of the agri-
* See pp. 64-68—Ed.
** The British Museum Library.—Ed.
ENGELS TO MARX. JANUARY 19, 1870 399
cultural labouring class against the farming class at the last
meetings. (Similar happenings in 1795-1800.)
The rise of The Irishman was due only to the suppression
of the Fenian press. For a long time it had been in opposition
to Fenianism. Luby, etc., of the Irish People, etc., were
educated men who treated religion as a bagatelle. The govern
ment put them in prison and then cam^ the Piggots & Co.
The Irishman will amount to anything only until those
people come out of prison. It is aware of this although it is
now making political capital by declaiming in behalf of the
“felon convicts”.
MARX TO ENGELS
December 17, 1869
Our Irish resolutions* have been sent to all trade unions
that maintain ties with us. Only one has protested, a small
branch of the curriers, saying they are political and not
within the Council’s sphere of action. We are sending a
deputation to enlighten them. Mr. Odger now understands
how useful it was for him that he voted for the resolutions
despite all sorts of diplomatic objections. As a result the
3,000-4,000 Irish electors in Southwark have promised him
their votes.
ENGELS TO MARX
January 19, 1870
I have at last discovered a copy of Prendergast in a local
library and hope that I shall be able to obtain it. To my good
or bad fortune, the old Irish laws are also to appear soon, and
I shall thus have to wade through those as well. The more I
study the subject, the clearer it is to me that Ireland has been
stunted in her development by the English invasion and
* See pp. 165-66—Ed.
400 ENGELS TO MARX. JANUARY 25, 1870
thrown centuries back. And this ever since the 12th century;
furthermore, it should be borne in mind, of course, that three
centuries of Danish invasions and plunder had by then sub
stantially drained the country. But these latter had ceased
over a hundred years earlier.
In recent years, research on Ireland has become some
what more critical, particularly as far as Petrie’s* studies of
antiquity are concerned; he impelled me also to read some
Celtic-Irish (naturally with a parallel translation). It does not
seem all that difficult, but I shall not delve deeper into the
stuff, I have had enough philological nonsense. In the next
few days, when I get the book, I’ll see how the old laws have
been dealt with.
ENGELS TO MARX
January 25, 1870
I’ve at last received Prendergast and—as it always
happens—two copies at once, natnely, W. H. Smith and Sons
have also got hold of one. I shall have finished with it
tonight. The book is important because it contains many
excerpts from unprinted Bills. No wonder it is out of print.
Longman and Co. must have been furious at having to put
their name on such a book, and since there certainly was
little demand for it in England (Mudies have not a single
copy) they shall sell the edition for pulping as soon as they
can or, possibly, to a company of Irish landlords (for the
same purpose) and certainly will not print a second. What
Prendergast says about the Anglo-Norman period is correct
inasmuch as the Irish and Anglo-Irish, who lived at some
distance from the Pale, continued during that period the
same lazy life as before the invasion, and ina^mach as the
wars of that period too were more “easy-going” (with few
exceptions), and did not have the distinctly devastating
character they assumed in the 16th century and which
* G. Petrie, The Ecclesiastical Architecture o f Ireland, anterior to
the Anglo-Norman Invasion, Dublin, 1845.—Erf.
MARX TO ENGELS. FEBRUARY 19, 1870 401
afterwards became the rule. But his theory that the enormous
amiability of the Irishmen, and especially the Irish women,
immediately disarms even the most hostile immigrant, is just
thoroughly Irish, since the Irish way of thinking lacks all
sense of proportion.
A new edition of Giraldus Cambrensis has appeared:
Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, London, Long
man and Co., 1863, at least 3 volumes; could you find out
the price for me and whether it would be possible to get
cheaply, second hand, the whole work or at least the volume
containing “Topographia Hibemica” and perhaps also
“Hibernia expugnata”?
In order not to make a fool of myself over Cromwell, I’ll
have to put in a lot more work on the English history of the
period. That will do no harm, but it will take up a lot of time.
ENGELS TO MARX
February 17, 1870
And thus the mountain Gladstone has successfully given
birth to his Irish mouse.353 I really don’t know what the
Tories could have against this Bill, which is so indulgent with
the Irish landlords and finally places their interests in the
tested hands of the Irish lawyers. Nevertheless, even this
slight restriction of the eviction right will put an end to ex
cessive emigration and the conversion of arable land into
pastures. But it is very amusing if the brave Gladstone thinks
he has settled the Irish question by means of this new
prospect of endless lawsuits.
Is it possible to get a copy of the Bill? It would be
important for me to follow the debates on the individual
clauses.
MARX TO ENGELS
February 19, 1870
The best part of Gladstone’s speech is the long introduc
tion, in which he says that even the “beneficent” laws of the
402 MARX TO ENGELS. MARCH 5, 1870
English have always the reverse effect in practice. What better
proof does that fellow need that England is not called upon
to be the lawgiver and ruler of Ireland!
His measures are a pretty piece of patchwork. The main
thing in them is to lure the lawyers with the prospect of
lawsuits and the landlords with the prospect of “state assist
ance”.
Odger’s election scandal was doubly useful: the pig Whigs
saw for the first time that they must let the workers into
Parliament, or else the Tories will get in. Secondly, it is a
lesson to Mr. Odger and his accomplices. He would have got
in despite Waterlow354 if some of the Irish workers had not
abstained from voting, because he had behaved so trimming
during the debate in the General Council,* which they knew
of from Reynolds' s.
You’ll receive the Irish Bill next week.
MARX TO ENGELS
March 5, 1870
All sorts of things have happened in Fenian affairs in the
meantime. A letter I wrote to the Internationale in Brus
sels,** and in which I censured the French Republicans for
their narrow national aims, has been printed, and the editors
have announced that they will publish their remarks this
week. You must know that in the letter of the Central
Council to the Genevans—which was conveyed also to the
Brussels people and the main centres of the International in
France—I developed in detail the importance of the Irish
question for the working-class movement in general (owing to
its repercussion in England).***
Soon after, Jennychen was driven to anger by that dis
gusting article in the Daily News, the official paper of the
Gladstone Ministry, in which this bitchy publication turns to
the “liberal” brothers in France and cautions them not to
* See pp. 167-68—Ed.
** See pp. 256-61.-Ed.
*** See pp. 252-55 —Ed.
MARX TO ENGELS. MARCH 5, 1870 403
confuse the cases of Rochefort and O’Donovan Rossa.355
The Marseillaise has really fallen into the trap, it believes the
Daily News and in addition has published a wretched article
by that gossip-monger Talandier, in which this ex-procureur
de la Republique,* now a teacher of French at the military
school in Woolwich (also ex-private tutor with Herzen, on
whom he wrote a passionate obituary), attacks the Irish for
their Catholic faith and accuses them of having brought
about Odger’s failure—because of his participation in the
Garibaldi committee. Besides, he adds, they support Mitchel
despite his taking side with the slaveholders, as though Odger
himself did not stick to Gladstone despite his even greater
support for the slaveholders.
So Jennychcn—ira facit poetam** —besides a private
letter, wrote an article to the Marseillaise which was printed.
In addition, she received a letter from the redacteur de la
redaction, a copy of which I am enclosing. Today she sends
another letter to the Marseillaise, which, in connection with
Gladstone’s reply (this week) to the interpellation about the
treatment of the prisoners, contains excerpts from O’Dono
van Rossa’s letter (see Irishman, Feb. 5, 70).*** In it Glad
stone is presented to the French not only as a monster by
Rossa’s letter (inasmuch as Gladstone is in fact responsible
for the entire treatment of the prisoners under the Tories
too), but at the same time as a ridiculous hypocrite, being
the author of the Prayers, The Propagation of the Gospel,
The Functions of Laymen in the Church and Ecce
Homo.
With these two papers—the Internationale and the
Marseillaise—we shall now unmask the English to the Con
tinent. If you should happen, one day or the other, to find
something suitable for one of these papers, you too should
participate in our good work.
* Ex-public prosecutor in a first-instance court.—Erf.

** Ire makes a poet (paraphrasing from Juvenal’s first satire).—Erf.
*** See pp. 496-500.—Erf.
404 ENGELS TO MARX. MARCH 7, 1870
MARX TO PAUL AND LAURA LAFARGUE
March 5, 1870
Here, at home, as you are fully aware, the Fenians’ sway
is paramount. Tussy is one of their head centres.356 Jenny
writes on their behalf in the “Marseillaise” under the pseu
donym of J. Williams. I have not only treated the same theme
in the Brussels “Internationale”, and caused resolutions of
the Central Council to be passed against their gaolers. In a
circular, addressed by the Council to our corresponding
committees, I have explained the merits of the Irish Ques
tion.*
You understand at once that I am not only acted upon
by feelings of humanity. There is something besides. To ac
celerate the social development in Europe, you must push on
the catastrophe of official England. To do so, you must
attack her in Ireland. That’s her weakest point. Ireland lost,
the British “Empire” is gone, and the class war in England,
till now somnolent and chronic, will assume acute forms. But
England is the metropolis of landlordism and capitalism all
over the world.
ENGELS TO MARX
March 7, 1870
When I read that story about the Marseillaise in the
“Irishman in Paris” on Saturday afternoon, I knew im
mediately in what part of the world this Mr. Williams could
be found, but, silly as it may be of me, I couldn’t account for
the first name.357 It is a very good story, and the naive letter
with Rochefort’s naive demand that O’Donovan Rossa be
asked for a contribution to the Marseillaise gives Jenny an
excellent opportunity to raise the question of the treatment
of prisoners and to open the eyes of the bons hommes over
there.
* See pp.252-55—
MARX TO ENGELS. MARCH 19,1870 405
Why don’t you have the letter of the General Council to
the Genevans published? The central sections in Geneva,
Brussels, etc., read these things, but so long as they are not
published they do not penetrate into the masses. They should
also appear in German in the relevant organs. You are
publishing far too little.
Please send me the relevant issues of the Marseillaise and
Internationale for a few days. Jenny chen’s success has been
met with a universal hurrah here and the health of Mr. J. Wil
liams has been drunk with all due honours. I am very eager to
hear how that story develops. The stupid correspondent of
the “Irishman in Paris” should try some time if he can
get such things into the newspapers of his friend Ollivier.
A couple of days ago, my bookseller suddenly sent me
the Senchus Mor, the old Irish laws, and what’s more, not the
new edition but the first. So, with a lot of pushing I have
succeeded in that. And such difficulties with a book having
Longmans as its London firm on the title page and published
by the government! I haven’t been able to look at the stuff
yet, as I have in the meantime taken up various modem
things (about the 19th century) and must finish with them
first.
MARX TO ENGELS
March 19, 1870
Enclosed is a Marseillaise, which should, however, be
returned with the preceding one. I haven’t read it myself yet.
The article was written jointly by Jennychen and myself*
because she didn’t have sufficient time. That is also why she
hasn’t answered your letter and sends Mrs. Lizzy her thanks
for the shamrock358 provisionally through me.
From the enclosed letter from Pigott to Jenny you’ll see
that Mrs. O’Donovan, to whom Jenny sent a private letter
together with 1 Marseillaise, took her for a gentleman, even
though she signed it Jenny Marx. I answered Pigott today on
* See pp. 503-06,—Ed.
406 MARX TO MEYER AND VOGT. APRIL 9, 1870
behalf of Jennychen and took the opportunity to explain to
him in short my views on the Irish question.
...The sensation caused by Jennychen’s second letter
(which contained the condensed translation of O’Donovan’s
letter) in Paris and London has robbed the loathsome and
importunate (but very fluent with gab and pen) Talandier of
his sleep. He had denounced the Irish as Catholic idiots in the
Marseillaise. Now he espouses their cause no less full-
mouthed in a review of what has been said in the Times,
Daily Telegraph and Daily News about O’Donovan’s letter.
Since Jennychen’s second letter was unsigned (by accident)
he apparently flattered himself with the idea that he would
be considered the secret sender. This has been frustrated by
Jennychen’s third letter. This fellow is du reste a teacher of
French at the military school of Sandhurst.
MARX TO SIGFRID MEYER AND AUGUST VOGT

April 9, 1870
On January 1, 1870,* the General Council issued a con
fidential circular** drawn up by me in French (for the reac
tion upon England only the French, not the German, papers
are important) on the relation of the Irish national struggle to
the emancipation of the working class, and therefore on the
attitude which the International Association should take in
regard to the Irish question.
I shall give you here only quite briefly the decisive points.
Ireland is the bulwark of the English landed aristocracy. The
exploitation of that country is not only one of the main
sources of this aristocracy’s material welfare; it is its greatest
moral strength. It, in fact, represents the domination of
England over Ireland. Ireland is therefore the great means by
which the English aristocracy maintains its domination in
England herself
If, on the other hand, the English army and police were
* In the manuscript “ December 1, 1869”, which is a misprint.—
Ed.
** See pp. 252-55 —Ed.
MARX TO MEYER AND VOGT. APRIL 9, 1870 407
to withdraw from Ireland tomorrow, you would at once have
an agrarian revolution there. But the overthrow of the
English aristocracy in Ireland involves as a necessary conse
quence its overthrow in England. And this would fulfil the
preliminary condition for the proletarian revolution in
England. The destruction of the English landed aristocracy in
Ireland is an infinitely easier operation thsn in England her
self, because in Ireland the land question has hitherto been
the exclusive form of the social question, because it is a
question of existence, of life and death, for the immense
majority of the Irish people, and because it is at the same
time inseparable from the national question. This quite apart
from the Irish being more passionate and revolutionary in
character than the English.
As for the English bourgeoisie, it has in the first place a
common interest with the English aristocracy in turning
Ireland into mere pasture land which provides the English
market with meat and wool at the cheapest possible prices. It
is equally interested in reducing, by eviction and forcible
emigration, the Irish population to such a small number that
English capital (capital invested in land leased for farming)
can function there with “security”. It has the same interest in
clearing the estate of Ireland as it had in the clearing of the
agricultural districts of England and Scotland. The
£6,000-10,000 absentee-landlord and other Irish revenues
which at present flow annually to London have also to be
taken into account.
But the English bourgeoisie has, besides, much more im
portant interests in Ireland’s present-day economy. Owing to
the constantly increasing concentration of tenant farming,
Ireland steadily supplies her own surplus to the English
labour-market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the
moral and material condition of the English working class.
And most important of all! Every industrial and com
mercial centre in England now possesses a working class
divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish
proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish
worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In
relation to the Irish worker he feels himself a member of the
ruling nation and so turns himselt into a tool of the aristo
408 MARX TO MEYER AND VOGT. APRIL 9, 1870
crats and capitalists of his country against Ireland, thus
strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes
religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish
worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of
the “poor whites” to the “niggers” in the former slave states
of the U.S.A. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his
own money. He sees in the English worker at once the ac
complice and the stupid tool of the English rule in Ireland.
This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified
by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the
means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is
the secret o f the impotence of the English working class,
despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist
class maintains its power. And that class is fully aware of it.
But the evil does not stop here. It continues across the
ocean. The antagonism between English and Irish is the
hidden basis of the conflict between the United States and
England. It makes any honest and serious co-operation
between the working classes of the two countries impossible.
It enables the governments of both countries, whenever they
think fit. to break the edge off the social conflict by their
mutual bullying, and, in case of need, by war with one ano
ther.
England, being the metropolis of capital, the power
which has hitherto ruled the world market, is for the present
the most important country for the workers’ revolution, and
moreover the only country in which the material conditions
for this revolution have developed up to a certain degree of
maturity. Therefore to hasten the social revolution in
England is the most important object of the International
Working Men’s Association. The sole means of hastening it is
to make Ireland independent. Hence it is the task of the
International everywhere to put the conflict between
England and Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to
side openly with Ireland. And it is the special task of the
Central Council in London to awaken a consciousness in the
English workers that for them the national emancipation of
Ireland is no question of abstract justice or humanitarian
sentiment, but the first condition of their own social
emancipation.
MARX TO MEYER AND VOGT. APRIL 9, 1870 409
These roughly are the main points of the circular letter,
which thereby at the same time gave the raisons d'etre of the
resolutions of the Central Council on the Irish amnesty.*
Shortly afterwards I sent a strong anonymous article on the
treatment of the Fenians by the English, etc., against Glad
stone, etc., to the Internationale** (organ of our Belgian
Central Committee*** in Brussels). In jfchis article I at the
same time made the charge against the French Republicans
(the Marseillaise had printed some nonsense on Ireland writ
ten here by the wretched Talandier) that in their national
egoism they were saving all their wrath for the Empire.
That worked. My daughter Jenny wrote a series of ar
ticles to the Marseillaise signing them J. Williams (she had
called herself Jenny Williams in her private letter to the
editorial board), and published, among other things, O’Dono
van Rossa’s letter.**** Hence immense noise. After many
years of cynical refusal Gladstone was thus finally compelled
to agree to a. parliamentary enquiry into the treatment of the
Fenian prisoners. Jenny is now the regular correspondent on
Irish affairs for the Marseillaise. (This is naturally to be a
secret between us.) The British Government and press are
fiercely annoyed by the fact that the Irish question has thus
now come to the forefront in France and that these rogues
are now being watched and exposed via Paris on the whole
Continent.
We hit another bird with the same stone, having forced
the Irish leaders, journalists, etc., in Dublin, to get into con
tact with us, which the General Council so far had been
unable to achieve!
You have now a great field in America for working along
the same lines. Coalition o f the German workers with the
Irish workers (and of course also with the English and Amer
ican workers who will agree to join) is the greatest job you
could start on nowadays. This must be done in the name of
the International. The social significance of the Irish question
must be made clear.
* See pp. 165-66.—Ed.
** See pp. 256-61.—Ed.
*** Marx is referring to the Belgian Federal Council.—Ed.
**** See pp. 4 9 6 -5 2 l-E d .
410 MARX TO ENGELS. APRIL 14, 1870
MARX TO ENGELS
April 14, 1870
You will receive in the course of this week or at the
beginning of next Landlord and Tenant Right in Ireland
Reports by Poor Law Inspectors. 1870, also Agricultural
Holdings in Ireland. Returns. 1870.
The reports by Poor Law Inspectors are interesting. Like
their Reports on Agricultural Wages, which you have already
received, these show, inter alia, that since the famine a con
flict has broken out between the labourers, on the one hand,
and farmers and tenants, on the other. As regards the Reports
on Wages—assuming the present figures on wages are correct,
and that is probable from other sources—either the former
wage rates are given too low or the earlier Parliamentary
Returns on them, which I’ll find for you in my Parliamentary
Papers, were too high. On the whole, it is confirmed that, as I
said in the section on Ireland, the rise in wages was more than
outweighed by the rise in food prices and that, except
in autumn, etc., the relative surplus of the labourers is
established correctly despite emigration.* Important in the
Landlord and Tenant Right Reports is also the fact that the
progress in machinery has turned a lot of handloom weavers
into paupers....
It is clear from the two reports of the Poor Law Commis
sioners that 1 ) since the famine the clearing of the estates of
labourers’ dwellings has begun here as in England (not to be
confused with the suppression of the 40-sh. freeholders after
1829),
2) that the Encumbered Estates proceedings have put a
mass of small usurers in place of the turned out flotten land
lords. (The charge of landlords 1/6 according to the same
reports.)
* See pp. 119-24—

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March 5, 1870
ENGELS TO MARX. MAY 15, 1870 413
ENG ELS TO M ARX
April 15, 1870
Your conclusions from the Parliamentary Reports agree
with my results. It should, however, be remembered that
after 1846 the process of clearing 40-sh. freeholders was at
first interspersed with clearing of labourers the reason being
that, up to 1829, in order to produce freeholders, leases had
to be made for 21 or 31 years and'a life (if, not longer),
because a person became a freeholder only if he could not be
turned out during his lifetime. These leases hardly ever ex
cluded subdividing. These leases were partly still valid in
1846, resp. the consequences, that is, the peasants were still
on the estate. The same was the case on the estates which
were then in the hands of middlemen (who mostly held leases
for 64 years and three lives or even for 99 years) and frequen
tly their leases were revertible only between 1846 and 1860.
Thus these processes were more or less interspersed so that
the Irish landlord was never or seldom in a situation where he
had to decide whether labourers in particular rather than
other traditional small tenants should be ejected. Essentially
it comes to the same thing in England and in Ireland: the
land must be tilled by workers who live in other Poor Law
Unions, so that the landlord and his tenant can remain ex
empted from the poor tax. This is also said by Senior or
rather by his brother Edward, Poor Law Commissioner in
Ireland: The great instrument which is clearing Ireland is the
Poor Law.
Land sold since the Encumbered Estate Court amounts
according to my notes to as much as 1/ 5 of the total, the
buyers were indeed largely usurers, speculators, etc., mainly
Irish Catholics. Partly also enriched stock-breeders. Yet even
now there are only about 8,000-9,000 landowners in Ireland.
ENGELS TO MARX
May 15, 1870
In what Parliamentary Paper could one find how much
money is wasted every year on the Commissioners for the
414 MARX TO F.A. SORGE. NOVEMBER 29, 1871
Publication of the Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland?
This is a colossal job (in a small matter). It would also be
important to know how much of that money is spent 1 ) as
remuneration for idling commissioners, 2) as salaries for
really working understrappers, printing costs, etc. This must
surely be somewhere in a Parliamentary Paper. Those fellows
have been drawing wages since 1852 and up to now only two
volumes have been published! Three lords, three judges,
three priests, one general, and one who professionally special
ises on Ireland who died long ago.*
KARL MARX TO JENNY MARX

(HIS DAUGHTER)
May 31, 1870
Here things are going on pretty much in the old track.
Fred is quite jolly since he has got rid of Hden verfluchten
C o m m e rc e His book on Ireland**—which by the by costs
him a little more time than he had at first supposed—will be
highly interesting. The illustrious Doppelju*** who is so
much up in the most recent Irish history and plays so pro
minent a part in it, will there find his archeological material
ready cut.
MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLF SORGE
November 29, 1871
I come now to the question of McDonnell.359
Before admitting him, the Council instituted a most
searching inquiry as to his integrity, he, like all other Irish
politicians, being much calumniated by his own countrymen.
The Council—after most incontrovertible evidence on his
private character—chose him because the mass of the Irish
* See pp. 285-81-E d.
** See pp. 263-302—
*** The German for the letter “w ”. Marx is referring to “ Williams”,
the pseudonym used by Jenny Marx.—Ed.
ENGELS TO SIGISMUND BORKHEIM. MARCH 1872 415
workmen in England have more confidence in him than in
any other person. He is a man quite superior to religious
prejudices and as to his general views, it is absurd to say that
he has any “bourgeois” predilections. He is a proletarian, by
his circumstances of life and by his ideas.
If any accusation is to be brought forward against him,
let it be done in exact terms, and not by vague insinuation.
My opinion is that the Irishmen, removed for a long time by
imprisonment, are not competent judges. The best proof is—
their relations with The Irishman whose editor, Pigott, is a
mere speculator, and whose manager, Murphy, is a ruffian.
That paper—despite the exertions of the General Council for
the Irish cause—has always intrigued against us. McDonnell
was constantly attacked in that paper by an Irishman
(O’Donnell) connected with Campbell (an officer of the
London Police) and a habitual drunkard who for a glass of
gin will tell the first constable all the secrets he may have to
dispose of.
After the nomination of McDonnell, Murphy attacked
and calumniated the International (not only McDonnell) in
The Irishman, and, at the same time, secretly, asked us to
nominate him secretary for Ireland.
As to O’Donovan Rossa, I wonder that you quote him
still as an authority after what you have written me about
him. If any man was obliged, personally, to the International
and the French Communards, it was he, and you have seen
what thanks we have received at his hands.360
Let the Irish members of the New York Committee not
forget that to be useful to them, we want above all influence
on the Irish in England, and that for that purpose there ex
ists, as far as we have been able to ascertain, no better man
than McDonnell.
ENGELS TO SIGISMUND BORKHEIM

Beginning of March 1872
Sorge is very naive to demand a book on Ireland written
from our standpoint. For the last two years I have been
416 ENGELS TO SIGISMUND BORKHEIM. MARCH 1872
intending to write one, but the war, the Commune and the
International have brought everything to a standstill. Mean
while I recommend the following books to Sorge:
1. The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland by Prendergast.
London, Longmans, Sec. Ed. 1870-71.
2. Memoir on Ireland by O’Connell. London—Duffy,
1869.
For the main historical events.
3. The Irish People and the Irish Land by Isaac Butt.
LondonteRidgway.
This is all for the present.
However simple the Irish problem may be, it is never
theless the result of a long historical struggle and hence has to
be studied. A manual explaining it all in about two hours
does not exist.
Karl Marx
[POSITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING
MEN’S ASSOCIATION IN GERMANY AND ENGLAND
r
(From the Speech o f September 22,1871,
at the London Conference)]^61
You will be aware of the great antagonism which has

existed for a long time between the English and Irish work
ers, the causes of which are easy to enumerate. This antagon
ism is rooted in differences of language and religion,* and in
the competition which Irish workers created in the labour
market. It constitutes an obstacle to revolution in England
and is, consequently, skilfully exploited by the government
and the upper classes, who are convinced that no bonds are
capable of uniting the English workers with the Irish. It is
true that no union would be possible in the sphere of politics,
but this is not the case in the economic sphere and the two
sides are forming International sections which, as such, will
have to advance simultaneously towards the same goal. The
Irish sections will soon be very numerous.
Published in the book Translated from the French

The London Conference of
the First International,
Moscow, 1936, in Russian
* In Martin’s draft the words “prolonged oppression of Ireland” are

inserted after the word “religion”.—
14-226
[RELATIONS BETWEEN THE IRISH SECTIONS
AND THE BRITISH FEDERAL COUNCIL362
(Engels's Record of His Report at the General
Council Meeting of May 14, 1872)*]
Citizen Engels said the real purport of this motion was to

bring the Irish sections under the jurisdiction of the British
Federal Council, a thing to which the Irish sections would
never consent, and which the Council had neither the right
nor the power to impose upon them. According to the Rules
and Regulations, this Council had no power to compel any
section or branch to acknowledge the supremacy of any
Federal Council whatsoever. It was certainly bound, before
admitting or rejecting any new branch, within the jurisdic
tion of any Federal Council, to consult that Council. But he
maintained that the Irish sections in England were no more
under the jurisdiction of the British Federal Council than the
French, German or Italian** sections in this country. The
Irish formed, to all intents and purposes, a distinct national
ity of their own, and the fact that they used the English
language could not deprive them of the right, common to all,
to have an independent national organisation within the
International.
Citizen Hales had spoken of the relations between
England and Ireland as if they were of the most idyllic
nature, something like those between England and France at
the time of the Crimean war, when the ruling classes of the
two countries never tired of praising each other, and every
thing breathed the most complete harmony. But the case was
quite different. There was the fact of seven centuries of
English Conquest and oppression of Ireland, and so long as
* See pp. 526-31—iid.
** In the Minute book of the General Council there follow the
words :“and Polish sections”.—Ed.
R E L A T IO N S B ETW EEN IR IS H SE C T IO N S A N D T H E B .F .C . 419
that oppression existed, it was an insult to Irish working men
to ask them to submit to a British Federal Council. The
position of Ireland with regard to England was not that of an
equal, it was that of Poland with regard to Russia. What
would be said if this Council called upon Polish sections to
acknowledge the supremacy of a Russian Federal Council in
Petersburg, or upon Prussian Polish, North Schleswig, and
Alsatian sections to submit to a Federal Council in Berlin?
Yet what it was asked to do with regard to Irish sections was
substantially the same thing. If members of a conquering
nation called upon the nation they had conquered and
continued to hold down to forget their specific nationality
and position, to “sink national differences” and so forth, that
was not Internationalism, it was nothing else but preaching to
them submission to the yoke, and attempting to justify and
to perpetuate the dominion of the conqueror under the cloak
of Internationalism. It was sanctioning the belief, only too
common among the English working men, that they were
superior beings compared to the Irish, and as much an aristo
cracy as the mean whites of the Slave States considered them
selves to be with regard to the Negroes.
In a case like that of the Irish, true Internationalism must
necessarily be based upon a distinctly national organisation;
the Irish, as well as other oppressed nationalities, could enter
the Association only as equals with the members of the con
quering nation, and under protest against the conquest. The
Irish sections, therefore, not only were justified, but even
under the necessity to state in the preamble to their rules
that their first and most pressing duty, as Irishmen, was to
establish their own national independence. The antagonism
between Irish and English working men in England had
always been one of the most powerful means by which class
rule was upheld in England. He recollected the time when he
saw Feargus O’Connor and the English Chartists turned out
of the Hall of Science in Manchester by the Irish.363 Now,
for the first time, there was a chance of making English and
Irish working men act together in harmony for their common
emancipation, a result attained by no previous movement in
their country. And no sooner had this been effected, than
they were called upon to dictate to the Irish, and to tell them
14*
they must not carry on the movement in their own way, but
submit to be ruled by an English Council! Why, that was in
troducing into the International the subjugation of the Irish
by the English.
If the promoters of this motion were so brimful of the
truly International spirits, let them prove it by removing the
seat of the British Federal Council to Dublin, and submit to a
Council of Irishmen.
As to the pretended collisions between Irish and English
branches, they had been provoked by attempts of members
of the British Federal Council to meddle with the Irish sec
tions, to get them to give up their specific national character
and to come under the rule of the British Council.
Then the Irish sections in England could not be separated
from the Irish sections in Ireland; it would not do to have
some Irishmen dependent upon a London Federal Council
and others upon a Dublin Federal Council. The Irish sections
in England were our base of operations with regard to the
Irish working men in Ireland; they were more advanced,
being placed in more favourable circumstances, and the
movement in Ireland could be propagated and organised only
through their instrumentality. And were they to wilfully
destroy their own base of operations and cut off the only
means by which Ireland could be effectually won for the
International? For it must not be forgotten that the Irish
sections, and rightly so, would never consent to give up their
distinct national organisation and submit to the British Coun
cil. The question, then, amounted to this: were they to leave
the Irish alone, or were they to turn them out of the Associa
tion? If the motion was adopted by the Council, the Council
would inform the Irish working men, in so many words, that,
after the dominion of the English aristocracy over Ireland,
after the dominion of the English middle class over Ireland,
they must now look forth to the advent of the dominion of
the English working class over Ireland.
Published in: Marx andEngels, Printed according to the text
Russian ed., Vol. 18, o f the First International
Karl Marx
From THE REPORT OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL

TO THE FIFTH ANNUAL CONGRESS
OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN’S
ASSOCIATION HELD AT THE HAGUE364
Finally, the government of Mr. Gladstone, unable to act

in Great Britain, at least set forth its good intentions by
the police terrorism exercised in Ireland against our
sections then in course of formation, and by ordering
its representatives abroad to collect information with
respect to the International Working Men’s Associa
tion*....
In its former annual reports, the General Council used to
give a review of the progress of the Association since the
meeting of the preceding Congress. You will appreciate, Citi
zens,** the motives which induce us to abstain from that
course upon this occasion. Moreover, the reports of the dele
gates from the various countries, who know best how far
their discretion may extend, will in a measure make up for
this deficiency. We confine ourselves to the statement that
since the Congress at Basle, and chiefly since the London
Conference of September, 1871, the International has been
extended to the Irish in England and to Ireland itself, to
* See pp. 523-25.—Ed,

** In the leaflet and the newspaper Volksstaat the word “Citizens”
is replaced by “ Workers”.—Ed.
Holland, Denmark, and Portugal, that it has been firmly
organised in the United States, and that it has established
ramifications in Buenos Aires, Australia, and New Zealand.
Printed according to the text
Published in of The International Herald
September-October 1872
as a leaflet in German and
in some newspapers published
by the International, including
The International Herald
Nos. 27-29 for October 5, 12
and 19, 1872
Frederick Engels
LETTERS FROM LONDON365
III r
[Meeting in Hyde Park]
London, November 14, 1872
The Liberal English Government has at the moment no
less than 42 Irish political prisoners in its prisons and treats
them with quite exceptional cruelty, far worse than thieves
and murderers. In the good old days of King Bomba, the
head of the present Liberal cabinet, Mr. Gladstone, travelled
to Italy and visited political prisoners in Naples; on his return
to England he published a pamphlet which disgraced the
Neapolitan Government before Europe for its unworthy
treatment of political prisoners.366
This does not prevent this selfsame Mr. Gladstone from
treating in the very same way the Irish political prisoners,
whom he continues to keep under lock and key.
The Irish members of the International in London decid
ed to organise a giant demonstration in Hyde Park (the
largest public park in London, where all the big popular
meetings take place during political campaigns) to demand a
general amnesty. They contacted all London’s democratic
organisations and formed a committee which included
McDonnell (an Irishman), Murray (an Englishman) and
Lessner (a German)—all members of the last General Council
of the International.
A difficulty arose: at the last session of Parliament the
government passed a law which gave it the right to regulate
public meetings in London’s parks. It made use of this and
had the regulation posted up to warn those who wanted to
hold such a public meeting that they must give a written
notification to the police two days prior to calling it, indicat-
ing the names of the speakers. This regulation carefully kept
hidden from the London press destroyed with one stroke of
the pen one of the most precious rights of London’s working
people—the right to hold meetings in parks when and how
they please. To submit to this regulation would be to
sacrifice one of the people’s rights.
The Irish, who represent the most revolutionary element
of the population, were not men to display such weakness.
The committee unanimously decided to act as if it did not
know of the existence of this regulation and to hold their
meeting in defiance of the government’s decree.
Last Sunday* at about three o’clock in the afternoon two
enormous processions with bands and banners marched
towards Hyde Park. The bands played Irish songs and the
Marseillaise; almost all the banners were Irish (green with a
gold harp in the middle) or red. There were only a few police
agents at the entrances to the park and the columns of
demonstrators marched in without meeting with any resist
ance. They assembled at the appointed place and the
speeches began.
The spectators numbered at least thirty thousand and at
least half had a green ribbon or a green leaf in their button
hole to show they were Irish; the rest were English, German
and French. The crowd was too large for all to be able to
hear the speeches, and so a second meeting was organised
nearby with other orators speaking on the same theme.
Forceful resolutions were adopted demanding a general
amnesty and the repeal of the coercion laws which keep
Ireland under a permanent state of siege. At about five
o’clock the demonstrators formed up into files again and left
the park, thus having flouted the regulation of Gladstone’s
Government.
This is the first time an Irish demonstration has been held
in Hyde Park; it was very successful and even the London
bourgeois press cannot deny this. It is also the first time the
English and Irish sections of our population have united in
friendship. These two elements of the working class, whose
enmity towards each other was so much in the interests of
* November 3, 1872 .—Ed.
the government and wealthy classes, are now offering one
another the hand of friendship; this gratifying fact is due
principally to the influence of the last General Council of the
International,367 which has always directed all its efforts to
unite the workers of both peoples on a basis of complete
equality. This meeting, of the 3rd November, will usher in a
new era in the history of London’s working-plass movement.
You might ask: “What is the government doing? Can it
be that it is willing to reconcile itself to this slight? Will it
allow its regulation to be flouted with impunity? ”
Well, this is what it has done: it placed two police
inspectors and two agents by the platforms in Hyde Park and
they took down the names of the speakers. On the following
day, these two inspectors brought a suit against the speakers
before the Justice of the Peace. The Justice sent them a
summons and they have to appear before him next Saturday.
This course of action makes it quite clear that they don’t
intend to undertake extensive proceedings against them. The
government seems to have admitted that the Irish or, as they
say here, the Fenians have beaten it and will be satisfied with
a small fine. The debate in court will certainly be interesting
and I shall inform you of it in my next letter.358 Of one
thing there can be no doubt: the Irish, thanks to their
energetic efforts, have saved the right of the people of
London to hold meetings in parks when and how they please.
Published in Translated from the Italian

LaPlebe No. 117,
November 17, 1872
Frederick Engels
FROM THE INTERNATIONAL
[EXCERPT]
On the other hand, the British Section of the Inter
national held a Congress at Manchester on June 1 and 2,
which was undoubtedly an epoch-making event in the English
labour movement. It was attended by 26 delegates who repre
sented the main centres of English industry as well as several
smaller towns. The report of the Federal Council differed
from all previous documents of this kind by the fact that—in
a country with a tradition of legality—it asserted the right of
the working class to use force in order to realise its demands.
Congress approved the report and decided that the red
flag is to be the flag of the British Section of the Interna
tional; the working class demands not only the return of all
landed property to the working people but also of all means
of production; it calls for the eight-hour working day as a
preliminary measure; it sends congratulations to the Spanish
workers who have succeeded in establishing a republic and in
electing ten workers to the Cortes; and requests the English
Government immediately to release all Irish Fenians still
imprisoned. Anyone familiar with the history of the English
labour movement will admit that no English workers’ con
gress has ever advanced such far-reaching demands. In any
case, this Congress and the miserable end of the separatist,
self-appointed Federal Council369 has determined the at
titude of the British Section of the International.
Published in Translated from the German

Der Volksstaat No. 53,
July 2, 1873
Frederick Engels
From THE ENGLISH ELECTIONS
r
Four weeks ago Gladstone suddenly dissolved Parliament.

The inevitable “labour leaders” began to breathe again: either
they would get themselves elected or they would again
become well-paid itinerant preachers of the cause of the
“great Liberal Party”. But alas! the day appointed for the
elections was so close that they were cheated out of both
chances. True enough, a few did stand for Parliament; but
since in England every candidate, before he can be voted
upon, must contribute two hundred pounds (1,240 thaler)
towards the election expenses and the workers had almost
nowhere been organised for this purpose, only such of them
could stand as candidates seriously as obtained this sum from
the bourgeoisie, i.e., as acted with its gracious permission.
With this the bourgeoisie had done its duty and in the elec
tions themselves allowed them all to suffer a complete fiasco.
Only two workers got in, both miners from coal pits. This
trade is very strongly organised in three big unions, has con
siderable means at its disposal, controls an undisputed majori
ty of the voters in some constituencies and has worked
systematically for direct representation in Parliament ever
since the Reform Acts were passed. The candidates put up
were the secretaries of the three Trade Unions. The one,
Halliday, lost out in Wales; the other two came out on top:
MacDonald in Stafford and Burt in Morpeth. Burt is little
known outside of his constituency. MacDonald, however,
betrayed the workers of his trade when, during the negotia
tions on the last mining law ,370 which he attended as the
representative of his trade, he sanctioned an amendment
which was so grossly in the interests of the capitalists that
even the government had not dared to include it in the draft.
At any rate, the ice has been broken and two workers
now have seats in the most fashionable debating club of
Europe, among those who have declared themselves the first
gentlemen of Europe.
Alongside of them sit at least fifty Irish Home Rulers.
When the Fenian (Irish-republican) Rebellion of 1867371
had been quelled and the military leaders of the Fenians had
either gradually been caught or driven to emigrate to Amer
ica, the remnants of the Fenian conspiracy soon lost all im
portance. Violent insurrection had no prospect of success for
many years, at least until such time as England would again
be involved in serious difficulties abroad. Hence a legal move
ment remained the only possibility, and such a movement
was undertaken under the banner of the Home Rulers, who
wanted the Irish to be “masters in their won house”. They
made the definite demand that the Imperial Parliament in
London should cede to a special Irish Parliament in Dublin
the right to legislate on all purely Irish questions; very wisely
nothing was said meanwhile about what was to be under
stood as a purely Irish question. This movement, at first
scoffed at by the English press, has become so powerful that
Irish M. P.s of the most diverse party complexions—Con
servatives and Liberals, Protestants and Catholics (Butt, who
leads the movement, is himself a Protestant) and even a
native-born Englishman sitting for Galway—have had to join
it. For the first time since the days of O’Connell, whose
repeal movement collapsed in the general reaction about the
same time as the Chartist movement, as a result of the events
of 1848—he had died in 1847—a well-knit Irish party once
again has entered Parliament, but under circumstances that
hardly permit it constantly to compromise a la O’Connell
with the Liberals or to have individual members of it sell
themselves retail to Liberal governments, as after him has
become the fashion.
Thus both motive forces of English political development
have now entered Parliament: on the one side the workers,
on the other the Irish as a compact national party. And even
if they may hardly be expected to play a big role in this
T H E E N G L IS H E L E C T IO N S 429
Parliament—the workers will certainly not—the elections of

1874 have indisputably ushered in a new phase in English
political development.

Der Volksstaat No. 26, r
March 4, 1874
Frederick Engels
From DIALECTICS OF NATURE3 ? 2
We mentioned the potato and the resulting spread of

scrofula. But what is scrofula compared to the effect which
the reduction of the workers to a potato diet had on the
living conditions of the masses of the people in whole
countries, or compared to the famine the potato blight
brought to Ireland in 1847, which consigned to the grave a
million Irishmen, nourished solely or almost exclusively on
potatoes, and forced the emigration overseas of two million
more?

Die Neue Zeit Bd. 2, No. 44,
Stuttgart, 1895-96
Frederick Engels
From ANTI—DUHRING3 73
r
If we confine ourselves to the cultivation of landed pro

perty consisting of tracts of considerable size, the question
arises: whose landed property is it? And then we find in the
early history of all civilised peoples, not the “large landed
proprietors” whom Herr Duhring interpolates here with his
customary sleight of hand, which he calls “natural dialect
ics”, but tribal and village communities with common owner
ship of the land. From India to Ireland the cultivation of
landed property in tracts of considerable size was originally
carried on by such tribal and village communities; sometimes
the arable land was tilled jointly for account of the com
munity, and sometimes in separate parcels of land temporari
ly allotted to families by the community, while woodland
and pasture land continued to be used in common. It is once
again characteristic of “the most exhaustive specialised
studies” made by Herr Duhring “in the domain of politics
and law” that he knows nothing of all this; that all his works
breathe total ignorance of Maurer’s epoch-making writings on
the primitive constitution of the German mark,3 74 the basis
of all German law, and of the ever-increasing mass of litera
ture, chiefly stimulated by Maurer, which is devoted to prov
ing the primitive common ownership of the land among all
civilised peoples of Europe and Asia, and to showing the
various forms of its existence and dissolution.
Published in Vorwarts in 1877 Printed according to the third
and in the book: F. Engels, edition which appeared in
Herrn Eugen Diihring’s Stuttgart in 1894
Umwalzung der Wissenschaft, Translated from the German
Leipzig, 1878
Frederick Engels
From THE PREPARATORY NOTES
TO ‘ANTI—DUHRING”
When the Indo-Germanic people immigrated into Europe

they ousted the original inhabitants by force and tilled the
land which they held as communal property. The latter can
be shown to have existed historically among Celts, Germans
and Slavs, and it is still in existence—even in the form of
direct bondage (Russia) or indirect bondage (Ireland)—among
Slavs, Germans and even Celts [rundale]. After the Lapps
and Basques were driven out force was no longer used.
Equality, or alternatively, voluntarily conceded preferential
treatment obtained within the community. Where communal
ownership gave rise to private ownership of land by indivi
dual peasants, the division among the members of the com
munity took place purely spontaneously up to the sixteenth
century; it was mostly a very gradual process and remnants of
communal property generally continued to exist. There was
no question of using force, force was employed only against
the remnants of communal property (in England in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in Germany chiefly in
the nineteenth century). Ireland is a special case.

Marx-Engels Archiv,
Zeitschrift des Marx-Engels
Instituts in Moskau, Band 2,
Frankfurt a. M. 1927
Frederick Engels
From AMERICAN FOOD

AND THE LAND QUESTION37 5
This American revolution in farming, together with the

revolutionised means of transport as invented by the Amer
icans, sends over to Europe wheat at such low prices that no
European farmer can compete with it—at least not while he is
expected to pay rent. Look at the year 1879, when this was
first felt. The crop was bad in all Western Europe; it was a
failure in England. Yet, thanks to American com, prices
remained almost stationary. For the first time the British
farmer had a bad crop and low prices of wheat at the same
time. Then the farmers began to stir, the landlords felt
alarmed. Next year, with a better crop, prices went lower
still. The price of com is now determined by the cost of
production in America, plus the cost of transport. And this
will be the case more and more every year, in proportion as
new prairie-land is put under the plough. The agricultural
armies required for that operation—we find them ourselves in
Europe by sending over emigrants.
Now, formerly there was this consolation for the farmer
and the landlord, that if com did not pay meat would. The
plough-land was turned into grass-land, and everything was
pleasant again. But now that resource is cut off too. Amer
ican meat and American cattle are sent over in ever-increasing
quantities. And not only that. There are at least two great
cattle-producing countries which are on the alert for methods
permitting them to send over to Europe, and especially to
England, their immense excess of meat, now wasted. With the
present state of science and* the rapid progress made in its
application, we may be sure that in a very few years—at the
very latest—Australian and South American beef and mutton
will be brought over in a perfect state of preservation and in
enormous quantities. What is then to become of the prosper
ity of the British farmer, of the long rent-roll of the British
landlord? It is all very well to grow gooseberries, strawber
ries, and so forth—that market is well enough supplied as it is.
No doubt the British workman could consume a deal more of
these delicacies—but then first raise his wages.
It is scarcely needful to say that the effect of this new
American agricultural competition is felt on the Continent
too. The small peasant proprietor—mostly mortgaged over
head and ears—and paying interest and law expenses where
the English and Irish farmer pays rent, he feels it quite as
much. It is a peculiar effect of this American competition
that it renders not only large landed property, but also small
landed property useless, by rendering both unprofitable.
It may be said that this system of land exhaustion, as
now practised in the Far West, cannot go on for ever, and
things must come right again. Of course, it cannot last for
ever; but there is plenty of unexhausted land yet to carry on
the process for another century. Moreover, there are other
countries offering similar advantages. There is the whole
South Russian steppe, where, indeed, commercial men have
bought land and done the same thing. There are the vast
pampas of the Argentine Republic, there are others still; all
lands equally fit for this modem system of giant farming and
cheap production. So that before this thing is exhausted it
will have lived long enough to kill all the landlords of Europe,
great and small, at least twice over.
Well, and the upshot of all this? The upshot will and
must be that it will force upon us the nationalisation of the
land and its cultivation by co-operative societies under
national control. Then, and then alone, it will again pay both
the cultivators and the nation to work it, whatever the price
of American or any other com and meat may be. And if the
landlords in the meantime, as they seem half inclined to do,
actually do go to America, we wish them a pleasant journey.
Published in Printed according to the text

The Labour Standard No. 9, of the newspaper
July 2, 1881
Frederick Engels
From BISMARCK AND THE GERMAN
WORKING MEN’S PARTY
r
Then Bismarck succeeded in passing an- Act by which

Social-Democracy was outlawed.376 The working men’s
newspapers, more than fifty, were suppressed, their societies
and clubs broken up, their funds seized, their meetings dis
solved by the police, and, to crown all, it was enacted that
whole towns and districts might be “proclaimed”, just as in
Ireland. But what even English Coercion Bills have never
ventured upon in Ireland Bismarck did in Germany. In ^very
“proclaimed” district the police received the right to expel
any man whom it might “reasonably suspect” of socialistic
propaganda. Berlin was, of course, at once proclaimed, and
hundreds (with their families, thousands) of people were ex
pelled....
In the year from October, 1879, to October, 1880, there
were in Prussia alone imprisoned for high treason, treason
felony, insulting the Emperor, &c., not less than 1,108
persons; and for political libels, insulting Bismarck, or defil
ing the Government, &c., not less than 10,094 persons. Elev
en thousand two hundred and two political prisoners, that
beats even Mr. Forster’s Irish exploits!
And what has Bismarck attained with all his coercion?
Just as much as Mr. Forster in Ireland The Social-Democratic
Party is in as blooming a condition, and possesses as firm an
organisation, as the Irish Land League.377 A few days ago
there were elections for the Town Council of Mannheim. The
working-class party nominated sixteen candidates, and car
ried them all by a majority of nearly three to one. Again,
Bebel, member of the German Parliament for Dresden, stood
for the representation of the Leipzig district in the Saxon
Parliament. Bebel is himself a working man (a turner), and
one of the best, if not the best speaker in Germany. To
frustrate his being elected, the Government expelled all his
committee. What was the result? That even with a limited
suffrage, Bebel was carried by a strong majority. Thus,
Bismarck’s coercion avails him nothing; on the contrary, it
exasperates the people. Those to whom all legal means of
asserting themselves are cut off, will one fine morning take
to illegal ones, and no one can blame them. How often have
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster proclaimed that doctrine?
And how do they act now in Ireland?
Published in Printed according to the text of

The Labour Standard No. 12, the newspaper
July 23, 1881
Karl Marx
From SYNOPSIS OF J. R. GREEN’S
“HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE”378
r
1169-1171: Leinster (Ireland) in the hands of English

“adventurers”; Richard o f Clare, Earl of Pembroke, does
homage for Leinster as an English lordship to Henry II, who,
accompanied by Pembroke, visited his “new dominion which
the adventurers had won”. [Fourteen years earlier, Pope
Adrian IV had made him a present of Ireland. He (Henry)
wanted to use the trade in English slaves (with Bristol) as a
pretext for invasion, but nothing came of it at the time,
because of the resistance of the English baronage.]...
After Henry II left Ireland, nothing indeed but the feuds
and weakness of the Irish tribes enabled the adventurers to
hold the districts of Drogheda, Dublin, Wexford, Waterford,
and Cork, which now formed the so-called English Pale. For
their part, the adventurers were compelled to preserve “their
fealty to the English Crown”. John (Lackland) came with an
army, stormed its strongholds and drove its leading barons
into exile, divided the Pale into counties, ordered the observ
ance of the English law; but the departure of John and his
army to England was a signal for a return of disorder within
the Pale.... Within the Pale itself, the English settlers were
harried and oppressed by their own baronage as much as by
the Irish marauders.... After their victory at Bannockburn,
Robert Bruce sent a Scotch force to Ireland with his brother*
at its head; general rising of Ireland welcomed him; but the
danger united pro nunc ** the barons of the Pale, and in
* Edward Bruce.—Ed.
** For a time.—Ed.
438 KARL MARX
1316 they emerged victors on the bloody field of Athenree
by the slaughter of 11,000 of their foes and almost complete
annihilation of the sept o f the O’Connors. Thereafter, the
barons o f the Pale sank more and more into Irish chieftains;
the Fitz-Maurices, who became Earls o f Desmond and whose
vast territory in Munster was erected into a County Palatine,
adopted the dress and manners of the natives around
them.
Kilkenny Statute of Edward IIP 79: this Statute forbade
the adoption o f the Irish language or name or dress by any
man o f English blood; it enforced within the Pale the ex
clusive use of the English law, and made the use of the native
or Brehon law, which was gaining ground, an act of treason',
it made treasonable any marriage of the Englishry with per
sons of Irish race, or any adoption of English children by
Irish foster-fathers.... However, this did not prevent the
fusion of the two races, with the lords of the Pale almost
completely denying obedience to English government.... In
1394 Richard II landed with an army at Waterford and
received the general submission of the native chiefs. But the
lords of the Pale held aloof: no sooner Richard quitted the
island, than the Irish in turn refused to carry out their prom
ise of quitting Leinster, and "engaged in a fresh contest with
the Earl o f March, whom the King had proclaimed as his heir
and left behind him as his lieutenant in Ireland. In the sum
mer of 1398 March was beaten and slain in battle; now
Richard II was eager to avenge his cousin’s death, and com
plete the work he had begun by a first invasion (with him as
hostage was Henry of Lancaster’s son, later Henry V). The
Percies (Earl o f Northumberland and his son Henry Percy or
Hotspur) refused to serve in his army. He banished the
Percies, who withdrew into Scotland.
MAY 1399: Richard II [went] to Ireland and left his
uncle, Duke o f York, as regent in his stead.
JUNE 1399: Henry o f Lancaster entered the Humber and
landed at Ravenspur.
IN THE BEGINNING OF AUGUST 1399 Henry of
Lancaster master of the realm when Richard II at last sailed
from Waterford and landed at Milford Haven. By the treache
rous pledges of the Earl of Northumberland the ass Richard
SYNOPSIS OF GREEN’S “HISTORY OF ENGLISH PEOPLE” 439
was lured to Flint for a meeting with Henry of Lancaster,
who took him to London as prisoner, where he was coffered
in the Tower.
Published in Printed according to the

Marx-Engels Archives, manuscript in English and
Vol. VIII, Russ, ed., German. Part of the manuscript
Moscow, 1946 translated from the German
Frederick Engels
JENNY LONGUET, NEE MARX380
Jenny, the eldest daughter of Karl Marx, died at Argen-

teuil near Paris on January 11. About eight years ago she
married Charles Longuet, a former member of the Paris Com
mune and at present an editor of Justice.
Jenny Marx was bom on May 1, 1844, grew up in the
midst of the international working-class movement and was
closely attached to it. Despite a reticence that could almost
be taken for shyness, she displayed when necessary a pres
ence of mind and energy which could be envied by many a
man.
When the Irish press disclosed the infamous treatment the
Fenians sentenced in 1866 and later had to suffer in jail,
while the English papers stubbornly ignored the atrocities,
and when the Gladstone Government, despite the promises it
made during the election campaign, refused to amnesty them
or even to ameliorate their conditions, Jenny Marx found a
means that caused the pious Mr. Gladstone to take immediate
steps. She wrote two articles for Rochefort’s Marseillaise
vividly describing how political prisoners are treated in
freedom-loving England.* That was very effective. Disclosur
es in a big Paris newspaper could not be endured. A few
weeks later O’Donovan Rossa and most of the others were
free and on their way to America.
In the summer of 1871 Jenny, together with her young
est sister,** visited their brother-in-law Lafargue at
* See pp. 4 9 6 -5 2 2 .Ed.
** Eleanor MarxS-Ed.
JENNY LONGUET, NEE MARX
Bordeaux. Lafargue, his wife, their sick child and the two
girls went from there to Bagneres-de-Luchon, a spa in the
Pyrenees. Early one morning a gentleman came to Lafargue
and said: “I am a police officer, but a Republican; an order
for your arrest has been received. It is known that you were
in charge of communications between Bordeaux and the Paris
Commune. You have one hour to cross tljre border.”
Lafargue with his wife and child succeeded in getting over
the pass into Spain, thereupon the police took revenge by
arresting the two girls. Jenny had a letter in her pocket from
Gustave Flourens, the leader of the Commune who was killed
near Paris. Had the letter been discovered, a journey to New
Caledonia was sure to follow for the two sisters. When she
was left alone in the office for a moment Jenny opened a
dusty old account book, put the letter inside and closed the
book again. Perhaps the letter is still there. The two girls were
then brought before the prefect, the noble Comte de Keratry,
well remembered as a Bonapartist, who closely questioned
them. But the cunning of the old diplomat and the brutality
of the old cavalry officer were of no avail when faced with
Jenny’s calm circumspection. He left the room in a fit of rage
about “the energy that the women of this family seem to
possess”. After the dispatch of numerous cables to and from
Paris, he finally had to release the two girls, who had been
treated in a truly Prussian way during their detention.
These two incidents are very characteristic of Jenny
Longuet. The proletariat has lost a valiant fighter. But her
grief-stricken father has at least the consolation that hun
dreds of thousands of workers in Europe and America share
his sorrow.
London, January 13, 1883

Der Sozialdemokrat No. 4,
January 18, 1883
EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS ON THE IRISH QUESTION
MARX TO ENGELS
August 1, 1877
The Irish skirmishes in the House of Commons are very
amusing. Parnell, etc., told Barry that the worst was the
attitude of Butt, who hopes to be appointed judge and has
threatened to resign his leadership; and that he could do
them great harm in Ireland. Barry mentioned Butt’s letter to
the General Council of the International. They would like to
have this document to prove that his stand-offishness in rela
tion to the intransigents is mere pretence. But how am I to
find the thing now? 381
MARX TO JOHN SWINTON
November 4, 1880
Apart Mr. Gladstone’s “sensational” failures abroad-
political interest centres here at present on the Irish “Land
Question”. And why? Mainly because it is the harbinger of
the English “Land Question”.
Not only that the great landlords of England are also the
largest landholders of Ireland, but having once broken down
in what is ironically called the “Sister” island, the English
landed system will no longer be tenable at home. There are
arrayed against it the British farmers, wincing under high
rents, and—thanks to the American competition—low prices;
the British agricultural labourers, at last impatient of their
traditional position of ill-used beasts of burden, and—that
British party which styles itself “Radical”. The latter consists
of two sets of men; first the ideologues of the party, eager to
overthrow the political power of the aristocracy by mining its
material basis, the semi-feudal landed property. But behind
ENGELS TO JENNY LONGUET. FEBRUARY 24, 1881 443
these principle-sp outers, and hunting them on, lurks another
set of men—sharp, close-fisted, calculating capitalists, fully
aware that the abolition of the old land laws, in the way
proposed by the ideologues, cannot but convert land into a
commercial article that must ultimately concentrate in the
hands of capital.
On the other side, considered as a rational entity, John
Bull has ugly misgivings lest the aristocratic English landed
garrison in Ireland once gone—England’s political sway over
Ireland will go too!
ENGELS TO JENNY LONGUET
February 24, 1881
My dear Jenny,
Well may the illustrious Regnard recommend his factum
to your “charity” .382 This Jacobin defending English
respectable Protestantism and English vulgar Liberalism with
the historical apparel of that same vulgar Liberalism is indeed
an object of deepest charity. But to his “facts”.
1) The 30,000 Protestants’ massacre of 1641. The Irish
Catholics are here in the same position as the Commune de
Paris. The Versaillais massacred 30,000 Communards and
called that the horrors of the Commune. The English Pro
testants under Cromwell massacred at least 30,000 Irish and
to cover their brutality, invented the tale that this was to
avenge 30,000 Protestants murdered by the Irish Catholics.
The facts are these.
Ulster having been taken from its Irish owners who at
that time 1600-1610 held the land in common, and handed
over to Scotch Protestant military colonists, these colonists
did not feel safe in their possessions in the troublous times
after 1640. The Puritan English government officials in
Dublin spread the rumour that a Scotch Army of Covenant
ers383 was to land in Ulster and exterminate all Irish and
Catholics. Sir W. Parsons, one of the two Chief Justices of
Ireland, said that in a 12-month there would not be a Catho
lic left in Ireland. It was under these menaces, repeated in the
English Parliament, that the Irish of Ulster rose on 23rd Oct.
444 ENGELS TO JENNY LONGUET. FEBRUARY 24, 1881
1641. But no massacre took place. All contemporaneous

sources ascribe to the Irish merely the intention of a general
massacre, and even the two Protestant Chief Justices*
(proclam. 8th Febr. 1642) declare that “the chief part of
their plot, and amongst them a general massacre, had been
disappointed. The English and Scotch, however, 4th May
1642, threw Irish women naked into the river (Newry) and
massacred Irishmen. (Prendergast, Cromwellian Settlement of
Ireland, 1865.)
2) L’Irlande la Vendee de L’Angleterre.384 Ireland was
Catholic, Protestant England Republican, therefore Ireland—
English Vendee. There is however this little difference that
the French Revolution intended to give the land to the
people, the English Commonwealth intended, in Ireland, to
take the land from the people.
The whole Protestant reformation, as is well known to
most students of history save Regnard, apart from its dogma
tical squabbles and quibbles, was a vast plan for a confisca
tion of land. First the land was taken from the Church. Then
the Catholics, in countries where Protestantism was in power,
were declared rebels and their land confiscated.
Now in Ireland the case was peculiar.
“ For the English,” says Prendergast, “seem to have thought that
god made a mistake in giving such a fine country as Ireland to the Irish;
and for near 700 years they have been trying to remedy it.”
The whole agrarian history of Ireland is a series of con
fiscations of Irish land to be handed over to English settlers.
These settlers, in a very few generations, under the charm of
Celtic society, turned more Irish than the aborigines. Then a
new confiscation and new colonisation took place, and so in
infinitum.
In the 17th century, the whole of Ireland except the
newly Scotchified North, was ripe for a fresh confiscation. So
much so, that when the British (Puritan) Parliament accorded
to Charles I an army for the reduction of Ireland, it resolved
that the money for this armament should be raised upon the
security o f 2,500,000 acres to be confiscated in Ireland. And
* The second Chief Justice of Ireland was Borlase.—Ed.
ENGELS TO JENNY LONGUET. FEBRUARY 24, 1881 445
the “adventurers” who advanced the money should also

appoint the officers of that army. The land was to be divided
amongst those adventurers: so that 1,000 acres should be
given them, if in Ulster for£200—advanced, in Connaught for
£300, in Munster for £450, in Leinster for £600. And if the
people rose against this beneficent plan they are Vendeens!
If Regnard should ever sit in a National Contention, he may
take a leaf out of the proceedings of the Long Parliament,
and combat a possible Vendee with these means.
The abolition of the penal laws! 385 Why the greater part
of them were repealed, not in 1793 but in 1778, when
England was threatened by the rise of the American
Republic, and the second repeal, 1793, was when the French
Republic arose threatening and England required all the sol
diers she could get to fight it!
The Grant to Maynooth by Pitt.386 This pittance was
soon repealed by the Tories and only renewed by Sir R. Peel
in 1845. But not a word about the other cadeau que faisait a
Vlrlande ce grand homme (c’est la premiere fois qu’il trouve
grace devant les yeux d ’un Jacobin*), that other “dotation”
not only “considerable ” but actually lavish—the 3 Million £
by which the Union of Ireland with England was bought. The
parliamentary documents will show that the one item of the
purchase money of rotten and nomination boroughs387
alone cost no less a sum than £1,245,000. (O’Connell memoir
on Ireland addressed to the Queen.)
Lord Derby instituted le systeme des ecoles nation-
a/es.388 Very true but why did he? Consult Fitzgibbon,
Ireland in 1868,** the work of a staunch Protestant and
Tory, or else the official Report of Commissioners on Educa
tion in Ireland 1826. The Irish, neglected by the English
government, had taken the education of their children into
their own hands. At the time when English fathers and moth
ers insisted upon their right to send their children to the
factory to earn money instead of to the school to learn, at
* Present made to Ireland by that great man (this is the first time
that he found grace in the eyes of a Jacobin)-—Ed.
** G. Fitzgibbon, Ireland in 1868, the Battle-field for English Party
Strife, London, 1868.—Ed.
446 ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. MARCH 12,1881
that time in Ireland the peasants vied with each other in
forming schools of their own. The schoolmaster was an
ambulant teacher, spending a couple of months at each
village. A cottage was found for him, each child paid him 2d>
a week and a few sods of turf in winter. The schools were
kept, on fine days in summer, in the fields* near a hedge, and
then known by the name of hedge-schools. There were also
ambulant scholars, who with their books under the arm,
wandered from school to school, receiving lodging and food
from the peasants without difficulty. In 1812 there were
4,600 such hedge-schools in Ireland and that year’s report of
the Commissioners says that such education was
“leading to evil rather than good”, “that such education the people are
actually obtaining for themselves, and though we consider it practicable
to correct it, to check its progress appears impossible: it may be im
proved but it cannot be impeded. ”
So then, these truly national schools did not suit English
purposes. To suppress them, the sham national schools were
established. They are so little secular that the reading-book
consists of extracts both from the Cath. and Prot. Bibles,
agreed upon by the Cath. and Prot. Archbishops of Dublin.
Compare with these Irish peasants the English who howl at
compulsory school-attendance to this day!
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN
March 12, 1881
On Ireland I shall only say the following: the people are
much too clever not to know that a revolt would spell their
ruin; it could have a chance only in the event of a war be
tween England and America. In the meantime, the Irish have
forced Gladstone to introduce continental regulations389 in
Parliament and thereby to undermine the whole British
parliamentary system. They have also forced Gladstone to
disavow all his phrases and to become more Tory than even
the worst Tories. The coercion bills have been passed, the
Land Bill will be either rejected or castrated by the House of
Lords,390 and then the fun will start, that is, the concealed
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. APRIL 14, 1881 447
disintegration of the parties will become public. Since Glad
stone’s appointment, the Whigs and moderate Tories, that is,
the big landowners as a whole, are uniting on the quiet into a
big landowners’ party. As soon as this matures and family
and personal interests are settled, or as soon as, perhaps as a
result of the Land Bill, the new party is forced to appear in
public, the Ministry and the present majority will immediate
ly fall to pieces. The new conservative party will then be
faced by the new bourgeois radical party, but without any
backing other than the workers and Irish peasants. And so as
to avoid any humbug and trickery from taking place here
again, a proletarian radical party is now forming under the
leadership of Joseph Cowen (M.P. for Newcastle), who is an
old Chartist, half, if not entirely, Communist and a very
worthy chap. Ireland is bringing all this about, Ireland is the
driving force of the Empire. This is for your private informa
tion. More about this soon.
MARX TO JENNY LONGUET
April M 1881,
Let Longuet read Parnell9s speech in Cork in today's
Times; he will find in it the gist of what should be said about
Gladstone's new Land A ct; and one must not overlook the
fact that by his disgraceful preliminary measures (including
abolition of freedom of speech for members of the Lower
House) Gladstone prepared the conditions under which mass
evictions are taking place in Ireland, while the Act is only
pure humbug, since the Lords, who get everything they want
from Gladstone and no longer have to tremble before the
Land League, will doubtless reject it or castrate it so that the
Irish themselves will finally vote against it.
April 14, 1881
Argyll’s retirement from the Ministry because the Irish
Land Bill gives the tenants a certain co-ownership of the land
is a bad omen for the fate of the Bill in the Upper House. In
448 MARX TO JENNY LONGUET. DECEMBER 7, 1881
the meantime Parnell has successfully begun his agitation
tour of England in Manchester. The position of the big liberal
coalition is becoming more and more critical. Every
thing here seems to go slowly, but it is so much more
thorough.

April 29, 1881
It is a very fine trick of Gladstone—only the “stupid
party” does not understand it—to offer at a moment when
landed property in Ireland (as in England) will be depreciated
by the import of com and cattle from the U. St.—to offer
them at that very moment the public Exchequer where
they can sell that property at a price it does no longer pos
sess!
The real intricacies of the Irish land problem—which
indeed are not especially Irish—are so great that the only true
way to solve it would be to give the Irish Home Rule and
thus force them to solve it themselves. But John Bull is too
stupid to understand this.

December 7, 1881
The ever faithful Engels has sent you a number of the
Irish World at my request, containing a declaration against
landozvnership (private) by an Irish bishop. This was the
latest news that I passed on to your mamma and she thought
you could perhaps insert it in a French paper to frighten the
French clericals. In any case, it shows that these gentlemen
can pipe any tune.
ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY. FEBRUARY 7, 1882 449
MARX TO ENGELS
January 5, 1882
A different picture is presented by the 3,000 landlords
meeting at Dublin, duce* A b e r c o r n , 3 9 1 whose only purpose
is “to maintain ... contracts and the freedortl between man
and man in this realm”. Those fellows’ rage over the Assistant
Commissioners is funny. By the way, they are quite justified
in their polemics against Gladstone, but it is only the coercive
measures of the latter and his 50,000 soldiers, apart from the
police, that enable these gentlemen to oppose him in such a
critical and threatening manner. The whole uproar naturally
is meant only to prepare John Bull for the payment of “com
pensation costs”. Serves him right.
ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

February 7, 1882
One of the real tasks of the 1848 Revolution (and the
real, not illusory tasks of a revolution are always solved as a
result of that revolution) was the restoration of the oppressed
and dispersed nationalities of Central Europe, insofar as these
were at all viable and, especially, ripe for independence. This
task was solved for Italy, Hungary and Germany, according
to the then prevailing conditions, by the executors of the
revolution’s will, Bonaparte, Cavour and Bismarck. Ireland
and Poland remained. Ireland can be disregarded here, she
affects the conditions of the Continent only very indirectly.
But Poland lies in the middle of the Continent and the con
servation of her division is precisely the link that has con
stantly held the Holy Alliance together, and therefore,
Poland is of great interest to us....
I therefore hold the view that two nations* in Europe have
not only the right but even the duty to be nationalistic
before they become intemationalistic: the Irish and the
* Under the leadership oi.—Ed.
15-226
450 ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. MAY 3, 1882
Poles. They are most intemationalistic when they are genu
inely nationalistic. The Poles understood this during all crises
and have proved it on all the battlefields of the revolution.
Deprive them of the prospect of restoring Poland or convince
them that the new Poland will soon drop into their lap by
herself, and it is all over with their interest in the European
revolution.

May 3, 1882
Don’t let the Association392 here deceive you about the
Democratic Federation.393 So far it is of no account whatev
er. It is headed by an ambitious candidate for Parliament by
the name of Hyndman, an ex-Conservative, who can get
together a big meeting only with the help of the Irish and for
specifically Irish purposes. Even then he plays only a third-
rate part, otherwise the Irish would give it to him.
Gladstone has discredited himself terribly. His whole Irish
policy has suffered shipwreck. He has to drop Forster and the
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Cowper-Temple (whose stepfath
er is Palmerston), and must say a pater peccavi*: The Irish
M. P.s** have been set free, the Coercion Bill has not been
extended, the back rents of the farmers are to be partly
cancelled and partly. taken over by the state against fair
amortisation.394 On the other hand the Tories have already
reached the stage where they want to save whatever can still
be saved: before the farmers take the land they should
redeem the rents with the aid of the state, according to the
Prussian model, so that the landowners may get at least some-
thing\ The Irish are teaching our leisurely John Bull to get a
move on. That’s what comes from shooting! 395
* Father, I have sinned. An error seems to have crept in since the

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at the time was not William Cowper-Temple
but his nephew Francis Cowper.—Ed.
** Parnell, Dillon, O’K eMy.—Ed.
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. JUNE 26, 1882 451
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN396
June 26, 1882
In Ireland there are two trends in the movement. The
first, the earlier, is the agrarian trend, whi<î stems from the
organised brigandage practised with support of the peasants
by the clan chiefs, dispossessed by the English, and also by
the big Catholic landowners (in the 17th century these
brigands were called Tories, and the Tories of today have
inherited their name directly from them). This trend gradual
ly developed into natural resistance of the peasants to the
intruding English landlords, organised according to localities
and provinces. The names Ribbonmen, Whiteboys, Captain
Rock, Captain Moonlight, etc., have changed, but the form of
resistance—the shooting not only of hated landlords and
agents (rent collectors of the landlords) but also of peasants
who take over a farm from which another has been forcibly
evicted, boycotting, threatening letters, night raids and in
timidation, etc.—all this is as old as the present English land
ownership in Ireland, that is, dates back to the end of the
17th century at the latest. This form of resistance cannot be
suppressed, force is useless against it, and it will disappear
only with the causes responsible for it. But, as regards its
nature, it is local, isolated, and can never become a general
form of political struggle.
Soon after the establishment of the Union (1800), began
the liberal-national opposition of the urban bourgeoisie
which, as in every peasant country with dwindling townlets
(for example, Denmark),finds its natural leaders in lawyers.
These also need the peasants; they therefore had to find
slogans to attract the peasants. Thus O’Connell discovered
such a slogan first in the Catholic emancipation, and then in
the Repeal o f the Union. Because of the infamy of the land
owners, this trend has recently had to adopt a new course.
While in the social field the Land League pursues more
revolutionary aims (which are achievable in Ireland)—the
total removal of the intruder landlords—it acts rather tamely
in political respects and demands only Home Rule, that is, an
Irish local Parliament side by side with the British Parliament
15*
452 ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. JUNE 26,1882
and subordinated to it. This too can be achieved by constitu
tional means. The frightened landlords are already clamour
ing for the quickest possible redemption of the peasant land
(suggested by the Tories themselves) in order to save what
can still be saved. On the other hand, Gladstone declares that
greater self-government for Ireland is quite admissible.
After the American Civil War, Fenianism took its place
beside these two trends. The hundreds of thousands of Irish
soldiers and officers, who fought in the war, did so with the
ulterior motive of building up an army for the liberation of
Ireland. The controversies between America and England
after the war became the main lever of the Fenians. Had it
come to a war, Ireland would in a few months have been part
of the United States or at least a republic under its protec
tion. The sum which England so willingly undertook to pay,
and did indeed pay in accordance with Geneva arbitrators’
decision on the Alabama affair,397 was the price she paid to
buy off American intervention in Ireland.
From this moment the main danger had been removed.
The police was strong enough to deal with the Fenians. The
treachery inevitable in any conspiracy also helped, and yet it
was only leaders who were traitors and then became down
right spies and false witnesses. The leaders who got away to
America engaged there in emigrant revolution and most of
them were reduced to beggary, like O’Dorfovan Rossa. For
those who saw the European emigration of 1849-52 here,
everything seems very familiar—only naturally on the exag
gerated American scale.
Many Fenians have doubtless now returned and restored
the old armed organisation. They form an important element
in the movement and force the Liberals to more decisive
action. But, apart from that, they cannot do anything but
scare John Bull. Though he grows noticeably weaker on the
outskirts of his Empire, he can still easily suppress any Irish
rebellion so close to home. In the first place, in Ireland there
are 14,000 men of the “Constabulary”, gendarmes, who are
armed with rifles and bayonets and have undergone military
training. Besides, there are about 30,000 regulars, who can
easily be reinforced with an "equal number of regulars and
English militia. In addition, the Navy. And John Bull is
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. JUNE 26, 1882 453
known for his matchless brutality in suppressing rebellions.
Without war or the threat o f war from without, an Irish
rebellion has not the slightest chance; and only two powers
can become dangerous in this respect: France and, still far
more, the United States. France is out of the question. In
America the parties flirt with the Irish electorate, make
promises but do not keep them. They have no intention of
getting involved in a war because of Ireland. They are even
interested in having conditions in Ireland that promote a
massive Irish emigration to America. And it is understandable
that a land which in twenty years will be the most populated,
richest and most powerful in the world has no special desire
to rush headlong into adventures which could and would
hamper its enormous internal development. In twenty years
it will speak in a very different way.
However, if there should be danger of war with America,
England would grant the Irish open-handedly everything they
asked for—only not complete independence, which is not at
all desirable owing to the geographical position.
Therefore all that is left to Ireland is the constitutional
way of gradually conquering one position after the other; and
here the mysterious background of a Fenian armed con
spiracy can remain a very effective element. But these
Fenians are themselves increasingly being pushed into a sort
of Bakuninism: the assassination of Burke and Cavendish398
could only serve the purpose of making a compromise be
tween the Land League and Gladstone impossible. However,
that compromise was the best thing that could have hap
pened to Ireland under the circumstances. The landlords are
evicting tens of thousands of tenants from their houses and
homes because of rent arrears, and that under military pro
tection. The primary need at the moment is to stop this
systematic depopulation of Ireland (the evicted starve to
death or have to emigrate to America). Gladstone is ready to
table a bill according to which arrears would be paid in the
same way as feudal taxes were settled in Austria in 1848: a
third by the peasant and a third by the state, and the other
third forfeited by the landlord. That suggestion was made by
the Land League itself. Thus the “heroic deed” in Phoenix
Park appears if not as pure stupidity, then at least as pure
454 ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. AUGUST 9,1882
Bakuninist, bragging, purposeless “propagande par le fait”. If
it has not had the same consequences as the similar silly
actions of Hodel and Nobiling,39^ it is only because Ireland
lies not quite in Prussia. It should therefore be left to the
Bakuninists and Mostians to attach equal importance to this
childishness and to the assassination of Alexander II, and to
threaten with an “Irish revolution” which never comes.
One more thing should be thoroughly noted about
Ireland: never praise a single Irishman—a politician—unre
servedly, and never identify yourself with him before he is
dead. Celtic blood and the customary exploitation of the
peasant (all the “educated” social layers in Ireland, especially
the lawyers, live by this alone) make Irish politicians very
responsive to corruption. O’Connell let the peasants pay him
as much as £230,000 a year for his agitation. In connection
with the Union, for which England paid out <£1,000,000 in
bribes, one of those bribed was reproached: “You have sold
your country.” Reply: “Yes, and I was damned glad to have
a country to sell.”

August 9, 1882
You naturally presumed that, in view of our old friend
ship, Liebknecht had a perfect right to ask you to give him
my letter,* and that you were obliged to give it to him. I can
see nothing in that for me to complain about. You could not
know that four-fifths of the many differences I have had with
Liebknecht were due to such arbitrary actions on his part, to
public misuse of private letters, to notes on my articles which
were silly or directly contradictory to the meaning of the
text, etc. This time too he has used my letter in an unjustifi
able way. The letter was written with direct reference to your
article. Liebknecht treated it as if it were “my” interpreta
tion of the entire Irish question. That is terribly frivolous,
particularly when speeches by Davitt are advanced against it,
* See preceding letter.—Ed.
ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. AUGUST 9, 1882 455
which had not even been made when the letter was written,
and which have nothing to do with it, since Davitt with his
state ownership of the land is so far only a symptom. But
Liebknecht always acts frivolously when he wants to demon
strate his “superiority”. I do not grudge him the fun, but he
should not misuse my letters for that, and now he compels
me to ask you in future (I want to express rKyself as correctly
and diplomatically as possible) de lui donner—tout au plus—
lecture de mes lettres sans cependant lui abandonner lforigin
al ni lui en laisser copie. *
* To give him my letters to read, at the very most, without,

however, leaving him the original or a copy.—Ed.
Frederick Engels
THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE
PROPERTY AND THE STATE
From CHAPTER VII

THE GENS WITH CELTS AND GERMANS
The oldest Celtic laws that have come down to our day
show the gens still in full vitality. In Ireland it is alive, at least
instinctively, in the popular mind to this day, after the
English forcibly blew it up. It was still in full bloom in
Scotland in the middle of the last century, and here, too, it
succumbed only to the arms, laws and courts of the English.
The old Welsh laws, written several centuries before the
English Conquest,400 not later than the eleventh century,
still show communal field agriculture of whole villages, al
though only as exceptions and as the survival of a former
universal custom. Every family had five acres for its own
cultivation; another plot was at the same time cultivated in
common and its yield divided. Judging by the Irish and
Scotch analogies there cannot be any doubt that these village
communities represent gentes or subdivisions of gentes, even
though a reinvestigation of the Welsh laws, which I cannot
undertake for lack of time (my notes are from 1869401),
should not directly corroborate this. The thing, however, that
the Welsh sources, and the Irish, do prove directly is that
among the Celts the pairing family had not yet given way by
far to monogamy in the eleventh century. In Wales, marriage
did not become indissoluble, or rather did not cease to be
subject to notice of dissolution, until after seven years. Even
if only three nights were wanting to make up the seven years,
a married couple could still separate. Then their property was
divided between them: the woman divided, the man made his
choice. The furniture was divided according to certain very
funny rules. If the marriage was dissolved by the man, he had
to-return the woman’s dowry and a few other articles; if the
ORIGIN OF FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE 457
woman desired a separation, she received less. Of the children

the man was given two, the woman one, namely, the middle
child. If the woman married again after her divorce, and her
first husband fetched her back, she was obliged to follow
him, even if she already had one foot in her new husband’s
bed. But if two people had lived together for seven years,
they were considered man and wife, even without the pre
liminaries of a formal marriage. Chastity among girls before
marriage was by no means strictly observed, nor was it
demanded; the regulations governing this subject are of an
extremely frivolous nature and run counter to all bourgeois
morals. When a woman committed adultery, her husband had
a right to beat her—this was one of three cases when he could
do so without incurring a penalty—but after that he could
not demand any other redress, for
“the same offence shall either be atoned for or avenged, but not both”.
The reasons that entitled a woman to a divorce without
detriment to her rights at the settlement were of a very
diverse nature: the man’s foul breath was a sufficient reason.
The redemption money to be paid to the tribal chief or king
for the right of the first night (gobr merch, hence the
-medieval name marcheta, French marquette) plays a con
spicuous part in the legal code. The women had the right to
vote at the popular assemblies. Add to this that similar condi
tions are shown to have existed in Ireland; that time mar
riages were also quite the custom there, and that the women
were assured of liberal and well-defined privileges in case of
separation, even to the point of remuneration for domestic
services; that a “first wife” existed by the side of others, and
in dividing a deceased’s property no distinction was made
between legitimate and illegitimate children—and we have a
picture of the pairing family compared with which the form
of marriage valid in North America seems strict; but this is
not surprising in the eleventh century for a people which in
Caesar’s time was still living in group marriage.
The Irish gens (sept; the tribe was called clainne, clan) is
confirmed and described not only by the ancient law-books,
but also by the English jurists of the seventeenth century
who were sent across for the purpose of transforming the
clan lands into domains of the King of England. Up to this
time, the land had been the common property of the clan or
gens, except where the chiefs had already converted it into
their private domain. When a gentile died, and a household
was thus dissolved, the gentile chief (called caput cognationis
by the. English jurists) redistributed the whole gentile land
among the other households. This distribution must in
general have taken place according to rules such as were
observed in Germany. We still find a few villages—very
numerous forty or fifty years ago—with fields held in so-
called rundale. Each of the peasants, individual tenants on
the soil that once was the common property of the gens but
had been seized by the English conquerors, pays rent for his
particular plot, but all the arable and meadow land is com
bined and shared out, according to situation and quality, in
strips, or “Gewanne”, as they are called on the Mosel, and
each one receives a share of each Gewann. Moorland and
pastures are used in common. As recently as fifty years ago,
redivision was still practised occasionally, sometimes annual
ly. The map of such a rundale village looks exactly like that
of a German community of farming households [Gehofer-
schaft] on the Mosel or in the Hochwald. The gens also sur
vives in the “factions”. The Irish peasants often form parties
that seem to be founded on absolutely absurd and senseless
distinctions and are quite incomprehensible to Englishmen.
The only purpose of these factions is apparently to rally for
the popular sport of solemnly beating the life out of one
another. They are artificial reincarnations, later substitutes
for the blasted gentes that in their own peculiar way demon
strate the continuation of the inherited gentile instinct. In
cidentally, in some localities members of the same gens still
live together on what is practically their old territory. During
the thirties, for instance, the great majority of the inhabitants
of the county of Monaghan had only four family names, that
is, were descended from four gentes, or clans.*
* During a few days that I spent in Ireland,40 2 I again realised to
what extent the rural population there is still living in the conceptions
of the gentile period. The landlord, whose tenant the peasant is, is still
considered by the latter as a sort of clan chief who supervises the
cultivation of the soil in the interest of all, is entitled to tribute from
ORIGIN OF FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE 459
The downfall of the gentile order in Scotland dates from
the suppression of the rebellion of 1745.403 Precisely what
link in this order the Scotch clan represents remains to be
investigated; no doubt it is a link. Walter Scott’s novels bring
the clan in the Highlands of Scotland vividly before our eyes.
It is, as Morgan says,
“an excellent type of the gens in organisation and in spirit, and an
extraordinary illustration of the power of the gentile life over its mem
bers.... We find in their feuds and blood revenge, in their localisation by
gentes, in their use of lands in common, in the fidelity of the clansman
to his chief and of the members of the clan to each other, the usual and
persistent features of gentile society.... Descent was in the male line, the
children of the males remaining members of the clan, while the children
of its female members belonged to the clans of their respective fa-
thers.404
The fact that motherright was formerly in force in
Scotland is proved by theroyal family of the Piets, in which,
according to Beda, inheritance in the female line prevailed.4 05
We even see evidences of the punaluan family preserved
among the Scots as well as the Welsh until the Middle Ages in
the right of the first night, which the chief of the clan or the
king, the last representative of the former common husbands,
could claim with every bride, unless redeemed.
Published in the b ook : Printed according to the fourth
Friedrich Engels, Der edition published in Stuttgart in
Ursprung der Familie, 1891
des Privateigenthums und Translated from the German
des Staats,
Hottingen-Ziirich, 1884
the peasant in the form of rent, but also has to assist the peasant in
cases of need. Likewise, everyone in comfortable circumstances is con
sidered under obligation to help his poorer neighbours whenever they
are in distress.
Such assistance is not charity; it is what the poor clansman is
entitled to by right from his rich fellow clansman or clan chief. This
explains why political economists and jurists complain of the impossibi
lity of inculcating the modem idea of bourgeois property into the
minds of the Irish peasants. Property that has only rights, but no duties,
is absolutely beyond the ken of the Irishman. No wonder so many
Irishmen with such nai’ve gentile conceptions, who are suddenly cast
into the modem great cities of England and America, among a popula
tion with entirely different moral and legal standards, become utterly
confused in their views of morals and justice, lose all hold and often
succumb to demoralisation in masses. [Note by Engels to the 1891
edition. ]
From AN INTERVIEW WITH ENGELS
PUBLISHED IN THE “NEW YORKER
VOLKSZEITUNG”406
Question: What about Ireland? Is there anything—apart from the

national question—which might raise the hopes of socialists?
Engels: A purely socialist movement cannot be expected
in Ireland for a considerable time. People there want first of
all to become peasants owning a plot of land, and after they
have achieved that mortgages will appear on the scene and
they will be ruined once more. But this should not prevent us
from seeking to help them to get rid of their landlords, that
is, to pass from semi-feudal conditions to capitalist condi
tions.
Question: What is the attitude of the English workers towards the
Irish Movement?
Engels: The masses are for the Irish. The organisations,
and the labour aristocracy in general, follow Gladstone and
the liberal bourgeois and do not go further than these.

New Yorker Volkszeitung
No. 226, September 20, 1888
Frederick Engels
From THE PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
OF “THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING-CLASS
IN ENGLAND”* 07
r
Again, the repeated visitations of cholera, typhus, small

pox, and other epidemics have shown the British bourgeois
the urgent necessity of sanitation in his towns and cities, if he
wishes to save himself and family from falling victims to such
diseases. Accordingly, the most crying abuses described in
this book have either disappeared or have been made less
conspicuous. Drainage has been introduced or improved,
wide avenues have been opened out athwart many of the
worst “slums” I had to describe. “Little Ireland”* has disap
peared, and the “Seven Dials”408 are next on the list for
sweeping away. But what of that? Whole districts which in
1844 I could describe as almost idyllic, have now, with the
growth of the towns, fallen into the state of dilapidation,
discomfort, and misery. Only the pigs and the heaps of refuse
are no longer tolerated. The bourgeoisie have made further
progress in the art of hiding the distress of the working-class.
But that, in regard to their dwellings, no substantial improve
ment has taken place, is amply proved by the Report of the
Royal Commission “on the Housing of the Poor”, 1885. And
this is the case, too, in other respects. Police regulations have
been plentiful as blackberries; but they can only hedge in the
distress of the workers, they cannot remove it....
Free Trade meant the readjustment of the whole home
and foreign, commercial and financial policy of England in
accordance with the interests of the manufacturing capital
ists—the class which now represented the nation. And they
* See pp. 48-49.—Ed,
set about this task with a will. Every obstacle to industrial
production was mercilessly removed. The tariff and the
whole system of taxation were revolutionised. Everything
was made subordinate to one end, but that end of the utmost
importance to the manufacturing capitalist: the cheapening
of all raw produce, and especially of the means of living of
the working-class; the reduction of the cost of raw material,
and the keeping down—if not as yet the bringing down—of
wages. England was to become the “workshop of the world”;
all other countries were to become for England what Ireland
already was—markets for her manufactured goods, supplying
her in return with raw materials and food. England, the great
manufacturing centre of an agricultural world, with an ever-
increasing number of com- and cotton-growing Irelands
revolving around her, the industrial sun. What a glorious
prospect!

F. Engels, The Condition of the book
o f the Working-Class in England in 1844,
London, 1892
Frederick Engels
From THE PEASANT QUESTION
IN FRANCE AND GERMANY409
r
The bourgeois and reactionary parties greatly wonder

why everywhere among socialists the peasant question has
now suddenly been placed upon the order of the day. What
they should be wondering at, by rights, is that this has not
been done long ago. From Ireland to Sicily, from Andalusia
to Russia and Bulgaria, the peasant is a very essential factor
of the population, production and political power. Only two
regions of Western Europe form an exception. In Great
Britain proper big landed estates and large-scale agriculture
have totally displaced the self-supporting peasant; in Prussia
east of the Elbe the same process has been going on for
centuries; here too the peasant is being increasingly “turned
out” or-at .least economically and politically forced into the
background.
The peasant has so far largely manifested himself as a
factor of political power only by his apathy, which has its
roots in the isolation of rustic life. This apathy on the part of
the great mass of the population is the strongest pillar not
only of the parliamentary corruption in Paris and Rome but
also of Russian despotism. Yet it is by no means insuperable.
Since the rise of the working-class movement in Western
Europe, particularly in those parts where small peasant hold
ings predominate, it has not been particularly difficult for the
bourgeoisie to render the socialist workers suspicious and
odious in the minds of the peasants as partageux, as people
who want to “divide up”, as lazy greedy city dwellers who
have an eye on the property of the peasants. The hazy social
istic aspirations of the Revolution of February 1848 were
rapidly disposed of by the reactionary ballots of the French
peasantry; the peasant, who wanted peace of mind, dug up
from his treasured memories the legend of Napoleon, the
emperor of the peasants, and created the Second Empire. We
all know what this one feat of the peasants cost the people of
France; it is still suffering from its aftermath.
But much has changed since then. The development of
the capitalist form of production has cut the life-strings of
small production in agriculture; small production is irretriev
ably going to rack and ruin. Competitors in North and South
America and in India, too, have swamped the European mar
ket with their cheap grain, so cheap that no domestic produc
er can compete with it. The big landowners and small peas
ants alike see ruin staring them in the face. And since they
are both owners of land and country folk, the big landowners
assume the role of champions of the interests of the small
peasants, and the small peasants by and large accept them as
such.
Meanwhile a powerful socialist workers’ party has sprung
up and developed in the West. The obscure presentiments and
feelings dating back to the February Revolution have become
clarified and acquired the broader and deeper scope of a
programme that meets all scientific requirements and con
tains definite tangible demands; and a steadily growing
number of socialist deputies fight for these demands in the
German, French and Belgian parliaments. The conquest of
political power by the Socialist Party has become a matter of
the not too distant future. But in order to conquer political
power this party must first go from the towns to the country,
must become a power in the countryside. This party, which
has an advantage over all others in that it possesses a clear
insight into the interconnections between economic causes
and political effects and long ago descried the wolf in the
sheep’s clothing of the big landowner, that importunate
friend of the peasant—may this party calmly leave the
doomed peasant in the hands of his false protectors until he
has been transformed from a passive into an active opponent
of the industrial workers? This brings us right into the thick
of the peasant question.
Published in
Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 1 ,1 0, Translated from the German
Stuttgart, 1894-95
EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS ON THE IRISH
QUESTION WRITTEN BY FREDERICK ENGELS
TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT
December 1, 1885
The elections here are proceeding very nicely .410 It is the
first time that the Irish in England have voted en masse for
one side, and in fact for the Tories. They have thus shown
the Liberals the extent to which they can decide the issue
even in England. The 80 to 85 Home Rulers—Liverpool, too,
has elected one—who occupy the same position here as the
Centre Party does in the Reichstag,4* 1 can wreck any
government. Parnell must now show what he really is.
Incidentally, a victory has also been won by the new
Manchester School,412 that is, the theory of aggressive
tariffs, although it is here even more absurd than in Germany,
but after eight years of commercial stagnation the idea has
taken possession of the young manufacturers. Then there is
Gladstone’s opportunist weakness and the clumsy manner of
Chamberlain, who first throws his weight about and then
draws in his horns; this has called forth the cry: the Church
in danger! Finally, Gladstone’s lamentable foreign policy.
The Liberals profess to belifcve that the new county voters
will vote for them. There is, indeed, no telling how these
voters will act, but in order to obtain an absolute majority
the Liberals would have to win 180 of the 300 still outstand
ing districts, and that will hardly happen. Parnell will almost
certainly wield dictatorial powers in Great Britain and
Ireland.
466 ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN. MAY 22,1886
TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER
December 5, 1885
The elections in France placed the Radicals next in the
running for control, thereby improving our prospects a good
deal, too. The elections here have temporarily made the Irish
masters of England and Scotland, for not one of the two
parties can rule without them. Though the results in nearly
100 seats are not yet known they will change little. Thus the
Irish problem will at last be settled, if not immediately then
in the near future, and then the way will have been cleared
there, too. At the same time some eight to ten workers have
been elected—some are bought by the bourgeoisie, others are
strict trade-unionists. They will probably make fools of them
selves and hence greatly advance the formation of an inde
pendent labour party by destroying the traditional self-decep
tion of the workers. Here history moves slowly, but it moves.
TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN
May 22, 1886
I am sending you Thursday’s Parliamentary debates
(Daily News) on the Irish Arms Bill, which restricts the right
of the Irish to own and carry arms. Hitherto it was directed
only against the nationalists, but now it is to be turned also
against the Protestant braggarts of Ulster, who threaten to
rebel.413 There is a remarkable speech by Lord Randolph
Churchill, the brother of the Duke of Marlborough, a
democratising Tory; in the last Tory cabinet he was Secretary
for India and is thus a member of the Privy Council for life.
In face of the feeble and cowardly protestations and assur
ances made by our petty-bourgeois socialists regarding the
peaceful attainment of the goal under any circumstances, it is
indeed very timely to show that English ministers, Althorp,
Peel, Morley and even Gladstone, proclaim the right to revo
lution as a part of constitutional theory—though only so long
as they form the opposition, as Gladstone’s subsequent
TO FLORENCE KELLYWISCHNEWETZKY. FEBRUARY 22, 1888 467
twaddle proves, but even then he does not dare to deny the
right as such—especially because it comes from England, the
country of legality par excellence. A more telling repudiation
could hardly be found for our Vierecks.
TO FRIEDRICH ADOLF SORGE

r
June 18, 1887
Yesterday evening the Irish Coercion Bill was clause by
clause hurried through the House of Commons in two
minutes.414 It is a worthy counterpart of the Anti-Socialist
Law and opens the door to completely arbitrary action by
the police. Things regarded as fundamental rights in England
are forbidden in Ireland and become crimes. This Bill is the
tombstone of today’s Tories, whom I did not consider so
stupid, and of the Liberal Unionists,415 whom I hardly
thought so contemptible. It is moreover intended, not to last
for a limited period, but indefinitely. The British Parliament
has been reduced to the level of the German Reichstag.
Though certainly not for long.
TO FLORENCE KELLY-WISCHNEWETZKY
February 22, 1888
The stupidity of the present Tory government is appal
ling—if old Disraeli was alive, he would box their ears right
and left. But this stupidity helps on matters wonderfully.
Home Rule for Ireland and for London is now the cry here;
the latter a thing which the Liberals fear even more than the
Tories do. The working class element is getting more and
more exasperated, through the stupid Tory provocations, is
getting daily more conscious of its strength at the ballot-box,
and more penetrated by the socialist leaven.
468 ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL. JANUARY 23, 1890
TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT
February 29, 1888
Have heard nothing of the Irish tricolour to which you
refer. Irish flags in Ireland and here are simply green with a
golden harp, but without a crown (in the British coat-of-arms
the harp wears a crown). In the Fenian days, 1865-67, many
were green and orange to show the Orangemen of the
North^16 that they would not be destroyed, but accepted as
brothers. However, no question of that any more.
December 7, 1889
I hope the next general election will be deferred for ano
ther three years—1. So that during the period of the greatest
war danger Gladstone, the lackey of the Russians, should not
be at the head of affairs; this might already be a sufficient
reason for the Tsar* to provoke a war. 2. So that the anti-
Conservative majority becomes so large that real Home Rule
for Ireland becomes a necessity, otherwise Gladstone will
cheat the Irish again, and this obstacle—the Irish question-
wili not be cleared away. 3. However, so that the labour
movement may develop further and perhaps mature more
rapidly as a result of the set-back caused by the business
recession which will certainly follow the present period of
prosperity. The next parliament may then comprise 20 to 40
labour deputies, and moreover of a very different kind from
the Potters, Cremers and Co.
TO AUGUST BEBEL
January 23, 1890
I see no reason why we should not repay the Progressists
for their infamous behaviour of 1887417 and bring it home
* Alexander III.—Ed.
ENGELS TO N. F. DANIELSON. JUNE 10, 1890 469
to them that they exist by our grace only. Parnell’s decision
of 1886 that the Irish in England should all vote against the
Liberals, for the Tories, that is, for the first time since 1800
stop being a herd voting for the Liberals, transformed Glad
stone and the Liberal chiefs into Home Rulers in a matter of
six weeks.418 If anything can still be made out of the Pro
gressists, then only by showing them in the by-elections ad
oculos that they are dependent on us. t
TO NIKOLAI FRANTSEVICH DANIELSON

June 10, 1890
Here in England, Rent is applied as well to the payment
of the English capitalist farmer to his landlord, as to that of
the Irish pauper farmer, who pays a complete tribute com
posed chiefly of a deduction from his fund of maintenance,
earned by his own labour, and only to the smallest extent
consisting of true rent. So the English in India transformed
the land-tax paid by the ryot (peasant) to the State into
“rent”, and consequently have, in Bengal at least, actually
transformed the zemindar (tax-gatherer of the former Indian
prince) into a landlord holding a nominal feudal tenure from
the Crown exactly as in England, where the Crown is nominal
proprietor of all the landj'vand the great nobles, the real
owners, are by juridical fiction supposed to be feudal tenants
of the Crown. Similarly when in the beginning of the 17th
century the North of Ireland was subjected to direct English
dominion, and the English lawyer Sir John Davies found
there a rural community with common possession of the
land, which was periodically divided amongst the members of
the clan who paid a tribute to the chief, Davies <trans-
formed> declared that tribute at once<into>to be “rent”.
Thus the Scotch lairds—chiefs of clans—profited, since the
insurrection of 1745, of this juridical confusion, of the
tribute paid to them by the clansmen, with a “rent” for the
lands held by them, in order to transform the whole of the
<common> clan-land, the common property of the clan, into
their, the lairds, private property; for—said the lawyers, if
470 ENGELS TO F. A. SORGE. AUGUST 11, 1891
they were not the landlords, how could they receive rent for
that land? And thus this confusion of tribute and rent was
the basis of the confiscation of all the lands of the Scottish
Highlands for the benefit of a few chiefs of clan who very
soon after drove out the old clansmen and replaced them by
sheep as described in C[apital\ chapter 24,3/ (p. 754, 3-rd
edit [ion]).

February 11, 1891
The gasworkers now have the most powerful organisation
in Ireland419 and will put up their own candidates in the
next election, unconcerned over either Parnell dr MacCarthy.
That Parnell is now so friendly with the workers, he owes to
encounters with these same gasworkers, who had no com
punctions about telling him the truth. Michael Davitt, too,
who had at first wanted independent Irish Trades Unions, has
learned from them: their constitution secures them perfectly
free home rule. To them the credit for giving impetus to the
labour movement in Ireland. Many of their branches consist
of agricultural labourers.

August 11, 1891
Tussy’s report to the Brussels Congress on behalf of the
gasworkers and others, is very good. I shall send it to you.
Tussy is going to Brussels with a mandate from the Dublin
Congress of Gasworkers and General Labourers, thus repre
senting 100,000 .4 20 Aveling, too, has 3 or 4 mandates. To all
appearances, the old Trades Unions will be poorly represent
ed. So much the better this time!
ENGELS TO HERMANN SCHL0TER. MARCH 30, 1892 471
TO FRAU LIEBKNECHT
December 2, 1891
Nothing particularly new; Tussy has the not entirely
undeserved reputation of being the leader of the Union of
Gasworkers and General Labourers, and f&vas away to agitate
eight days in Northern Ireland the week before last. These
gasworkers are fine fellows, their Union by far the most pro
gressive; they are so good at “legal” agitation that eighteen
months ago in Leeds they won two real battles—first against
the police and then against the police and dragoons—forcing
the municipality, which owns the gasworks, to capitulate.42*
As an old soldier, I can certify that I find no fault either in
the strategic or tactical dispositions of Will Thome, the
General Secretary of the Union, who was in command in
these battles.
TO HERMANN SCHLOTER
March 30, 1892
Your great obstacle in America, it seems to me, lies in the
exceptional position of the native workers. Up to 1848 one
could only speak of the permanent native working class as an
exception: the small beginnings of it in the cities in the East
always had still the hope of becoming farmers or bourgeois.
Now a working class has developed and has also to a great
extent organised itself on trade union lines. But it still takes
up an aristocratic attitude and wherever possible leaves the
ordinary badly paid occupations to the immigrants, of whom
only a small section enter the aristocratic trades. But these
immigrants are divided into different nationalities and under
stand neither one another nor, for the most part, the
language of the country. And your bourgeoisie knows much
better even than the Austrian Government how to play off
one nationality against the other: Jews, Italians, Bohemians,
etc., against Germans and Irish, and each one against the
other, so that differences in the standard of life of different
472 ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL. JULY 7, 1892
workers exist, I believe, in New York to an extent unheard-of
elsewhere. And added to this is the total indifference of a
society which has grown up on a purely capitalist basis, with
out any comfortable feudal background, towards the human
beings who succumb in the competitive struggle: “there will
be plenty more, and more than we want, of these damned
Dutchmen,* Irishmen, Italians, Jews and Hungarians”; and,
to cap it all, John Chinaman** stands in the background who
far surpasses them all in his ability to live on next to nothing.
TO NIKOLAI FRANTSEVICH DANIELSON

June 18,1892
Everything necessary to keep farm labourers just alive
during the winter is frequently earned by women and chil
dren working in some new branch of domestic industry (see
Capital, Vol. I, Chapter XV, Section 8, d). This is the case in
southern and western England and among the small farmers
of Ireland and Germany. The devastating consequences of the
separation of agriculture from domestic industry carried on
in the patriarchal manner are particularly marked during the
transition period, and this is happening just now in your
country.
TO AUGUST BEBEL
July 7, 1892
In brief, the Labour Party has declared itself clearly and
unequivocally,422 meaning that in the next election the two
old parties will offer it alliance. The Tories are out of the
question so long as they are led by the present dolts. But the
Liberals must be considered, and likewise the Irish. Since the
public outcry for that ridiculous business with adultery,423
* In the U.S.A. this was applied to the Germans.—Ed.
** A nickname for the Chinese used in the U.S.A.—Ed.
ENGELS TO F. A. SORGE, NOVEMBER 10,1894 473
Parnell has suddenly become friendly to the workers, and the
Irish gentlemen in Parliament will follow suit once they see
that only the workers can get them Home Rule. Then there
will be compromises, and the Fabians,424 conspicuous by
their absence in this election, will come forward again. But
that is unavoidable in the circumstances. There is headway, as
you see, and that is what matters. r
TO AUGUST BEBEL
January 24, 1893
What Aveling told me confirms the suspicion I already
had, namely, that Keir Hardie secretly cherishes the wish to
lead the new party in a dictatorial way, just as Parnell led the
Irish, and that moreover he tends to sympathise with the
Conservative Party rather than the Liberal opposition. He
publicly declares that Parnell’s experiment, which compelled
Gladstone to give in, ought to be repeated at the next elec
tion and where it is impossible to nominate a Labour candi
date one should vote for the Conservatives, in order to show
the Liberals the power of the party. Now this is a policy
which under definite circumstances I myself recommended to
the English; however, if at the very outset one does not an
nounce it as a possible tactical move but proclaims it as tactics
to be followed under any circumstances, then it smells
strongly of Champion.

November 10, 1894
Anglo-Saxon sectarianism prevails in the labour move
ment, too. The Social-Democratic Federation, just like your
German Socialist Labour Party,425 has managed to trans
form our theory into the rigid dogma of an orthodox sect; it
is narrow-mindedly exclusive and thanks to Hyndman has a
thoroughly rotten tradition in international politics, which is
474 ENGELS TO F. A. SORGE, NOVEMBER 10, 1894
shaken from time to time, to be sure, but which has not been
broken with as yet. The Independent Labour Party is ex
tremely indefinite in its tactics, and its leader, Keir Hardie, is
a supercunning Scot, whose demagogic tricks are not to be
trusted for a minute. Although he is a poor devil of a Scottish
coal miner, he has founded a big weekly, The Labour Lead-
er,426 which could not have been established without con
siderable money, and he is getting this money from Tory or
Liberal-Unionist, that is, anti-Gladstone and anti-Home Rule
sources. There can be no doubt about this, and his notorious
literary connections in London as well as direct reports and
his political attitude confirm it. Consequently, owing to deser
tions by Irish and radical voters,4 27 he may very easily lose
his seat in Parliament at the 1895 general elections and that
would be a stroke of good luck—the man is the greatest
obstacle at present. He appears in Parliament only on
demagogic occasions, in order to cut a figure with phrases
about the unemployed—without getting anything done—or to
address imbecilities to the Queen* on the occasion of the
birth of a prince, which is infinitely banal and cheap in this
country, and so forth. Otherwise there are very good
elements both in the Social-Democratic Federation and in the
Independent Labour Party, especially in the provinces, but
they are scattered; yet they have at least managed to foil all
the efforts of the leaders to incite the two organisations
against each other.
* Victoria.—Ed.
Supplement
THE IRISH STATE PRISONERS.
SIR GEORGE GREY AND THE INTERNATIONAL
WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION428
Some weeks ago Mr. J. Pope Hennessy addressed the fol

lowing communication to the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette:
Sir,—It appears that the Pall Mall Gazette has thrown the
Home Office into a state of vigorous activity. It is currently
reported that Sir George Grey and other members of the
Government have within the last few days been seen in the
almost impenetrable disguise of practical and zealous citizens
looking into casual wards and night refuges. Now, if this be
so, I would ask you to let me point out to the transformed
officials of the Home Office a rather gloomy institution
where a visit or two might not be thrown away—I mean the
convict prison of Pentonville. Nor should the visitors consist
only of Sir George Grey and his secretaries. Pentonville has at
present (or ought to have) a peculiar interest for Lord Russell
and Mr. Gladstone. The political prisoners recently convicted
in Ireland are undergoing within its walls the severest form of
discipline next to death known to the English law—the Pen
tonville separate system. It is on behalf of these political
prisoners especially that I venture to suggest some kind [of]
inquiry. It must be admitted that Lord Russell and Mr. Glad
stone in their remonstrances on the treatment of political
prisoners were not always as temperate in their language as
eminent statesmen in these days, are expected to be. The
principle they laid down, that political offenders should not
be treated in all respects like common convicts, was sound
enough; though to characterise the violation of that principle
as a “breach of all moral law”, as an “abominable persecu
tion”, as “a savage and cowardly system”, was going a little
478 SUPPLEMENT
too far. In borrowing Lord Russell’s and Mr. Gladstone’s
principle, I therefore disclaim all connection with the rather
violent phraseology in which they thought fit to enforce it.
One reason for being somewhat more moderate than they
were is self-evident. They were exposing the misconduct of
foreign governments; I am endeavouring to correct the mis
conduct of a government in which these benevolent
champions of imprisoned politicians are highly responsible
members. It would be ungenerous to turn their own weapons
against such champions in such a cause. Therefore, without
borrowing any of the warm and indignant invectives of Lord
Russell and Mr. Gladstone, I simply charge them with being
parties to a breach of that well-known principle they have
embodied in so many dispatches, speeches, and letters—that
political convicts should not be treated like common con
victs; and I also charge the present administration with treat
ing the Irish political prisoners so severely that probably
some of them will go mad. In Mr. Gladstone’s famous letter
to Lord Aberdeen (p. 31) he says:
I had heard that the political offenders were obliged to have their
heads shaved; but this had not been done, though they had been
obliged to shave away any beard they might have had. I must say I was
astonished at the mildness with which they spoke of those at whose
hands they were enduring these abominable persecutions.
Not many days ago Mr. Gladstone might have read how
the political offenders in Ireland half an hour after they were
sentenced had their heads closely cropped, their beards and
whiskers shaved off; how they were then stripped of their
ordinary clothes, put into the convict dress, handcuffed, and
sent off to Pentonville.
“In thirty minutes,” said a Government organ describing the opera
tion, “they were so changed that their dearest friends could hardly
recognise them.”
In another part of this pamphlet Mr. Gladstone describes
the unhappy condition of the political prisoners confined in
the Bagno of Nisida after their sentence:
For one half-hour of the week, a little prolonged by the leniency of
the superintendent, they were allowed to see their friends outside the
prison. This was the sole view of the natural beauties with which they
THE IRISH STATE PRISONERS 479
were surrounded. At other times they were exclusively within the
walls—P. 29
About a fortnight ago an Irish magistrate applied to the
Home Office for permission to see the political prisoners now
in England. Sir George Grey refused his application on the
ground that for the first six months no stranger whatever can
be allowed to visit a convict undergoing the^separate system
at Pentonville. What is the separate system of Pentonville? It
is very unlike the system so eloquently exposed by Mr. Glad
stone. The prisoners are not “allowed to see their friends
outside the prison”, nor are they allowed to see them inside
the prison; nor are they allowed to see each other. Each
prisoner has a solitary world of his own, thirteen feet by
seven. A portion of this cell is occupied by a water-closet,
and within two yards of this he takes his solitary meals,
performs his solitary task work, and rests at night. If he omits
to scrub and clean out his cell every morning or if he breaks
any other law of his little world, the directors can order him
to be flogged, and put on bread and water for twenty-eight
days in another little world where there is no light. What is
the effect of this separate system? The Blue Books of the
recent Royal Commission on Transportation and Penal
Servitude give us the latest and most accurate information on
the subject. Sir Joshua Jebb in his evidence speaks of what he
calls “the serious physical effects” of the Pentonville separate
system.
When the prisoners were embarked in ships in order to go
to Van Diemen’s Land,429 a number of them fell into fits,
and it was only by associating them for a fortnight or so
before they left Pentonville that these fits ceased on em
barkation.
Earl Grey. The suddenness of the change I suppose had that ef
fect? —Yes. The medical men could not account for them; the fits were
of an anomalous character.
Sir John Pakington: What was the nature of the fits? —The medical
superintendent was in dismay. He had never seen anything of the kind
before. They were very peculiar.
Sir John Pakington: Did the fits affect the health of the men after
wards? —The men got better afterwards; but they were reported to be
very quiet. There is reason to believe that the effect was produced by
the strictness of the separation.—P. 18.
480 SUPPLEMENT
Sir John Pakington will find in Judge Therry’s Reminis
cences o f New South Wales (1863) a further answer to this
question. The only English convict prison to which Judge
Therry refers is Pentonville. “It in a great degree unfitted
them (the discharge of convicts) for domestic and general
service. It imparted to them abstracted and eccentric habits.”
The medical profession were of opinion that the system “had
seriously impaired the mental faculties of several of the
Fentonvillains, as they were termed.”—(P. 354). The present
practice is to send the prisoners at the termination of the
Pentonville system, to Chatham or to Portland to work in
gangs with other convicts. This is called letting them into the
world again. It is then that the full effect of Pentonville upon
the mental faculties becomes manifest. Mr. Measor, the
Deputy Governor of Chatham, in his evidence before the
Royal Commission, says: “I have observed when they come
down to the public works’ prisons that they are in a very
flabby condition of mind, and a very flabby condition
physically, and I believe it (the Pentonville system) produces
both effects.” He is asked, “You are able to state this from
your own experience? ” He answers:
Yes. I have seen men who have come from separate confinement to
whom I should be sorry to talk upon any subject with the expectation
of getting any reasonable view from them. They appear as if they had
been undergoing something which had so utterly depressed their system
that you would no more think of treating them as reasonable
beings, capable of being strongly remonstrated with, than you
would a man who was almost at the door of death. (Vol. ii,
p. 446.)
The proportion of those who are driven permanently

insane by the Pentonville system is by no means small. The
annual report of the Directors of Convict Prisons for the
same year (1863) that the Deputy Governor of Chatham gave
his evidence contains a table showing the number of convicts
arriving at Chatham in twelve months, and the numbers trans
ferred from Chatham in twelve months. From this table
(p. 222) the following figures are taken. They confirm Mr.
Measor’s evidence, though they tell, a more precise and
painful tale:
No. of
Convicts
Received into Chatham convict prison
since the 1st of January ...................... 852
Transferred to Millbank......................... 1
to Dartmoor . . ................... 2
to W oking.......................... 26
” to Broadmoor Lunatic
A sy lu m ............................... 85
It is only fair to state, though, that this proportion of
persons who are made mad by the separate system [is smaller
than when this system] was carried out with greater severity.
In the same report from which these figures are taken there is
a statement of the medical officer of Pentonville, in which he
remarks that “since 1859 the separate system has assumed a
milder character, and for the last triennial period the insanity
is less than any previous one, and the suicidal cases are also
less.”—(P. 29.) It is evident that the Pentonville system
breaks down the mind, and that the number of those who are
rendered absolutely insane is in direct proportion to the
severity of the treatment. After such facts, it is hardly worth
while mentioning that the dietary at Pentonville is lower than
in any other convict prison (Vol. i, p. 274, of the Royal
Commission). In short, confinement in Pentonville is the
severest punishment, except death, allowed by the law. I am
not certain that I ought to say “except death”, for I find the
Protestant chaplain in his report saying that any one who
thinks a convict is petted would change his opinion if he
could visit Pentonville and “behold (a specimen of the sterner
type of treatment here) a ruffian now under a sentence of life
penal servitude for a savage assault committed in another
prison, and ready to imbrue his hands here in the blood of
any one who might come helplessly within his reach, glad to
exchange his present state for the gallows.”—(p. 117.) If a
convict attempts to kill a warder at Portland or any other
convict prison, he is punished by being sent to Pentonville.
There he is left till he dies, or sent in a strait-jacket to Broad
moor. Whether those members of the Government who made
themselves so very busy about political prisoners abroad will
16-226
482 SUPPLEMENT
trouble themselves about political prisoners at home one can
hardly venture to guess. Mr. Gladstone has before now
changed his opinions, and so has Lord Russell. But this much
I think may safely be said, that the people of England will
not approve of condemning prisoners in this country to the
Pentonville separate system
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
/. POPE HENNESS Y
I, Paper-buildings, Temple,
February 2, 1866
This letter having fallen under the eye of a member of the
Central Council of the International Working Men’s Associa
tion,* he communicated with the wife of one of the State
prisoners, and learnt from her these facts, viz., that the State
prisoners now confined in Pentonville Prison were removed
thither on December 23, 1865; that only one letter on either
side was allowed to pass between the prisoner and his wife
during the first six-months term of this mode of incarcera
tion, and that a relaxation of this cruel rule would be a great
boon to the prisoner and a consolation to his suffering
family.
When these facts were laid before the Central Council of
the International Working Men’s Association, that body
whose leading principle it is to appease national animosities
and to encourage a sentiment of international fraternity—that
body, which lamented the long-standing feud between
English and Irish nations, and could see only a new source of
hatred between the two nations in the event of the reduction
to a state of mental imbecility of the Irish State prisoners—
thought it its duty to take the matter into its serious con
sideration.
The Central Council, after full deliberation, resolved to
ask Sir George Grey to receive a deputation, consisting en
tirely of English and Scottish members, whose prayer to the
Home Secretary should be to take care of the mental health
of the State prisoners, and in particular to allow of a more
* Fox.—Ed.
frequent correspondence between the prisoners and their
nearest and dearest relatives. The aim of the Council, in re
solving that the proposed deputation should consist exclu
sively of Britons, was to offer a pledge of amity from the
dominant nation to the suffering people of Ireland. The fol
lowing letter was accordingly sent to Sir George Grey:
To the Right Hon. Sir George Grey,
I*
Secretary of State for the Home Department

18, Bouverie Street, Fleet
Street, February 24, 1866
Sir,—A deputation, consisting exclusively of Englishmen,
from the Working Men’s International Association, solicit an
interview with you at as early a day after next Tuesday as is
convenient to you, to urge upon you the propriety of
mitigating, to a very slight extent, the severity of the prison
discipline now enforced at Pentonville Prison upon the Irish
State prisoners.
I am, Sir, &c.,
W. R. CREMER, Hon. Sec.
To this application the Secretary has received the fol
lowing reply:
Whitehall, March 1, 1866
Sir,—I am directed by Secretary Sir George Grey to ac
knowledge the receipt of your letter of the 24th ult., request
ing him to appoint an early day for receiving a deputation
from the “International Working Men’s Association” on the
subject of the treatment of the Irish State prisoners in Pen
tonville Prison, and I am to acquaint you that the Secretary
of State must decline to receive a deputation on this sub-
ject.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
H. WADDING TON
Mr. W.R. Cremer,
18, Bouverie Street, E. C.
16*
484 SUPPLEMENT
The Central Council submit this correspondence to the
British public, and through them to the public of both con
tinents, without comment.
G. ODGER, President
Published in The Commonwealth Printed according to the text

No. 157, March 10, 1866 of the book The General Council
o f the First International
1864-1866. The London
Conference, 1865, Minutes,
Moscow
MEETING OF THE COUNCIL AND MEMBERS
AND FRIENDS OF THE ASSOCIATION
NOVEMBER 19,1867
Citizen Weston was unanimously elected to take the

chair.
The Secretary * read the resolution from the Minutes of
the previous Council meeting, fixing the order of the day for
the 19th, [it] being the discussion of the Fenian question.
The Chairman said: I think the Council has acted wisely
in determining the discussion of this question at this time,
and I have no doubt that it will receive the attention it
merits.
He then called upon Citizen Jung to open the discussion.**
Mr. Jung said: When I proposed that this question should
be discussed I thought an expression of opinion on the part
of the Council of this Association was desirable. I am no
abettor of physical force movement, but the Irish have no
other means to make an impression. Many people seem to be
frightened at the term “physical force” in this country, yet
even English agitations are not free from its influence. The
Reform League has accomplished much by way of moral
force, but it was only under a threat that physical force
might be resorted to on the occasion of the Hyde Park meet
ings that the Government gave way.430 I should be sorry to
find the working men of this country go wrong upon this
question. They have been right upon every other. The Irish
require more than simple reform. Some endeavours have been
made to divert the attention of the work-people of this
* Eccarius.—Ed.
** Here a newspaper clipping is pasted into the Minute Book.—Ed.
486 SUPPLEMENT
country with regard to the Fenians. While they are de
nounced as murderers, Garibaldi is held up as a great patriot;
and have no lives been sacrificed in Garibaldi’s movement?
The Irish have the same right to revolt as the Italians, and the
Italians have not exhibited greater courage than the Irish. I
may not agree with the particular way in which the Irish
manifest their resistance, but they deserve to be free. (Loud
cheers.)
Mr. Lessner said: Our Association is not confined to any
particular nationality; we are of all nations, and the Irish
question concerns us as much as any other. In the course of
twenty years the Irish population has dwindled down from
eight millions to five and a half millions, and this decline is in
consequence of the British rule. No country can be pros
perous with a declining population. Ireland declines at a rapid
rate, and the Irish have a right to revolt against those who
drive them out of their country; the English would do the
same if any foreign power oppressed them in a similar
manner. (Cheers.)
Mr. Dupont: The Council would be wanting in its duty if
it remained indifferent to the Irish cause. What is Fenianism?
Is it a sect or a party whose principles are opposed to ours?
Certainly not. Fenianism is the vindication by an oppressed
people of its right to spcial and political existence. The
Fenian declarations leave no room for doubt in this respect.
They affirm the republican form of government, liberty of
conscience, no State religion, the produce of labour to the
labourer, and the possession of the soil to the people. What
people could abjure such principles? Only blindness and bad
faith can support the contrary. We hear that those whom the
English law is going to strike down for their devotedness to
such a cause are exclaiming: “We are proud to die for our
country and for republican principles.” Let us see of what
value the reproaches are that are addressed to the Fenians by
the English would-be liberators. Fenianism is not altogether
wrong, they say, but why not employ the legal means of
meetings and demonstrations by the aid of which we have
gained our Reform Bill? I avow that it is hardly possible to
restrain one’s indignation at hearing such arguments. What is
the use of talking of legal means to a people reduced to the
MEETING OF THE COUNCIL. NOVEMBER 19, 1867 487
lowest state of misery from century to century by English
oppression—to people who emigrate by thousands, to obtain
bread, from all parts of the country? Is not this Irish emigra
tion to America by millions the most eloquent legal protest?
Having destroyed all—life and liberty—be not surprised that
nothing should be found but hatred to the oppressor. Is it
well for the English to talk of legality find justice to those
who on the slightest suspicion of Fenianism are arrested and
incarcerated, and subjected to physical and mental tortures
which leave the cruelties of King Bomba,* of whom the
would-be liberators talked so much, far behind? A citizen of
Manchester, whose domicile was invaded by constables, asked
one of them to show his warrant. “Here is my warrant,” he
replied, drawing a pistol from his pocket. This shows the
conduct of the English Government towards the Irish. With
out having right on their side, such conduct is enough to
provoke and justify resistance. The English working men who
blame the Fenians commit more than a fault, for the cause of
both peoples is the same; they have the same enemy to
defeat—the territorial aristocracy and the capitalists. (Cheers.)
Mr.Morgan thought it was rather unfortunate that the
Irish had chosen the name of Fenians, which many English
men considered synonymous with all that is bad. Had they
simply called themselves Republicans, they would have shut
up at once all those Englishmen who profess to be in favour
of Republicanism. Englishmen as a rule did not look as
favourably upon things in their own country as in other
countries. They applauded insurrection abroad, but de
nounced it in Ireland. Deeds that would be considered as
heroism if committed in France, in Italy, or in Poland, would
be stigmatised as crimes in Ireland. The Irish had every reason
to have recourse to physical force. Moral suasion had never
been used towards them by the British Government; it had
always applied to the robe and the musket. The English
ought at least to look as favourably upon the Irish as upon
the Italians. Were they treated in the same manner by a
foreign power they would revolt sooner than the Irish. (Hear,
hear.)
* Ferdinand II.—Ed.
488 SUPPLEMENT
Mr. Lucraft said the question was not whether the Irish
were justified in using physical force, but whether they could
do any good by it. He thought they could not. He thought it
rather strange that the Irish of London, for instance, had not
made common cause with the English and Scotch in the
reform agitation.
Mr. Weston thought the word Fenianism meant the heat
produced by centuries of oppression, and the hatred engen
dered by it, which could not be cured by the concessions of
reform which the English demanded for themselves. A
government that had trampled upon the rights of a people
could never be reached by moral suasion, but by physical
force resistance. In England there was no need of bludgeons,
but in Ireland moral force had not [had] fair play. The
rescue of the Fenian prisoners at Manchester was an exact
duplicate affair of the rescue that was now attempted by the
British Government of the prisoners held in Abyssinia. If
killing was murder to rescue prisoners in Manchester, it was
murder in Abyssinia; if it was wrong in one place it was
wrong in the other. The crime of starving the Irish was far
greater than the accidental killing of one man in trying to
rescue the Fenian prisoners. He did not believe in the justice
of the law. The laws were made and administered by hostile
partisans, and there was a possibility of finding an innocent
man guilty. He thought Ireland had been governed with more
heartlessness than any other country, and he was glad that
the Irish question had come uppermost. The democracy of
the sister kingdoms must take the matter up and redress the
wrong. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. William Parks said that the Irish in Ireland, in Amer
ica, and in England were all of one opinion,—they wanted
Ireland for the Irish, and to govern themselves.
Citizen Jayet argued in a speech of some length that
physical force resistance was a bounden duty for every
people who was oppressed by tyrants, were they of home or
foreign origin, and showed that this was laid down as a
maxim in the constitution of the French Convention, of
which Robespierre had been a leading member.*
* Jayet’s speech is recorded in handwriting.—-Ed.
MEETING OF THE COUNCIL. NOVEMBER 19, 1867 489
Upon the proposition of Dr. Marx, the discussion was
adjourned to Tuesday next.*
Upon the proposition of Citizen Lucraft, it was agreed
after some discussion, and the Standing Committee with the
chairman of the meeting were instructed, to draw up a
memorial to the Home Secretary concerning the Fenian
prisoners under sentence of death at Manchester and present
it to a special meeting of the Council for adoption on
Wednesday, November 20.**

Minutes, Moscow
* Here the following sentence is crossed out :“The Standing Com

mittee was instructed to draw up a memorial to the Home Secretary on
behalf of the Fenian prisoners now under sentence of death at Man
chester.” The newspaper clipping ends here.—Ed.
** Unsigned. For the memorial see pp. 128-29 —Ed.
ADDRESS OF THE LAND AND LABOUR LEAGUE
TO THE WORKING MEN AND WOMEN
OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND431
Fellow-Workers,
The fond hopes held out to the toiling and suffering mil
lions of this country thirty years ago have not been realised.
They were told that the removal of fiscal restrictions would
make the lot of the labouring poor easy; if it could not
render them happy and contented it would at least banish
starvation for ever from their midst.
They rose a terrible commotion for the big loaf,432 the
landlords became rampant, the money lords confounded, the
factory lords rejoiced—their will was done—Protection re
ceived the coup de grace. A period of the most marvellous
prosperity followed. At first the Tories threatened to reverse
the policy, but on mounting the ministerial benches, in 1852,
instead of carrying out their threat, they joined the chorus in
praise of unlimited competition. Prepared for a pecuniary
loss they discovered to their utter astonishment that the rent-
roll was swelling at the rate of more than £ 2,000,000 a year.
Never in the history of the human race was there so much
wealth—means to satisfy the wants of man—produced by so
few hands, and in so short a time, as since the abolition of
the Com Laws. During the lapse of twenty years the declared
value of the annual exports of British and Irish produce and
manufactures—the fruits of your own labour—rose from
£60,000,000 to £188,900,000. In twenty years the taxable
income of the lords and ladies of the British soil increased,
upon their own confession, from £98,000,000 to
£140,000,000 a year; that of the chiefs of trades and profes
sions from £60,000,000 to £110,000,000 a year. Could
human efforts accomplish more?
ADDRESS OF THE LAND AND LABOUR LEAGUE 491
Alas! there are stepchildren in Britania’s family. No
Chancellor of the Exchequer has yet divulged the secret how
the £140,000,000 are distributed amongst the territorial
magnates, but we know all about the trades-folk. The special
favourites increased from sixteen, in 1846, to one hundred
and thirty-three, in 1866. Their average annual income rose
from £74,300 to £100,600 each. They appropriated one-
fourth of the twenty years’ increase. The next of kin in
creased from three hundred and nineteen to nine hundred
and fifty-nine individuals: their average annual income rose
from £17,700 to £19,300 each: they appropriated another
fourth. The remaining half was distributed amongst three
hundred and forty-six thousand and forty-eight respectables,
whose annual income ranged between £100 and £ 10,000
sterling. The toiling millions, the producers of that wealth—
Britania’s cinderellas -got cuffs and kicks instead of halfpence.
In the year 1864 the taxable income under schedule
D433 increased by £9,200,000. Of that increase the metro
polis, with less than an eighth of the population, absorbed
£4,266,000, nearly a half. £3,123,000 of that, more than a
third of the increase of Great Britain, was absorbed by the
City of London, by the favourites of the one hundred and
seventy-ninth part of the British population: Mile End and
the Tower, with a working population four times as nume
rous, got £175,000. The citizens of London are smothered
with gold; the householders of the Tower Hamlets are over
whelmed by poor-rates. The citizens, of course, object to
centralisation of poor-rates purely on the principle of local
self-government.
During the ten years ending 1861 the operatives em
ployed in the cotton trade increased 12 per cent; their
produce 103 per cent. The iron miners increased 6 per cent;
the produce of the mines 37 per cent. Twenty thousand iron
miners worked for ten mine owners. During the same ten
years the agricultural labourers of England and Wales dimin
ished by eighty-eight thousand one hundred and forty-seven,
and yet, during that period, several hundred thousand acres
of common land were enclosed and transformed into private
property to enlarge the estates of the nobility, and the same
process is still going on.
492 SUPPLEMENT
In twelve years the rental liable to be rateed to the poor
in England and Wales rose from <£86,700,000 to
£118,300,000: the number of adult able-bodied paupers in
creased from one hundred and forty-four thousand five hun
dred to one hundred and eighty-five thousand six hundred.
These are no fancy pictures, originating in the wild spec
ulations of hot-brained incorrigibles; they are the confessions
of landlords and money lords, recorded in their own blue
books. One of their experts told the House of Lords the
other day that the propertied classes, after faring sumptu
ously, laid by £150,000,000 a year out of the produce of
your labour. A few weeks later the president of the Royal
College of Surgeons related to a jury, assembled to inquire
into the causes of eight untimely deaths, what he saw in the
foul ward of St. Pancras.
Hibernia’s favourites too have multiplied, and their
income has risen while a sixth of her toiling sons and daugh
ters perished by famine, and its consequent diseases, and a
third of the remained were evicted, ejected and expatriated
by tormenting felonious usurpers.
This period of unparalleled industrial prosperity has land
ed thousands of our fellow-toilers—honest, unsophisticated,
hard-working men and women—in the stone yard and the
oakum room434; the roast beef of their dreams has turned
into skilly. Hundreds of thousands, men, women and children
are wandering about—homeless, degraded outcasts—in the
land that gave them birth, crowding the cities and towns, and
swarming the highroads in the country in search of work to
obtain food and shelter, without being able to find any.
Other thousands, more spirited than honest, are walking the
treadmill to expiate little thefts, preferring prison discipline
to workhouse fare, while the wholesale swindlers are at large,
and felonious landlords preside at quarter sessions to ad
minister the laws. Thousands of the young and strong cross
the seas, flying from their native firesides, like from an ex
terminating plague; the old and feeble perish on the roadside
of hunger and cold. The hospitals and infirmaries are over
crowded with fever and famine-stricken: death from starva
tion has become an ordinary every-day occurrence.
All parties are agreed that the sufferings of the labouring
poor were never more intense, and misery so widespread, nor
the means of satisfying the wants of man ever so abundant as
at present. This proves above all that the moral foundation of
all civil government, “that the welfare of the entire com
munity is the highest law, and ought to be the aim and end of
all civil legislation”, has been utterly disregarded. Those who
preside over the destinies of the nation ha\|p either wantonly
neglected their primary duty while attending to the special
interests of the rich to make them richer, or their social
position, their education, their class prejudices have in
capacitated them from doing their duty to the community at
large or applying the proper remedies, in either case they
have betrayed their trust.
Class government is only possible on the condition that
those who are held in subjection are secured against positive
want. The ruling classes have failed to secure the industrious
wages-labourer in the prime of his life against hunger and
death from starvation. Their remedies have signally failed,
their promises have not been fulfilled. They promised
retrenchment, they have enormously increased the public ex
penditure instead. They promised to lift the burden of taxa
tion from your shoulders, the rich pay but a fractional part
of the increased expenses; the rest is levied upon your neces
saries—even your pawn tickets are taxed—to keep up a stand
ing army, drawn from your own ranks, to shoot you down if
you show signs of disaffection. They promised to minimise
pauperism: they have made indigence and destitution your
average condition—the big loaf has dwindled into no loaf.
Every remedy they have applied has but aggravated the evil,
and they have no other to suggest,—their rule is doomed. To
continue is to involve all in a common ruin. There is but
one,—and only one,—remedy. Help Yourselves! Determine
that you will not endure this abominable state of things any
longer; act up to your determination, and it will vanish.
A few weeks ago a score of London working men talked
the matter over. They came to the conclusion that the pres
ent economical basis of society was the foundation of all the
existing evils,—that nothing short of a transformation of the
existing social and political arrangements could avail, and
that such a transformation could only be effected by the
494 SUPPLEMENT
toiling millions themselves. They embodied their conclusions
in a series of resolutions, and called a conference of repre
sentative working men, to whom they were submitted for
consideration. In three consecutive meetings those resolu
tions were discussed and unanimously adopted. To carry
them out a new working men’s organisation, under the title
of tht “Land and Labour League”, was established. An ex
ecutive council of upwards of forty well-known representa
tive working men was appointed to draw up a platform of
principles arising out of the preliminary resolutions adopted
by the conference, to serve as the programme of agitation by
means of which a radical change can be effected.
After mature consideration the Council agreed to the fol
lowing:
1. Nationalisation of the Land.
2. Home Colonisation.
3. National, Secular, Gratuitous and Compulsory Educa
tion.
4. Suppression of Private Banks of Issue. The State Only
to Issue Paper Money.
5. A Direct and Progressive Property Tax, in Lieu of All
Other Taxes.
6. Liquidation of the National Debt.
7. Abolition of the Standing Army.
8. Reduction of the Number of the Hours of Labour.
9. Equal Electoral Rights, with Payment of Members.
The success of our efforts will depend upon the pressure
that can be brought to bear upon the powers that be, and this
requires numbers, union, organisation and combination. We
therefore call upon you to unite, organise and combine, and
raise the cry throughout Ireland, Scotland, Wales and
England, “The Land for the People”—the rightful inheritors
of nature’s gifts. No rational state of society can leave the
land, which is the source of life, under the control of, and
subject to the whims and caprices of, a few private individu
als. A government elected by, and as trustee for, the whole
people is the only power that can manage it for the benefit of
the entire community.
Insist upon the State reclaiming the unoccupied land as a
beginning of its nationalisation, and placing the unemployed
upon it. Let not another acre ot common land be enclosed
for the private purposes of non-producers. Compel the
Government to employ the army, until its final dissolution,
as a pioneer force to weed, drain and level the wastes for
cultivation, instead of forming encampments to prepare for
the destruction of life. If green fields and kitchen gardens are
incompatible with the noble sport of hunting let the hunters
emigrate.
Make the Nine points of the League the Labour program
me, the touchstone by which you test the quality of candi
dates for parliamentary honours, and if you find them spuri
ous reject them like a counterfeit coin, for he who is not for
them is against you.
You are swindled out of the fruits of your toil by land
laws, money laws, and all sorts of laws. Out of the paltry
pittance that is left you, you have to pay the interest of a
debt that was incurred to keep your predecessors in subjec
tion; you have to maintain a standing army that serves no
other purpose in your generation, and you are systematically
overworked when employed, and underfed at all times. Noth
ing but a series of such radical reforms as indicated on our
programme will ever lift you out of the slough of despond in
which you are at present sunk. The difficulty can be over
come by unity of purpose and action. We are many; our
opponents are few. Then working men and women of all
creeds and occupations claim your rights as with one voice,
and rally round, and unite your forces under the banner ot
the “Land and Labour League” to conquer your own eman
cipation!
JOHN WESTON, Treasurer
MARTINJ. BOON Secretaries
J. GEORGE ECCARIUS
Published as a pamphlet Printed according to the text
in London in 1869 of the book
The General Council o f the
Minutes, Moscow
ARTICLES BY JENNY MARX
ON THE IRISH QUESTION435
I
London, February 27, 1870
The Marseillaise Tor February 18 quotes an article from
the Daily News in which the English paper gives information
to the French press concerning the election of O’Donovan
Rossa. Since this information is somewhat confused and since
partial explanations only serve to throw a false light on the
things which they are claiming to elucidate, I should be
grateful if you would kindly publish my comments on the
article in question.
Firstly, the Daily News states that O’Donovan was
sentenced by a jury, but it omits to add that in Ireland the
juries are composed of minions more or less directly nominat
ed by the government.
Then, in speaking with righteous horror of the felony of
treason, the false liberals of the Daily News omit to say that
this new category in the English Penal Code was expressly
invented to identify the Irish patriots with the vilest of
criminals.
Let us take the case of O’Donovan Rossa. He was one of
the editors of the Irish People. Like most of the Fenians he
was sentenced for having written so-called seditious articles.
Consequently the Marseillaise was not wrong in drawing an
analogy between Rochefort and Rossa.
Why does the Daily News, which aims at keeping France
informed about the Fenian prisoners, remain silent about the
appalling treatment which they have received? I trust that
you will allow me to make up for this prudent silence.
Some time ago O’Donovan was put in a dark cell with his
hands tied behind his back. His handcuffs were not removed
ARTICLES BY JENNY MARX ON THE IRISH QUESTION 497
night or day so that he was forced to lick his food, gruel
made with water, lying on the ground. Mr. Pigott, editor of
the Irishman, learnt about this from Rossa who described it
to him in the presence of the prison governor and another
witness, and published the information in his newspaper,
encouraging Mr. Moore, one of the Irish members of the
House of Commons, to request a parliamentary enquiry into
what goes on in the prisons. The government strongly op
posed this request. Thus, Mr. Moore’s motion was rejected by
171 votes to 36—a worthy supplement to the voting which
crushed the right to suffrage.
And this took place during the ministry of the sanctimo
nious Gladstone. As you can see the great Liberal leader
knows how to mock humanity and justice. There are also
Judases who do not wear glasses.
Here is another case which also does England credit.
O’Leary, a Fenian prisoner aged between sixty and seventy,
was put on bread and water for three weeks because—the
reader of the Marseillaise would never guess why—because
Leary called himself a “pagan” and refused to say he was
Protestant, Presbyterian, Catholic or Quaker. He was given
the choice of one of these religions or bread and water. Of
these five evils, O’Leary, or “pagan O ’L eary” as he is called,
chose the one that he considered the .least—bread and water.
A few days ago after examining the body of a Fenian
who died at Spike Island Prison the coroner expressed his
very strong disapproval of the manner in which the deceased
man had been treated.
Last Saturday a young Irishman called Gunner Hood left
prison after serving four years. At the age of 19 he had joined
the English army and served England in Canada. He was
taken before a military tribunal in 1866 for having written
seditious articles and sentenced to two years’ hard labour.
When the sentence was pronounced Hood took his cap and
threw it into the air shouting, “Long live the Irish republic! ”
This impassioned cry cost him dear. He was sentenced an
extra two years in prison and fifty strokes for good measure.
This was carried out in the most atrocious manner. Hood was
attached to a plough and two strapping blacksmiths were
armed with cat-o’-nine-tails. There is no equivalent term in
498 SUPPLEMENT
French for the English knout. Only the Russians and the
English know what is meant by this. Like draws to like.
Mr. Carey, a journalist, is kept at present in the part of
the prison intended for the insane, the terrible silence and the
other forms of torture to which he has been subjected having
turned him into a mass of living flesh deprived of all reason.
The Fenian, Colonel Burke, a man who has distinguished
himself not only by his service in the American army but also
as a writer and painter, has also been reduced to a pitiful
state in which he can no longer recognise his closest relatives.
I could add many more names to this list of Irish martyrs.
Suffice it to say that since 1866, when there was a raid on
the Irish People's offices, 20 Fenians have died or gone mad
in the prisons of humanitarian England.
II
London, March 5
During the meeting of the House of Commons on March 3
Mr. Stackpoole questioned Mr. Gladstone on the treatment
of Fenian prisoners. He said, among other things, that
Dr. Lyons of Dublin had recently stated that
“the discipline, diet, personal restrictions and the other punish
ments were bound to cause permanent damage to the prisoners’
health.”
After having expressed complete satisfaction with the
way in which prisoners were treated, Mr. Gladstone crowned
his little speech with this brilliantly witty remark:
“As to the health of G’Donovan Rossa, I am glad to be able to say
that during her last visit to her husband Mrs. O’Donovan Rossa con
gratulated him on looking better. ”436
Whereupon a burst of Homeric laughter broke out from
all sides of that noble assembly. Her last visit! Note that
Mrs. O’Donovan Rossa had not only been separated from her
husband for several years, but that she had travelled all over
America earning money to feed her children by giving public
lectures on English literature.
And bear in mind also that this same Mr. Gladstone,
whose quips are so pointed, is the almost sacred author of
Prayers, the Propagation of the Gospel, The Functions of
Laymen in the Church and the recently published homily
Ecce homo.
Is the profound satisfaction of the head jailer shared by
his prisoners? Read the following extracts |from a letter
written by O ’Donovan Rossa, which by some miracle was
slipped out of the prison and arrived at its destination after
an incredible delay:
LETTER FROM ROSSA

I have already told you about the hypocrisy of these English mas
ters who, after placing me in a position which forced me to get down
on my knees and elbows to eat, are now depriving me of food and light
and giving me chains and a Bible. I am not complaining of the penalties
which my masters inflict on me—it is my job to suffer—but I insist that
I have the right to inform the world of the treatment to, which I am
subjected, and that it is illegal to hold back my letters describing this
treatment. The minute precautions taken by the prison authorities to
prevent me writing letters are as disgusting as they are absurd. The most
insulting method was to strip me once a day for several months and
then examine my arms, legs and all other parts of my body. This took
place at Millbank daily from February to May 1867. One day I refused,
whereupon five prison officers arrived, beat me mercilessly and tore off
my clothes.
Once I succeeded in getting a letter to the outside, for which I was
rewarded by a visit from Messrs. Knox and Pollock, two police magist
rates.
How ironical to send two government employees to find out the
truth about the English prisons. These gentlemen refused to take note
of anything important which I had to tell them. When 1 touched upon a
subject which was not to their liking, they stopped me by saying that
prison discipline was not their concern. Isn’t that so, Messrs. Pollock
and Knox? When I told you that I had been forced to wash in water
which had already been used by half a dozen English prisoners, did you
not refuse to note my complaint?
At Chatham I was given a certain amount of tow to pull out and
told that I would go without food if I did not finish the work by a
certain time.
“Perhaps you’ll still punish me even if I do the job in time,” I
shouted. “That’s what happened to me at Millbank.”
“How could it? ” asked the jailer.
500 SUPPLEMENT
Then I told him that on July 4 1 had finished my work ten minutes
before the appointed time and picked up a book. The officer saw me do
this, accused me of being lazy and I was put on bread and water and
locked in a dark cell for forty-eight hours.
One day I caught sight of my friend Edward Duffy. He was ex
tremely pale. A little later I heard that Duffy was seriously ill and that
he had expressed the wish to see me (we had been very close in
Ireland). I begged the governor to give me permission to visit him. He
refused point-blank. This was round about Christmas *67—and a few
weeks later a prisoner whispered to me through the bars of my cell:
“Duffy is dead.”
How movingly this would have been described by the English if it
had happened in Russia!
If Mr. Gladstone had been present on such a sad occasion in Naples,
what a touching picture he would have painted! Ah! Sweet Pharisees,
trading in hypocrisy, with the Bible on their lips and the devil in their
bellies.
I must say a word in memory of John Lynch. In March 1866 I
found myself together with him in the exercise yard. We were being
watched so closely that he only managed to say to me, “The cold is
killing me.” But then what did the English do to us? They took us to
London on Christmas Eve. When we arrived at the prison they took
away our flannels and left us shivering in our cells for several months.
Yes, they cannot deny that it was they who killed John Lynch. But
nevertheless they managed to produce officials at the enquiry who were
ready to prove that Lynch and Duffy had been given very gentle treat
ment.
The lies of our English oppressors exceed one’s wildest imagination.
If I am to die in prison I entreat my family and my friends not to
believe a word of what these people say. Let me not be suspected of
personal rancour against those who persecuted me with their lies. I
accuse only tyranny which makes the use of such methods necessary.
Many a time the circumstances have reminded me of Machiavelli’s
words: “that tyrants have a special interest in circulating the Bible so
that the people understand its precepts and offer no resistance to being
robbed by brigands”.
So long as an enslaved people follows the sermons on morality and
obedience preached to them by the priests, the tyrants have nothing to
fear.
If this letter reaches my fellow countrymen I have the right to
demand that they raise their voices to insist that justice be done for
their suffering brothers. Let these words whip up the blood that is
moving sluggishly in their veins!
I was harnessed to a cart with a rope tied round my neck. This knot
was fastened to a long shaft and two English prisoners received orders
to prevent the cart from bouncing. But they refrained from doing this,
the shaft rose up into the air and the knot came undone. If it had
tightened I would be dead.
I insist that they do not possess the right to put me in a situation
Marx’s daughter Jenny
where my life depends on the acts of other people.

A ray of light is penetrating through the bolts and bars of my
prison. This is a reminder of the day of Newtownards where I met
Orangemen and Ribbonmen who had forgotten their bigotry!
O’Donovan Rossa
Political prisoner sentenced to
hard labour
III
London, March 16, 1870
The main event of the past week has been O’Donovan
Rossa’s letter which I communicated to you in my last
report.
The Times printed the letter without comment, whereas
the Daily News published a commentary without the letter.
“As one might have expected,” it says, “Mr. O’Donovan Rossa
takes as his subject the prison rules to which he has been subjected for a
while. ” > ' ,
How atrocious this “/or a while” is in speaking of a man
who has already been imprisoned for five years and con
demned to hard labour for life.
Mr. O’Donovan Rossa complains among other things “of
being harnessed to a cart with a rope tied round his neck” in
such a way that his life depended on the movements of
English convicts, his fellow prisoners.
But, exclaims the Daily News, “Is it really unjust to put a man in a
situation where Tiis life depends on the acts of others? When a person is
in a car or on a steamer does not his life also depend on the acts of
others? ”
After this brilliant piece of arguing, the pious casuist
reproaches O’Donovan Rossa for not loving the Bible and
preferring the Irish People, a comparison which is sure to
delight its readers.
“Mr. O’Donovan,” it continues, “seems to imagine that prisoners
serving sentences for seditious writing should be supplied with cigars
and daily newspapers, and that they should above all have the right to
correspond freely with their friends.”
504 SUPPLEMENT
Ho, ho, virtuous Pharisee! At last you have admitted

that O’Donovan Rossa has been sentenced to hard labour for
life for seditious writing and not for an attempted assassina
tion of Queen Victoria, as you vilely insinuated in your first
address to the French press.
“ After all,” this shameless newspaper concludes, “O’Donovan Rossa
is simply being treated for what he is, that is, an ordinary convict.”
After Mr. Gladstone’s special newspaper, here is a differ
ent angle from the “liberal” press, the Daily Telegraph, which
generally adopts a rougher manner.
“If we condescend,” it says, “to take note of O’Donovan Rossa’s
letter, it is not because of the Fenians who are incorrigible, but exclu
sively for the well-being of France.
“Let it be known that only a few days ago in the House of Com
mons Mr. Gladstone made a formal denunciation of all these outrageous
lies, and there cannot be any intelligent Frenchmen of whatever party
and class who would dare doubt the word of an English gentleman.”
But if, contrary to expectation, there were parties or
people in France perverse enough not to believe the word of
an English gentleman such as Mr. Gladstone, France could
not at least resist the well-meant advice of Mr. Levy who is
not a gentleman and who addresses you in the following
terms:
“ We advise our neighbours, the Parisians, to treat all the stories of
cruelties committed on political prisoners in England as so many in
solent lies.”
With Mr. Levy’s permission, I will give you a new ex
ample of the value of the words of the gentlemen who make
up Gladstone’s Cabinet.
You will remember that in my first letter I mentioned
Colonel Richard Burke, a Fenian prisoner who has gone
insane thanks to the humanitarian methods of the English
government. The Irishman was the first to publish this news,
after which Mr. Underwood sent a letter to Mr. Bruce, the
Home Secretary, asking him for an enquiry into the treat
ment of political prisoners.
Mr. Bruce replied in a letter which was published in the
English press and which contained the following sentence:
“ With regard to Richard Burke at Woking Prison, Mr. Bruce is
bound to refuse to make an enquiry on the grounds of such ill-fpunded
and extravagant insinuations as those contained in the extracts from the
Irishman which you have sent me.”
This statement by Mr. Bruce is dated January 11, 1870.
Now in one of its recent issues the Irishman has published the
same Minister’s reply to a letter frony Mrs. Barry, Richard
Burke’s sister, who asked for news, about her brother’s
“alarming” condition. The ministerial reply of February 24
contains an official report dated January 11 in which the
prison doctor and Burke’s special guard state that he has
become insane. Thus, the very day when Mr. Bruce publicly
declared the information published by the Irishman to be
false and ill-founded, he was concealing the irrefutable of
ficial proof in his pocket! It should be mentioned incidental
ly that Mr. Moore, an Irish member in the House of Com
mons, is to question the Minister on the treatment of Colonel
Burke.
The Echo, a recently founded newspaper, takes an even
stronger liberal line than its companions. It has its own
principle which consists of selling for one penny, whereas all
the other newspapers cost twopence, fourpence or sixpence.
This price of one penny forces it on the one hand to make
pseudo-democratic professions of faith so as not to lose its
working-class subscribers, and on the other hand to make
constant reservations in order to win over respectable sub
scribers from its competitors.
In its long tirade on O’Donovan Rossa’s letter it finished
up by saying that “perhaps even those Fenians who have
received an amnesty will refuse to believe the exaggerations
of their compatriots”, as if Mr. Kickham, Mr. Costello and
others had not already published information on their suffer
ing in prison totally in accordance with Rossa’s letter! But
after all its subterfuge and senseless evasions the Echo
touches on the sore point.
The “publications by the Marseillaise, ” it says, “will cause a scandal
and this scandal will spread all round the world. The continental mind
is perhaps too limited to be able to discern the difference between the
crimes of a Bomba and the severity of a Gladstone! So it would be
better to hold an enquiry” and so on.
506 SUPPLEMENT
The Spectator, a “liberal” weekly which supports Glad
stone, is governed by the principle that all genres are bad
except the boring one .437 This is why it is called in London
the journal of the seven wise men. After giving a brief ac
count of O’Donovan Rossa and scolding him for his aversion
to the Bible, the journal of the seven wise men pronounces
the following judgment:
“The Fenian O’Donovan Rossa does not appear to have suffered
anything more than the ordinary sufferings of convicts, but we confess
that we should like to see changes in this regime. It is very right and
often most advisable to shoot rebels. It is also right to deprive them of
their liberty as the most dangerous type of criminals. But it is neither
right nor wise to degrade them.”
Well said, Solomon the Wise!
Finally we have the Standard, the main organ of the Terry
party, the Conservatives. You will be aware that the English
oligarchy is composed of two factions: the landed aristocracy
and the plutocracy. If in their family quarrels one takes the
side of the plutocrats against the aristocrats one is called a
liberal or even radical. If, on the contrary, one sides with the
aristocrats against the plutocrats one is called a Tory.
The Standard calls O’Donovan Rossa’s letter an apocry
phal story probably written by A. Dumas.
“ Why,” it says, “did the Marseillaise refrain from adding that
Mr. Gladstone, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor were
present each morning while O’Donovan Rossa was being tortured? ”
In the House of Commons a certain member once re
ferred to the Tory party as the “stupid party”. Is it not a fact
that the Standard well deserves its title as the main organ of
the stupid party!
Before closing I must warn the French not to confuse the
newspaper rumours with the voice of the English proletariat
which, unfortunately for the two countries, Ireland and
England, has no echo in the English press.
Let is suffice to say that more than 200,000 men, women
and children of the English working class raised their voices
in Hyde Park to demand freedom for their Irish brothers, and
that the General Council of the International Working Men’s
Association, which has its headquarters in London and in-
eludes well-known English working-class leaders among its
members, has severely condemned the treatment of Fenian
prisoners and come out in defence of the rights of the Irish
people against the English government.458
P. S. As a result of the publicity given by the Marseillaise
to O’Donovan Rossa’s letter, Gladstone is afraid that he may
be forced by public opinion to hold a parliamentary public
enquiry into the treatment of political prisoners. In order to
avoid this again (we know how many times his corrupt con
science has opposed it already) this diplomat has just pro
duced an official, but anonymous denial of the facts quoted
by Rossa.439
Let it be known in France that this denial is nothing
more than a copy of the statements made by the prison jailer,
police magistrates Knox and Pollock, etc., etc. These gentle
men know full well that Rossa cannot reply to them. He will
be kept under stricter supervision than ever, b u t... I shall
reply to them in my next letter with facts, the verification of
which does not depend on the goodwill of jailers.
IV
London, March 18, 1870
As I announced in my last letter Mr. Moore, an Irish
member of the House of Commons, yesterday questioned the
government on the treatment of Fenian prisoners. He re
ferred to the request made by Richard Burke and four other
prisoners held in Mountjoy Prison (in Dublin) and asked the
government whether it considered it honourable to hold the
bodies of these men after having deprived them of their
senses. Finally, he insisted on a “full, free and public
enquiry”.
So here was Mr. Gladstone with his back to the wall. In
1868 he gave an insoient, categorical refusal to a request to
hold an enquiry made by the same Mr. Moore. Since then he
has always replied in the same fashion to repeated demands
for an enquiry.
508 SUPPLEMENT
Why give way now? Perhaps it would not be a bad idea
to admit to being alarmed by the uproar on the other side of
the Channel. As to the charges levelled against our governors
of prisons, we have asked them to give a full explanation in
this connection.
The latter have unanimously replied that all this is sheer
nonsense. Thus, our ministerial conscience is naturally satis
fied. But after the explanations given by Mr. Moore (these are
his exact words) it appears “that the point in question is not
exactly satisfaction. That the satisfaction of the minds of the
government derives from its confidence in its subordinates
and, therefore, it would be both political and just to conduct
an enquiry into the truth of the jailers’ statements” .440
One day he says this, and the next day says that,
His yesterday’s views today he will shelve,
He now wears a helmet, and now a top hat,
A nuisance to others, a bore to himself.*
But he does not give way at last without making reserva
tions.
Mr. Moore demanded a “full, free and public enquiry”.
Mr. Gladstone replied that he was responsible for the “form”
of the enquiry, and we already know that this will not be a
“parliamentary enquiry”, but one conducted by means of a
Royal Commission. In other words the judges in this great
'trial, in which Mr. Gladstone appears as the main defendant,
are to be selected and appointed by Mr. Gladstone himself.
As for Richard Burke, Mr. Gladstone states that the
government had learnt of his insanity as early as January 9.
Consequently, his honourable colleague Mr. Bruce,the Home
Secretary, lied outrageously by declaring in his open letter of
January 11 that this information was untrue. But, Mr. Glad
stone continues, Mr. Burke’s mental disturbance had not
reached a sufficiently advanced stage to justify his release
from prison. It must not be forgotten that this man was an
accessory to the blowing up of Clerkenwell Prison.441 Real
ly? But Richard Burke was already detained in Clerkenwell
Prison when a number of other people took it into their
* Boileau, Satires, Satire S.—Ed.
AFTICLES BY JENNY MARX ON THE IRISH QUESTION 509
heads to blow up the prison in order to free him. Thus he was
an accessory to this ridiculous attempt which, it is thought,
was instigated by the police and which, if it had succeeded,
would have buried him under the ruins! Moreover, concludes
Mr. Gladstone, we have already released two Fenians who
went mad in our English prisons. But, interrupts Mr. Moore, I
was talking about the four insane men detained in Mountjoy
Prison in Dublin. Be that as it may, replies Mr. Gladstone.
There are still two madmen less in our prisons.
Why is Mr. Gladstone so anxious to avoid all mention of
Mountjoy Prison? We shall see in a moment. This time the
facts are verified not by letters from the prisoners, but in a
Blue Book published in 1868 by order of Parliament.
After the Fenian skirmish442 the English government
declared a state of general emergency in Ireland. All guar
antees of the freedom of the individual were suspended. Any
person “being suspected of Fenianism” could be thrown into
prison and kept there without being brought to court as long
as it pleased the authorities. One of the prisons full of sus
pects was Mountjoy Convict Prison in Dublin, of which John
Murray was the inspector and Mr. M’Donnell the doctor.
Now what do we read in the Blue Book published in 1868 by
order of Parliament?
For several months Mr. M’Donnell wrote to Inspector
Murray protesting against the cruel treatment of suspects.
Since the inspector did not reply, Mr. M’Donnell then sent
three or four reports to the prison governor. In one of these
letters he referred to
“certain persons who show unmistakable signs of insanity.” He
went on to add : “I have not the slightest doubt that this insanity is the
consequence of the prison regime. Quite apart from all humane con
siderations, it would be a serious matter if one of these prisoners, who
have not been sentenced by a court of law but are merely suspects,
should commit suicide.”
All these letters addressed by Mr. M’Donnell to the
governor were intercepted by John Murray. Finally, Mr.
M’Donnell wrote direct to Lord Mayo, the First Secretary for
Ireland. He told him for example:
“There is no one, my Lord, as well informed as you yourself are on
the harsh discipline to which the ‘suspect’ prisoners have been subjected
510 SUPPLEMENT
for a considerable time, a more severe form of solitary confinement
than that imposed on the convicts.”
What was the result of these revelations published by
order of Parliament? The doctor, Mr. M’Donnell, was dismis
sed! ! ! Murray kept his post.
All this took place during the Tory ministry. When
Mr. Gladstone finally succeeded in unseating Lord Derby and
Mr. Disraeli by fiery speeches in which he denounced the
English government as the true cause of Fenianism, he not
only confirmed the savage Murray in his functions but also,
as a sign of his special satisfaction, conferred a large sinecure,
that of “Registrar of habitual criminals”, on his post of in
spector.
In my last letter I stated that the anonymous reply to
Rossa’s letter, circulated by the London newspapers, emanat
ed directly from the Home Office.
It is now known to be the work of the Home Secretary,
Mr. Bruce. Here is a sample of his “ministerial conscience! ”
As to Rossa’s complaint that he is obliged “to wash in water which
has already been used for the convicts’ ablutions, the police magistrates
Knox and Pollock have declared that after their careful enquiry it
would be superfluous to consider such nonsense”, says Mr. Bruce.
Luckily the report by police magistrates Knox and Pol
lock has been published by order of Parliament. What do
they say on page 23 of their report? That in accordance with
the prison regime a certain number of convicts use the same
bath one after the other and that “the guard cannot give
priority to O’Donovan Rossa without offending the others. It
would, therefore, be superfluous to consider such nonsense”.
Thus, according to the report by Knox and Pollock, it is
not O’Donovan Rossa’s allegation that he was forced to bathe
in water which had been used by convicts which is nonsense,
as Mr. Bruce would have them say. On the contrary, these
gentlemen find it absurd that O’Donovan Rossa should have
complained about such a disgrace.
During the same meeting in the House of Commons in
which Mr. Gladstone declared himself ready to hold an
enquiry into the treatment of Fenian prisoners, he intro
duced a new Coercion Bill for Ireland, that is to say, the
suppression of constitutional freedoms and the proclamation
of a state of emergency.
Theoretical fiction has it that constitutional liberty is the
rule and its suspension an exception, but the whole history of
English rule in Ireland shows that a state of emergency is the
rule and that the application of the constitution is the ex
ception. Gladstone is making agrarian crimes the pretext for
putting Ireland once more in a state of siege. His true motive
is the desire to suppress the independent newspapers in
Dublin. From henceforth the life or death of any Irish new
spaper will depend on the goodwill of Mr. Gladstone. More
over, this Coercion Bill is a necessary complement to the
Land Bill recently introduced by Mr. Gladstone which con
solidates landlordism in Ireland whilst appearing to come to
the aid of the tenant farmers.443 It should suffice to say of
this law that it bears the mark of Lord Dufferin, a member of
the Cabinet and a large Irish landowner. It was only last year
that this Dr. Sangrado published a large tome444 to prove
that the Irish population has not yet been sufficiently bled,
and that it should be reduced by a third if Ireland is to
accomplish its glorious mission to produce the highest pos
sible rents for its landlords and the largest possible quantities
of meat and wool for the English market.
London, March 22
There is a London weekly with a wide circulation among

the mass of the people which is called Reynolds’s Newspaper.
This is what it has to say about the Irish question:
“Now we are regarded by the other nations as the most hypocritical
people on earth. We blew our own trumpets so loudly and so joyfully
and exaggerated the excellence of our institutions so much, that now
when our lies are being exposed one by one it is not at all surprising
that other peoples should ridicule us and ask themselves whether it can
be possible. It is not the people of England who have brought about
such a state of affairs, because the people also have been tricked and
deceived—the blame lies with the ruling classes and a venal, parasitic
press.445
512 SUPPLEMENT
The Coercion Bill for Ireland which was introduced
on Thursday evening* is a detestable, abominable, exec-
rabel measure. This Bill extinguishes the last spark of
national liberty in Ireland and silences the press of this un
happy country in order to prevent its newspapers from pro
testing against a policy which is the crying disgrace of our
time. The government wants its revenge on all those new
spapers which did not greet its wretched Land Bill with trans
ports of delight, and will get it. In effect the Habeas Corpus
Act will be suspended, because from now onwards it will be
possible to imprison for six months or even for life any per
son who cannot explain his bahaviour to the satisfaction of
the authorities.
Ireland has been put at the mercy of a band of well-
trained spies who are euphemistically referred to as “detec
tives”.
Not even Nicholas of Russia ever published a crueller
ukase against the unfortunate Poles than this Bill of Mr. Glad
stone’s against the Irish. It is a measure which would have
won Mr. Gladstone the good favour of the famous King of
Dahomey. Nevertheless, Mr. Gladstone had the colossal
effrontery to boast in front of Parliament and the nation of
the generous policy which his government is proposing to
adopt with regard to Ireland. At the end of his speech on
Thursday Gladstone even went as far as producing expres
sions of regret pronounced with a sanctimonious, lachrymose
solemnity worthy of the reverend Mr. Stiggins. But snivel as
he may, the Irish people will not be deceived.
We repeat that the Bill is a shameful measure, a measure
worthy of Castlereagh, a measure which will invoke the con
demnation of all free nations on the heads of those who
invented it and those who sanction and approve it. Finally, it
is a measure which will bring well-deserved opprobrium to
Mr. Gladstone and, we sincerely hope, lead to his swift
defeat. And how has the demagogic minister Mr. Bright been
able to keep silent for forty-eight hours?
We state without hesitation that Mr. Gladstone has
proved to be the most savage enemy and the most implacable
* March 17, 1870.-E d.
master to have crushed Ireland since the days of the notori
ous Castlereagh.
As if the cup of ministerial shame were not already full to
overflowing, it was announced in the House of Commons on
Thursday evening, the same evening as the Coercion Bill was
inroduced, that Burke and other Fenian prisoners had been
tortured to the point of insanity in thetEnglish prisons, and
in the very face of this appalling evidence Gladstone and his
jackal Bruce were protesting that the political prisoners were
treated with all possible care. When Mr. Moore made this sad
announcement to the House he was constantly interrupted
by hoots of bestial laughter. Had such a disgusting and revolt
ing scene taken place in the American Congress, what a howl
of indignation would have gone up from us!
Up till now the Reynolds’s News, the Times, the Daily
News, Pall Mall, the Telegraph, etc., etc., have greeted the
Coercion Bill with shouts of wild joy, particularly the
measure for the destruction of the Irish press. And all this is
taking place in England, the acknowledged sanctuary of the
press. But isn’t there a case after all for wanting revenge on
these new writers. You will agree that it was too hard to
watch the Irishman each Saturday demolish the tissue of lies
and calumny which these Penelopes worked on for six days
of the week with sweat on their brows, and that it is quite
natural that the latter should give a frantic welcome to the
police who come to tie the hands of their formidable enemy.
At least these fine fellows realise their own collective worth.
A characteristic exchange of letters has taken place be
tween Bruce and Mr. M’Carthy Downing concerning Colonel
Richard Burke. Before reproducing it I should like to remark
in passing that Mr. Downing is an Irish member of the House
of Commons. This ambitious advocate joined the ministerial
phalanx with the noble aim of making a career. Thus, we are
not dealing here with a suspect witness.
Sir, February 22, 1870
If my information is correct, Richard Burke, one of the Fenian
prisoners formerly held in Chatham Prison, has been transferred to
Woking in a state of insanity. In March 1869 I took the liberty of
bringing his state of apparent ill-health to your notice, and in the fol
17-226
514 SUPPLEMENT
lowing July Mr. Blake, former member for Waterford, and I informed
you of our opinion that if the system of his treatment were not
changed, the worst consequences were to be feared. I received no reply
to this letter. My object in writing to you is the cause of humanity and
the hope of obtaining his release so that his family may have the con
solation of seeing to his needs and mitigating his suffering. I have in my
hand a letter from the prisoner to his brother dated December 3 in
which he says that he has been systematically poisoned, this being, I
imagine, one of the phases of his disease. I sincerely trust that the kind
sentiments for which you are known will urge you to grant this request.
Yours, etc.,
McCarthy Downing
Home Office,
February 25,1870
Sir,
Richard Burke was transferred from Chatham as a result of his
illusion that he was poisoned or cruelly treated by the prison medical
officers. At the same time, without him being positively ill, his health
deteriorated. Consequently I gave orders for him to be moved to
Woking and had him examined by Dr. Meyer from Broadmoor Asylum,
who was of the opinion that his illusion would disappear when his
health improved. His health did, in fact, improve rapidly and an ordi
nary observer would not have noted any signs of his mental weakness. I
should very much like to be in a position to give you an assurance of his
early release, but am not able to do so. His crime and the consequences
of the attempt to free him are too serious for me to be able to give you
such an assurance. Meanwhile all that medical science and good treat
ment can do to restore his mental and physical health will be done.
H. A. Bruce
February 28, 1870
Sir,
After receiving your letter of the 25th in reply to my request that
Burke should be handed over to the care of his brother, I hoped to find
an occasion to talk to you on this matter in the House of Commons,
but you were so busy on Thursday and Friday that an interview was
out of the question. I have received letters from a number o f Burke’s
friends. They are waiting anxiously to hear whether my request has
been successful. 1 have not yet informed them that it has not. Before
disappointing them I felt “justified” in writing to you again on the
matter. 1 thought that as a person who has invariably and at some risk
denounced Fenianism, I could permit myself to give a word of imparti
al, friendly advice to the government.
I have no hesitation in saying that the release of a political prisoner
who has become mentally unbalanced would not be criticised and cer-
tainly not condemned by the general public. In Ireland people would
say : “ Well, the government is not as cruel as we thought.” \Vhereas if,
on the other hand, Burke is kept in prison this will provide new mate
rial for the national press to attack it as being even crueller than the
Neapolitan governors in their worst days. And I confess that I cannot
see how men of moderate views could defend the act of refusal in such
a case.... f
M ’Carthy Downing
Sir,
I regret that I am unable to recommend Burke’s release.
It is true that he has shown signs of insanity and that in ordinary
cases I would be “justified” in recommending him to the mercy of the
Crown. But his case is not an ordinary one, because he was not only a
hardened conspirator, but his participation in the attempt to blow up
Clerkenwell which, if it had succeeded, would have been even more
disastrous than it was, makes him an improper recipient of pardon.
H. A. Bruce
Could anything be more infamous! Bruce knows perfect
ly well that if there had been the slightest suspicion against
Colonel Burke during the trial Concerning the attempt to
blow up Clerkenwell, Burke would have been hung next to
Barrett who was sentenced to death on the testimony of a
man who had previously given false testimony against three
other men, and in spite of the evidence of eight citizens who
made the journey from Glasgow to prove that Barrett
had been there when the explosion had taken place. The
English have no scruples (Mr. Bruce can confirm this) when
it is a question of hanging a man—expecially a
Fenian.
But all this spate of cruelty cannot break the iron spirit
of the Irish. They have just celebrated their national holiday,
St. Patrick’s Day, more demonstratively than ever in Dublin.
The houses were decorated with flags saying: “Ireland for the
Irish! ”, “Liberty! ” and “Long live the political prisoners! ”
and the air rang with the sound of their national songs and—
the Marseillaise.
516 SUPPLEMENT
VI
A G R A R IA N OUTRAGES IN IRELAND
London, April 2, 1870
In Ireland the plundering and even extermination of the
tenant farmer and his family by the landlord is called the
property right, whereas the desperate farmer’s revolt against
his ruthless executioner is called an agrarian outrage. These
agrarian outrages, which are actually very few in number but
are multiplied and exaggerated out of all proportion by the
kaleidoscope of the English press in accordance with orders
received, have, as you will know, provided the excuse for
reviving the regime of white terror in Ireland. On the other
hand, this regime of terror makes it possible for the land
owners to redouble their oppression with impunity.
I have already mentioned that the Land Bill consolidates
landlordism under the pretext of giving aid to the tenant
farmers. Nevertheless, in order to pull the wool over people’s
eyes and clear his conscience, Gladstone was compelled to
grant this new lease of life to landlord despotism subject to
certain legal formalities. It should suffice to say that in the
future as in the past the landlord’s word will become law if
he succeeds in imposing on his tenants at will the most
fantastic rents which are impossible to pay or, in the case of
land tenure agreements, make his farmers sign contracts
which will bind them to voluntary slavery.
And how the landlords are rejoicing! A Dublin news
paper, the Freeman, publishes a letter form Father P. Lavelle,
the author of The Irish Landlord since the Revolution, in
which he says:
“I have seen piles of letters addressed to tenants by their landlord,
the brave captain, an “absentee” living in England, warning them that
from now on their rents are to be raised by 25%. This is equivalent to
an eviction notice! And this from a man who does nothing for the land
except live off its produce! ”
The Irishman on the other hand publishes the new tenure
agreements dictated by Lord Dufferin, the member of Glad
stone’s Cabinet who inspired the Land Bill and introduced
the Coercion Bill in the House of Lords. Add the rapacious
shrewdness of an expert moneylender and the despicable
chicanery of the advocate to feudal insolence and you will
have a rough idea of the new land tenure agreements invented
by the noble Dufferin.
It is now easy to see that the rule of terror has arrived
just in time to introduce the rule of the Land Bill! Let us
suppose, for example, that in a certain Irish county the
farmers refuse either to allow a 25 % rent increase or to sign
Dufferin’s land tenure agreements! The county’s landlords
will then get their valets or the police to send them anonym
ous threatening letters, as they have in the past. This also
counts as an “agrarian outrage”. The landlords inform the
Viceroy, Lord Spencer, accordingly. Lord Spencer then
declares that the district is subject to the provisions of the
Coercion Act which is then applied by the same landlords, in
their capacity as magistrates, against their own tenants!
Journalists who are imprudent enough to protest will not
only be prosecuted for sedition, but their printing presses will
be confiscated without the semblance of legal proceed
ings!
It should, perhaps, now be obvious why the head of your
executive* congratulated Gladstone on the improvements
which he had introduced in Ireland, and why Gladstone
returned the compliment by congratulating your executive
on its constitutional concessions. “A Roland for an Oli
vier” ,446 those of your readers who know Shakespeare will
say. But others who are more versed in the Moniteur, than in
Shakespeare will remember the letter sent by the head of
your executive to the late Lord Palmerston containing the
words “Let us not act like knaves! ”
Now I shall return to the question of political prisoners,
not without good cause.
The publication of Rossa’s first letter in the Marseillaise
produced a great effect in England—the result is to be an
enquiry.
The following dispatch was printed by all the newspapers
in the United States:
* Napoleon III.—Ed.
518 SUPPLEMENT
“The Marseillaise says that O’Donovan Rossa was stripped naked
once a day and examined, that the was starved, that he was locked in a
dark cell, that he was harnessed to a cart, and that the death of his
fellow prisoners was caused by the cold to which they were exposed.”
The Irishman’s New York correspondent says:
“The Rochefort Marseillaise has placed the suffering of the Fenian
prisoners before the eyes of the American people. We owe a debt of
gratitude to the Marseillaise which, I trust, will be promptly paid.”
Rossa’s letter has also been published by the German
press.
From now onwards the English government will no long
er be able to commit its outrages in silence. Mr. Gladstone
will gain nothing from his attempt to silence the Irish press.
Each journalist imprisoned in Ireland will be replaced by a
hundred journalists in France, Germany and America.
What can Mr. Gladstone’s narrow-minded, out-of-date
policies do against the international spirit of the nineteenth
century?
VII
THE DEATH OF JOHN LYNCH
Citizen Editor,
I am sending you extracts from a letter written to the
Irishman by an Irish political prisoner during his detention
(he is now at liberty) in a penal colony in Australia.
I shall limit myself to translating the episode concerning
John Lynch.
Letter from John Casey
The following is a brief, impartial report of the treatment to which
my brother exiles (twenty-four in number) and I were subjected during
our incarceration in that pit of horrors, that living tomb which is called
Portland Prison.
Above all it is my duty to pay a tribute of respect and justice to the
memory of my friend John Lynch who was sentenced by an extra
ordinary tribunal in December 1865 and died at Woking Prison in April
1866.
Wiatever may be the cause to which the jury has attributed his
death, I confirm, and am able to furnish proof, that his death was
accelerated by the cruelty of the prison warders.
To be imprisoned in the heart of winter in a cold cell for twenty -
three hours out of twenty-four, insufficiently clad, sleeping on a hard
board with a log of wood as a pillow and two worn blankets weighing
barely ten lbs. as one’s only protection against the excessive cold,
deprived through an inexpressibly fine stroke of cruelty of even cover
ing our frozen limbs with our clothes which we were forced to put
outside our cell door, given unhealthy, meagre nourishment, having no
exercise apart from a daily walk lasting three-quarters of an hour in a
cage about 20 ft. long by 6 ft. wide designed for the worst type of
criminals : such privation and suffering would break even an iron con
stitution. So it is not surprising that a person as delicate as Lynch
should succumb to it almost immediately.
On arrival at the prison Lynch asked for permission to keep his
flannels on. His request was rudely refused. “If you refuse I shall be
dead in three months,” he replied on that occasion. Ah, little did I
suspect that his words would come true. I could not imagine that
Ireland was to lose one of her most devoted, ardent and noble sons so
soon, and that 1 myself was to lose a tried and tested friend.
At the beginning of March I noticed that my friend was looking
very ill and one day I took advantage of the jailer’s brief absence to ask
him about his health. He replied that he was dying, that he had consult
ed the doctor several times, but that the latter had not paid the slightest
attention to his complaints. His cough was so violent that although my
cell was a long distance from his, I could hear it day and night resound
ing along the empty corridors. One jailer even told me, “Number 7’s
time will soon be up—he should have been in hospital a month ago. I’ve
often seen ordinary prisoners there looking a hundred times healthier
than him.”
One day in April I looked out of my cell and saw a skeleton-like
figure dragging itself along with difficulty and leaning on the bars for
support, with a deathly pale face, glazed eyes and hollow cheeks. It was
Lynch. I could not believe it was him until he looked at me, smiled and
pointed to the ground as if to say :“I’m finished.”
This was the last time I saw Lynch.
This statement of Casey’s corrobarates Rossa’s testimony
about Lynch. And it should not be forgotten that Rossa wrote
his letter in an English prison whilst Casey was writing in an
Australian penal colony, making any communication be
tween the two of them quite impossible. However, the
government has just stated that Rossa’s assertions are lies.
Bruce, Pollock and Knox even declare “that Lynch was given
flannels before he asked for them”.
On the other hand Mr. Casey insists as firmly as Mr.
520 SUPPLEMENT
Bruce denies it that Lynch complained that “even when he
was incapable of walking and was forced to remain in the
terrible solitude of his cell his request was refused”.
But as Mr. Laurier said in his beautiful speech:
“Let us leave aside human testimony and turn to the testimony that
does not lie, the testimony that does not deceive, the silent testi
mony A 47
The fact remains that Lynch entered Pentonville bloom
ing with life, full of hope and, three months later, this young
man was a corpse.
Until Messrs. Gladstone, Bruce and his cohort of police
can prove that Lynch is not dead, they are wasting their time
in vain oaths.
VIII
LETTER FROM ENGLAND
London, April 19, 1870
“No priests in politics” is the watchword which can be
heard all over Ireland at the moment.
The large party which has been opposing with all its
might the despotism of the Catholic Church, ever since the
“disestablishment” of the Protestant Church, is growing daily
with remarkable rapidity and has just dealt the clergy a crush
ing blow.
At the Longford election the clerical candidate, Mr.
Greville-Nugent, beat the people’s candidate, John Martin,
but the nationalists challenged the validity of his election
because of the illegal means by which it had been won, and
got the better of their opponents. The election of Nugent was
annulled by Judge Fitzgerald who declared Nugent’s agents,
that is to say the priests, guilty of having bribed the voters by
flooding the country not with the Holy Spirit, but with
spirits of a different kind. It appeared that in the single
month from December 1 to January 1 alone the reverend
fathers had spent £3,500 on whisky!
The Standard allows itself to make some most peculiar
comments on the Longford election:
“With regard to their scorning of the intimidation by the clergy,”
writes the mouthpiece of the “stupid party”? “the nationalists deserve
our praise.... The great victory which they have won will encourage
them to put up new candidates against Mr. Gladstone and his ultra
montane allies.”
The Times writes:
“ From the Papal Bull issued in the eternal city to the intrigues of
the country priests, all ecclesiastical power was lined up against Fenian-
ism and the nationalists. Unfortunately this ardour was not accompa
nied by prudence, and will result in a second battle at Longford.”
The Times is right. The battle of Longford will break out
again and be followed by those of Waterford, Mallow and
Tipperary, the nationalists in these three counties also having
presented petitions requesting the annulment of the election
of the official members. In Tipperary it was O’Donovan
Rossa who first won the election, but since Parliament stated
that he was incapable of representing Tipperary the national
ists proposed Kickham in his place, one of the Fenian
patriots who has just finished a spell in English prisons.
Kickham’s supporters are now declaring that their candidate
has been duly elected in spite of the fact that Heron, the
government and clerical candidate, gained a majority of four
votes.
Bear in mind, however, that one of these four voters for
Heron is a wretched maniac who was taken to the poll by a
reverend father—you know the weakness which priests have
for the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And that the second voter is a corpse! Yes, the honest and
moderate party actually dared to profane the name of a man
who died a fortnight before the election by making him vote
for a Gladstonian. Apart from this, patriotic voters say that
eleven of their votes were discounted on the grounds that the
first letter of Kickham’s name was illegible, that their tele
grams were not delivered, that the authorities were bribing
electors right and left and that a base system of intimidation
was practised.
* This refers to the Tories.—Ed.
522 SUPPLEMENT
The pressure which was brought to bear in Tipperary was
unprecedented even in the history of Ireland. The bailiff and
the policeman, who stand for eviction warrants, besieged the
tenants’ hovels in order to terrify wives and children first.
The booths in which the voting took place were surrounded
by police, soldiers, magistrates, landlords and priests.
The latter hurled stones at people who were putting up
posters for Kickham. On top of all this, the moneylender was
present in the booths, his eyes resting hungrily on his
wretched debtor during the voting. But the government got
nothing for all its pains. One thousand six hundred and sixty-
eight small tenants braved it out and, unprotected by secret
ballot, gave their votes openly for Kickham.
This brave act reminds us of the heroic struggle of the
Poles.
Faced with the battles waged in Longford, Mallow,
Waterford and Tipperary, will anyone still dare to say that
the Irish are the abject slaves of the clergy.
Published in the newspaper Translated from the French

La Marseillaise Nos. 71, 79, 89,
91, 99, 113, 118, 125 for March 1,
9, 19, 21 and 29, and April 12,
and 24, 1870
DECLARATION BY THE GENERAL COUNCIL
OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN’S
ASSOCIATION448
POLICE TERRORISM IN IRELAND

The national antagonism between English and Irish work
ing men, in England, has hitherto been one of the main im
pediments in the way of every attempted movement for the
emancipation of the working class, and therefore one of the
mainstays, of class dominion in England as well as in Ireland.
The spread of the International in Ireland, and the formation
of Irish branches in England, threatened to put an end to this
state of things. It was quite natural then that the British
Government should attempt to nip in the bud the establish
ment of the International in Ireland by putting into practice
all that police chicanery which the exceptional legislation and
the practically permanent state of siege there enable it to
exercise. How Ireland is governed in a truly Prussian way,
under what is called the Free British Constitution, will appear
from the following facts.
In Dublin, at the meeting of the International, a sergeant
and private of the police, in full uniform, were stationed at
the door of the place of meeting, the owner of which asked
them whether they were sent officially, and the sergeant said
he was, the International having a dreaded name.
In Cork the same trick is practised. Two constables of the
“Royal Irish Constabulary” are placed opposite the house
door of the secretary of the local section, during the day, and
four after dark, and the name of every one is noted down
who calls upon him. A sub-inspector has recently called upon
several persons by whom members of the Cork section were
employed, and demanded the addresses of the latter, and
many persons have been warned by the “Constabulary” that
524 SUPPLEMENT
if they are seen speaking to the secretary their names will be
sent to “The Castle”—-a name of horror to the working class
of Ireland.449
In the same, city, according to a letter received,
“The magistrates have held several special meetings, extra police
have been drafted in, and on Easter Sunday the constables were all
under arms, with ten rounds of ball cartridge each. They expected we
were going to have a meeting in the park; the magistrates are trying all
they can to provoke a riot.”
If the British Government continues in this way they may
be sure that the last shreds of the mask of liberalism will be
torn from their faces. In the International papers all over the
world, the name of Mr. Gladstone will be coupled week after
week with those of Sagasta, Lanza, Bismarck, and Thiers.
By order of
the General Council
R. APPLEGARTH, M. BARRY, M. J. BOON,
F. BRADNICK, G. H. BUTTERY, E. DELA-
H AYE, EUGkNE DUPONT, W. HALES,
G. HARRIS, HURLIMAN, JULES JOHAN-
NARD, C. KEEN, HARRIETT LAW, F. LES-
SNER, LOCHNER, C. LONGUET, C. MARTIN,
Z£VY MAURICE, H. MAYO, G. MILNER,
CH. MURRAY, PFANDER, J. ROACH, RUHL,
SADLER, COWELL STEPNEY,, A. TAYLOR,
W. TOWNSHEND, E. VAILLANT, J. WESTON,
YARROW.
Corresponding Secretaries:
LEO FRANKEL, for Austria and Hungary;
A. HERMAN, Belgium; T. MOTTERSHEAD,
Denmark; A. SERRAILLIER, France; KARL
MARX, Germany and Russia, C. ROCHAT,
H o l l a n d ; / . P. M cDONNELL, Ireland;
F. ENGELS, Italy and Spain; WALERY
WROBLEWSKI, Poland; HERMANN JUNG,
POLICE TERRORISM IN IRELAND 525
Switzerland; J. G. ECCARIUS, United States;
LE MOUSSU, for French branches of United
States, /. HALES, General Secretary
Published as a leaflet Printed according to the text

in April 1872 of the book The General Council
o f the First ThtemationaL
1871-1872. Minutes, Moscow
COUNCIL MEETING*
May 14th, 1872
Citizen Serraillier in the chair.

Members present: Citizens Boon, Barry, Coumet, Deta
il aye, Eccarius, Engels, Arnaud, Frankel, Hales, Jung,
Lessner, Mayo, Martin, McDonnell, Milner, Mottershead,
Murray, Le Moussu, Riihl, Serraillier, Townshend, Vaillant
and Yarrow.
The Minutes of the preceding meeting having been read
and confirmed, the Secretary ** read a declaration from
Citizen Weston, to the effect that his name had been append
ed to the document, purporting to be the rules of the Univer
sal Federalist Council of the International,450 without his
knowledge. This document was signed by Weston in the
presence of Eccarius, Roach and himself, and he told them
that he visited one of the meetings of the dissentients, but he
went upon invitation, unofficially, and knew nothing of any
intention to publish. He disagreed with the publication,
though he did consider a competent tribunal had a right to
arraign the General Council; what he meant by a competent
tribunal was a body of men still within the International. He
had a complaint against the Council himself, and that was
that his name had been used without letting him know of any
intention to publish. He knew the Council had a right to use
the name of the members, but he thought that out of
courtesy information ought to be sent to all, so as to give
them an opportunity to be present if they wished. He felt
* The Minutes are in Hales’s hand on pp. 448—53 of the Minute
Book.—Ed.
* * Hales.—Ed.
COUNCIL MEETING. MAY 14TH, 1872 527
very strongly upon the point because when he did attend the
Council he was treated very cavalierly by certain members if
he happened to disagree with them. He did write a letter in
answer to the second one, but found he was too late for post
when he had finished. No slight whatever was intended.
A motion was carried accepting the reply as satisfactory
and it was ordered to be sent for publication in the report.
Citizen Engels reported that the seat of the new Federal
Council of Spain had been fixed at Valencia; he had received
the first letter; Lorenzo was the new secretary. He asked for
the addresses of all the other Federal Councils.
Citizen McDonnell reported that the movement was
progressing in Cork and Dublin. He read a letter from a cor
respondent in Dublin, which expressed a hope that the
journals of the Association would avoid any articles express
ing atheistical opinions, or condemnation of Catholicism, as
anything of the kind would do great damage in Ireland,
which opinion Citizen McDonnell endorsed.
Citizen Yarrow announced that the Alliance Cabinet-
Makers (who were members) had formed an amalgamation
with the East [End] London Cabinet-Makers, and it had been
resolved that all fresh jobs should be taken as daywork and
the prices based upon time.
Citizen Hales reported that Messrs. Shaen and Roscoe had
sent a letter informing the Council that Mr. Wilkinson of
St. George’s Hall had consented to pay the damages asked
for, upon production of receipts.
A suggestion was made by Citizen Barry that the Council
should celebrate the fall of the Commune; but as no proposi
tion was made, the matter fell through.
Citizen Hales proposed “That in the opinion of the
Council the formation of Irish nationalist branches in
England is opposed to the General Rules and principles of the
Association”. He said he brought forward the motion in no
antagonism to the Irish members, but he thought the policy
being pursued [is] fraught with the greatest danger to the
Association, besides being in antagonism to the Rules and
principles. The fundamental principle of the Association was
to destroy all semblance of the nationalist doctrine, and
remove all barriers that separated man from man, and the
528 SUPPLEMENT
formation of either Irish or English branches could only
retard the movement instead of helping it on. The formation
of Irish branches in England could only keep alive that
national antagonism which had unfortunately so long existed
between the people of the two countries. Misunderstandings
would arise—nay, had arisen, and there was almost certain to
be conflicts between the different sections upon important
matters of policy. The Secretary for Liverpool* wrote and
said he understood an Irish section had been formed in Liver
pool, but he didn’t know where it was, nor what it was doing;
did that savour of international harmony? A section had
been formed in Middlesbrough based upon the section which
previously existed in that town—and it had decided that it
should not be called an Irish section but simply the Middles
brough section. Yet when Citizen Roach wrote and asked the
section to correspond with the Federal Council, he received
an answer telling him virtually to mind *his own business and
informing him that if he wanted to know anything about the
section he could apply to Citizen McDonnell. So that jeal
ousy had already arisen. No one knew what the Irish branc
hes were doing, and in their rules they stated that they were
republican, and their first object was to liberate Ireland from
a foreign domination. Now he contended that the Interna
tional had nothing to do with liberating Ireland, nor with the
setting up of any particular form of government, either in
England or Ireland, and it was the duty of the Council to
prevent any mistake upon the subject by passing the resolu
tion he proposed. If such was not done they would have
splits which perhaps could not be healed.
Citizen Mayo seconded.
Citizen Mottershead could not escape from the logic of
the motion, but he deprecated the spirit in which it was
made. The speech of Citizen Hales showed the animus with
which he was actuated, and, seeing that, he could not vote
for the motion. He would rather vote for a motion recom
mending our English members to cultivate a spirit of fraterni
ty with the Irish members. He unfortunately knew too well
the domineering spirit with which Englismen of the ignorant
* George Gilroy.—Ed.
class treated their Irish brethren. They had been treated as
aliens in a foreign land, and were looked down upon by the
English workers much the same as the mean Whites of the
South looked down upon Negroes. He objected to the style
and manner of the Secretary’s speech and he hoped the
Council would show its feeling upon the matter by rejecting
the motion. r
Citizen McDonnell quite agreed with Mottershead that it
was desirable that Englishmen should cultivate a fraternal
feeling with the Irish, and he thought such speeches as that
delivered by Citizen Hales were the most injurious it was
possible to conceive. Why, the speech he made when he gave
notice of motion, had it been reported, would have prevented
the establishment of the Association in Ireland and would
have destroyed all hopes of doing so. It seemed very strange
that the General Secretary should, at the moment when there
were dangers and difficulties attending the work of propagan
da in Ireland, come forward with a motion which would
virtually destroy the work that had been done. It looked
suspicious. Why, to ask Irishmen to give up their nationality
was to insult them. He was proud to say that he had worked
for the redemption of Ireland and would continue to do so; it
was impossible to crush out the aspirations of the Irish
people. The only effect of the passing of the resolution
proposed would be to prevent Irishmen joining. He would ask
what had been done before he joined the Council to extend
the Association among Irishmen. Nothing! And now,
[that] he had done something it was proposed to
undo it.
Citizen Boon was sorry that the motion should have been
brought on, though he was not surprised that the Secretary
should have done so. The Normans conquered Ireland and
held her in subjection by the aid of their Saxon serfs, and the
motion made meant that the rule of the Saxon should still
continue. The same spirit of domination was still rampant in
the minds of some of the English working men. He approved
of the nationalist character of the Irish people’s organisations
and he hoped they would still continue and not be coerced
into giving up their rights either by the English Government
or the English working class. He was strongly of an opinion
530 SUPPLEMENT
that Hales did not understand the Irish character; he would
protest against the passage of the motion.
Citizen Engels said the real purpose of the motion,
stripped of all hypocrisy, was to bring the Irish sections into
subjection to the British Federal Council, a thing to which
the Irish sections would never consent, and which the
Council had neither the right nor the power to impose upon
them. According to the Rules and Regulations, the Council
had no power to compel any section or branch to acknow
ledge the supremacy of any Federal Council. It was certainly
bound, before admitting or rejecting any new branch within
the jurisdiction of a Federal Council, to consult that Council,
but he maintained that the Irish sections in England were no
more under the jurisdiction of the British Federal Council
than the French, German, Italian or Polish sections in this
country. The Irish formed a distinct nationality of their own,
and the fact that [they] used the English language could not
deprive them of their rights. Citizen Hales had spoken of the
relations of England and Ireland being of the most idyllic
nature—breathing nothing but harmony. But the case was
quite different. There was the fact of seven centuries of
English conquest and oppression of Ireland, and so long as
that oppression existed, it would be an insult to Irish working
men to ask them to submit to a British Federal Council. The
position of Ireland with regard to England was not that of an
equal, but that of Poland with regard to Russia. What would
be said if the Council called upon Polish sections to acknow
ledge the supremacy of a Council sitting in Petersburg, or the
North Schleswig and Alsatian sections to submit to a Federal
Council in Berlin? Yet that was asked by the motion. It was
asking the conquered people to forget their nationality and
submit to their conquerors. It was not Internationalism, but
simply prating submission. If the promoters of the motion
were so brimful of the truly international spirit, let them
prove it by removing the seat of the British Federal Council
to Dublin and submit to a Council of Irishmen. In a case like
that of the Irish, true Internationalism must necessarily be
based upon a distinct national organisation, and they were
under the necessity to state in the preamble to their rules
that their first and most pressing duty as Irishmen was to
establish their own national independence. The antagon
ism....*
Citizen Murray didn’t regret the discussion though it had
all been on one side. Citizen Hales seemed to imagine that
unity could be obtained by putting down the Irish branches.
He thought that a mistake. The Irish could not forget all at
once 700 years of English misrule and it must be remembered
that the English workmen had not treated the Irish as they
ought to have done. It was only yesterday that the columns
of the newspapers used to contain the stereotyped advertise
ment “That no Irish need apply” and the passage of the
resolution would be virtually saying no Irish need apply.
Citizen Hales said all the speeches made in opposition
really proved his case. It was admitted that the Irish did not
understand the principles of the International, for all the
speakers urged that if the word “Irish” was struck out of the
names of the branches, the Irish would not join, which was
only saying that they were national and not international. He
had been told he didn’t understand the Irish character—well,
he thought he did, and that was the reason he brought on his
motion. He believed the majority of the members of the Irish
branches did not understand the principles of the Associa
tion; as the correspondent of the Standard said: They were
only Fenians under another name, and they became members
of the International because they saw that it would be a
convenient cloak under which to prosecute their special
designs—and he objected to that not because he had any
objection to Fenianism,but because he wanted the Associa
tion [to be] free from special sects or cliques. He had
advocated Fenianism for he held that the Irish like other
people had a right to govern themselves; the right of self-
government was inalienable, and no people could be deprived
of that right; he should like to see Ireland ruling herself
tomorrow for he was convinced that the Irish themselves
would then wake from their enchantment and find that
nationalism was no remedy for the ills of society. He asked
them to pass the motion and thus prevent future mischief.
* The record breaks off here; 15 lines are left blank in the Minute
Book. For the full text of Engels’s speech see pp. 418-19—Ed.
532 SUPPLEMENT
The motion was put and lost, only one voting in favour.
A short discussion then took place on the advisability of
reporting the discussion and it was decided that Citizen Hales
should draw up a report to be submitted on Saturday.*
The Council adjourned at 11.30.**

Minut&s, Moscow
* May 18.-E d.
** Unsigned.—Ed.
WILLIAM THORNE AND ELEANOR MARX-AVELING
TO SAMUEL GOMPERS
January 25, 1891451
Mr. Samuel Gompeps

for the American Federation of Labour
Dear Comrade,
During the recent visit of Comrades Bebel, Liebknecht
and Singer on the occasion of Frederick Engels’ 70-th birth
day, they met representatives of the Gasworkers and General
Labourers Union (comprising about 100,000 men and
women belonging to over seventy trades) and of several other
Unions and Organisations, besides John Bums, Cunninghame
Graham, M. P. and others. At this meeting the feeling was
very strong that the time had come to bring about a close and
organised relation between the labour parties of the different
countries. The most immediate question is that of preventing
the introduction from one country to another of unfair
labour, i.e., of workers who not knowing the conditions of
the labour-struggle in a particular country, are imported into
that country by the Capitalists, in order to reduce wages, or
lengthen the hours of labour, or both. The most practical
way of carrying this out appears to be the appointing in each
country of an International Secretary, who shall be in com
munication with all the other International Secretaries. Thus,
the moment any difficulty between capitalists and labourers
occurs in any country, the International Labour Secretaries
of all the other countries should be at once communicated
with, and will make it their business to try to prevent the
exportation from their particular country of any labourers to
take the place on unfair terms of those locked-out or on
strike in the country where the difficulty has occurred.
Whilst this is the most immediate and most obvious matter to
be dealt with, it is hoped that an arrangement of the kind
proposed, will in every way facilitate the interchange of ideas
534 SUPPLEMENT
on all questions between the workers of every nation that is
becoming every day and every hour the most pressing neces
sity of the working-class movement.
If your organisation agrees with the views of the Gas
workers and General Labourers Union, will you at once com
municate with us, and give us the name of the Secretary
appointed by it to take part in this important movement?
Yours fraternally
W. Thome
(General Secretary)
Eleanor Marx-Aveling
(On the behalf of the Executive Committee)
Published in :Marx and Engels, Printed according to the

Collected Works, second original
Moscow, 1965
NOTES
Letters from London is a series of four reports written by Engels in

May and June 1843 during his stay in England, where he had been
sent by his father, a German textile manufacturer, in November
1842 to learn the business in the Manchester branch of Ermen Sc
Engels. In England, where he remained till August 1844, Engels
made a final break with idealism and revolutionary democratism
and arrived at a materialist and communist world outlook. The
reports were written for the Schweizarischer Republikaner, a
radical Swiss journal published in Zurich. p. 43
The Legislative Union o f Great Britain and Ireland was imposed on
Ireland by the English Government after the suppression of the
Irish rebellion of 1798. The Union, which came into force on
January 1, 1801, abolished an autonomous Irish Parliament and
made Ireland still more dependent on England. The demand for the
Repeal of the Union became a most popular watchword in Ireland
after the 1820s. However, the Irish liberals who were at the head of
the national liberation movement (O’Connell and others) wanted
to use the agitation for Repeal of the Union solely as means for
exerting pressure on the English Government to make it grant small
concessions to the Irish bourgeoisie and landowners. In 1835,
O’Connell came to an agreement with the Whigs and ceased this
agitation altogether. But in 1840, after the Tories assumed office,
the Irish liberals were compelled, under the impact of the mass
movement, to found an Association of Repealers, which they tried to
direct onto the path of compromise with the English ruling classes.
p. 43
*The principal tenant—a middleman who leased land directly from
the landowner and then let it in small plots to subtenants, who in
their turn often parcelled out these plots and let them too. Thus, a
hierarchy of intermediaries often formed between the landowner
and the direct producer. p. 44
538 NOTES
In the original Engels uses the term just e-milieu, literally “golden
4
mean”—a half-hearted, in-between position, attempting to avoid
extremes. Speaking below of O’Connell’s friends from the juste-
milieu, Engels was referring to the English Whigs, whom, from
1835, the Irish liberals supported against the Tories. p. 45
5 The second Chartist petition for a People’s Charter (a programme of
six points providing for the introduction of universal suffrage and
other reforms of the English political system) included the demand
for Ireland to be allowed to annul the forced Act of Union with
England of 1801. The petition was drafted by the Executive of the
National Charter Association (founded in 1840), the first mass party
of the working class in the history of the English labour movement.
On May 2, 1842, the petition was submitted to Parliament, but even
though it had been signed by about three and a half million people,
it was rejected by the House of Commons. The Irish liberals headed
by O’Connell did not approve of the Chartist agitation. p. 45
6 The book The Condition o f the Working-Class in England was
written by Engels between September 1844 and March 1845 in
Barmen on the basis of material he had collected during his two-year
stay in England. The work is one of the first in socialist literature to
substantiate the historic role of the working class as a social force
called upon to carry out the socialist transformation of society in the
interests of all working people. Engels’s description of the living and
working conditions of the English proletariat also contains an
account of the conditions of Irish immigrant labourers, and of the
working people in Ireland. Two relevant excerpts are given in this
collection. The book was first published in Leipzig in 1845. In
Engels’s lifetime two editions of the authorised English translation
appeared—one in New York in 1887, the other in London in 1892
(passages from the Preface to the latter are also included in this
collection, see pp. 461-62). In the Appendix to the American edi
tion of 1887, the author warns the reader that the book was written
in the period when the theory of scientific communism was only
taking shape and was therefore not mature in all respects, contain
ing here and there some old views he had not yet completely
repudiated when the book was written. p. 47
Engels is referring to the book, The Moral and Physical Condition
o f the Working Classes, employed in the Cotton Manufacture in
Manchester, by James Ph. Kay, Dr. Med., 2nd ed., 1832. In the
Chapter “The Great Towns”, Engels’s descriptions of the workers’
districts in Manchester are often based on Kay’s book. p. 49
8 The Tithes Commutation Bill was passed by the English Parliament
in 1838. Its passing was preceded by a stubborn struggle of the
Irish peasants against the tithe, which was a heavy burden and
emphasised their religious inequality (the tithe was collected in
NOTES 539
favour of the Anglican Church, which was alien to the Irish
Catholics). Beginning with 1831 the resistance against this levy
turned into “the war against the tithe” and led to armed clashes
between the peasants and the police and troops. Afraid of even
greater discontent, the English ruling circles agreed to some con
cessions. According to the Commutation Bill tithes were lowered
by 25 per cent and were levied not directly on the harvest but as an
addition to rent, which was paid by the femdlords. The latter
increased rents correspondingly, and the Irish peasants, though in
different form, continued to pay for the maintenance of the
Anglican Church in Ireland. p. 51
9 Engels is referring to “Irish Immigration”, an earlier chapter in his
book, where he cited a view on the Irish working people from
Thomas Carlyle’s well-known pamphlet Chartism (published in
1840). Engels points out that Carlyle’s views were both one-sided
and exaggerated. In the quoted passage he says that these views
reflect the Anglo-Saxon nationalist prejudices of the author and his
bias against the Irish people. On the whole, in his Condition o f the
Working-Class in England Engels was not critical enough of Carlyle,
particularly as regards his opinion of the Irish people. In their later
works—the Manifesto o f the Communist Party (1848) and the
review o f T hom as C arlyle’s book Latter-Day Pamphlets
(1850)—Marx and Engels fully exposed and strongly condemned
the reactionary views of Carlyle, an ideologist of feudal socialism
and an enemy of the working-class and national liberation move
ments. p. 51
10 See Note 2. p. 53
11 In 1843 the movement for the Repeal of the Union assumed a large
scale in Ireland. Mass meetings in support of this demand were held
all over the country. O’Connell proclaimed 1843 “repeal year”.
The Tory Government decided to resort to repressive measures: it
outlawed the meeting set for October 5 in Clontarf, near Dublin,
and concentrated troops there. Afraid of losing control over the
movement, if it should come to clashes, the liberal leaders of the
Repeal Association cancelled the meeting. Encouraged by this
capitulation, the English authorities brought O’Connell and eight
other Irish leaders to trial, and the hearing took place in January
and February 1844. O’Connell was sentenced to 12 months’
imprisonment, the other accused to somewhat shorter terms. Three
months later, however, following widespread protests and general
ferment, the House of Lords quashed the sentence. p. 53
12 This was the first of a series of articles by Engels in La Re forme. In
addition to strictly English subjects—the trade crisis, the upsurge of
the Chartist movement, etc., Engels also devoted much attention to
Irish issues, notably to the upswing of the national liberation move
ment in Ireland.
540 NOTES
La Reforme—a democratic daily newspaper published between
1843 and 1850 in Paris by a group of petty-bourgeois republicans
and socialists—Flocon, Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc and others, p. 54
13 In the spring of 1846, the English Prime Minister Robert Peel
submitted to the House of Commons a Bill legalising police terror
in Ireland under the pretext of a ban on the carrying of arms. The
Bill was defeated by the opposition party, the Whigs, who used it
to topple Peel’s Cabinet. On coming to power, however, the Whigs
passed, in 1847, a Coercion Bill for Ireland, which launched a wave
of new cruel reprisals against the Irish people. p. 55
1 King’s County was the name given by the English conquerors in the
16th century to the Irish county of Offaley (Offaly), in honour of
the husband of the English Queen Mary Tudor—Philip II of Spain.
p. 55
16 The three kingdoms referred to are England, Scotland and Ireland.
p. 57
17 Engels’s article “Feargus O’Connor and the Irish People” was
published in the Deutsche-Brusseller Zeitungf the mouthpiece of
the Communist League, the first international revolutionary organi
sation of the proletariat. Marx’s and Engels’s contributions to that
newspaper, founded by German political emigrants in Brussels,
determined its trend, reflecting the consistent revolutionary-
democratic and communist views of the League’s members. The
paper appeared between January 1847 and February 1848. p. 58
1 8 rThe
■ newspaper Northern Star, founded in 1837, was published up
to 1852, first in Leeds and from November 1844 in London. Its
founder and editor was Feargus O’Connor, but it was Julian Harney,
a leader of the Chartists, who determined its revolutionary trend.
Under his guidance the paper became a militant proletarian organ,
which was greatly esteemed by the masses andexerted a major
influence on them. Harney enlisted Frederick Engels as permanent
contributor and Engels’s articles appeared in the paper between
1843 and 1850. Marx and Engels highly valued the Northern Star
as a militant organ of the proletarian democrats. When O’Connor
deserted the proletarian movement and took up petty-bourgeois
democratic positions, Harney was compelled to leave the paper in
1850 and it lost its revolutionary trend. p. 58
1 9 Repealers—participants in the movement for the Repeal of the Union
between Great Britain and Ireland and for the setting up of an
autonomous Irish Parliament. The leadership of the movement was
exercised by liberals. See also Note 23. p. 58
notes
20 Conciliation Hall, one of the biggest halls in Dublin, in which the
Repeal Association held public meetings. They were frequently
addressed by Daniel O’Connell and later by his son John, who
became the head of the Association after his father’s death. Both
father and son opposed a genuinely revolutionary struggle against
English colonial rule, although they constantly swore that they
would attain Ireland’s independence, if necessary , even by resorting
to armed uprising. ^ p. 59
22 The excerpt given below is from a speech Marx made at a meeting in
Brussels dedicated to the second anniversary of the Polish uprising
against Austrian rule in Cracow. The meeting was called by the
Association democratique in Brussels, an international organisation
founded in the autumn of 1847, which united in its ranks proleta
rian revolutionaries and progressive bourgeois and petty-bourgeois
democrats. Marx was its Vice-Chairman. p. 61
23 The upsurge of the national liberation struggle in Ireland widened
the already existing differences between the moderate and revolu
tionary wings of the Repeal Association. The liberal landowners and
representatives of the urban bourgeoisie, making up its Right wing,
wanted the movement to confine itself to “legal means”. The
revolutionary wing, whose most consistent champions were John
Mitchel and J.F. Lalor, was for armed struggle against English
colonial rule and the setting up of an Irish Republic, for giving the
land to the Irish peasants, for an alliance with the Chartists and the
implementation of democratic reforms. In January 1847, the
Repeal Association split up and its revolutionary-democratic wing
formed an organisation of its own—the Irish Confederation—which
began to prepare an uprising (see also Note 54).
After the uprising was suppressed in 1848, the Irish Confedera
tion fell to pieces and the majority of its active members were
either banished or gaoled; the survivors emigrated, mainly to the
U.S.A., where many of them later joined the Fenian movement.
p. 61
24 The article “Koln in Gefahr” (Cologne is in Danger) appeared in
the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, the militant organ of the proletarian
revolutionaries published from 1848 to 1849. Marx was the editor-
in-chief and the other members of the editorial board were Fre
derick Engels, Wilhelm Wolff, Georg Weerth, Ferdinand Wolff,
Ernst Dronke, Ferdinand Freiligrath and Heinrich Burgers. The
newspaper became a headquarters of the proletariat’s revolutionary
forces, its organisational centre. Its editorials, generally written by
Marx and Engels, defined the working class’s attitude towards all
important revolutionary issues and events. The newspaper educated
the masses in a revolutionary spirit, in the spirit of proletarian
542 NOTES
internationalism. It supported the Irish national liberation move
ment and called on the Chartists to ally themselves with revolu
tionary Ireland. Reports on events in England and Ireland appeared
regularly on its pages. p. 62
25 An allusion to the beginning of Goethe’s poem “Reineke Fuchs”
(Reineke the Fox). The reference to the confusion of cases applies
to the Berlin dialect. p.62
2 6 Engels is referring to the repressive measures the English Govern
ment launched against the Chartists and the participants in the Irish
national liberation movement. At the end of May the leaders of the
armed uprising under preparation in Ireland were arrested; John
Mitch el, the leader of the revolutionary wing of the Irish national
ists, was deported to Tasmania for 14 years. Many members of the
clubs were subjected to repressive measures. Ernest Jones, a leader
of the revolutionary Chartists, and his associates were arrested
early in June and accused of high treason. Then followed mass
arrests of Chartists. p. 62
2 7 The Committee o f Fifty was elected in April 1848 by the Pre
parliament, the meeting of the public figures from the German
states held in Frankfurt am Main between March 31 and April 4,
1848. Most of its members were constitutional monarchists. The
Committee rejected the proposal of the Federal Diet to create a
directory of three men to constitute a provisional Central Author
ity of the German Confederation. On June 28, 1848, the Frankfurt
National Assembly decided to form a provisional Central Authority
composed of an Imperial Regent and an Imperial Ministry. p. 62
28 A reference to the return of the Prince of Prussia to his Berlin
palace, from which he had fled when che revolution broke out.
Berlin’s insurgent workers traced the inscription: “Property of the
entire nation’ , on the palace wall. p. 62
29 This article by Marx was published in The New-York Daily Tribune
of which Marx became a regular correspondent in August 1851.
The newspaper was founded in 1841 by Horace Greeley, a pro
minent American journalist and political figure, and up to the mid
fifties reflected the views of the Left wing of the American Whigs.
Later it became the organ of the Republican Party. During the
forties and fifties the paper stood on progressive positions and
campaigned against slavery in America. In the early sixties, during
the Civil War, the champions of a compromise with the Southern
States gained the upper hand in the paper, producing a correspond
ing change in its political trend.
Marx contributed to the paper for more than ten years, up to
March 1862. Many articles were written by Engels at his request.
Marx’s and Engels’s articles dealt with the most diverse questions
notes 543
of international and domestic policy, of the working-class and
democratic movements, economics, etc.
The facts on the expropriation of the land from the rural
population by the Sutherland family given in this article were later
used by Marx in Chapter XXVII of the first volume of his Capital
(English edition). p #63
30 J. Dairymple, An Essay towards a General History o f Feudal
Property in Great Britain, London, 1759. ^ p. 63
31 First
D. Ricardo, On the Principles o f Political Economy, and Taxation .
edition appeared in London in 1817. p. 65
3 2 J.-C. Simonde de Sismondi, Nouveaux principes d'economie
politique, ou de la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population.
H I, Paris, 1819. p.65
33 Marx’s term for the excitement following the discovery of gold in
Australia and California. Among the people who rushed to these
gold-fields were many young, politically active English workers,
who emigrated there to look for work and to escape persecution
for their participation in the Chartist movement. The mass emigra
tion had a baneful effect on the composition of the English work
ing class. p .66
34 In his Republic Plato expressed the conviction that the ideal state
must rely on a strict division of labour and that poets must be
banished from it because, he said, they were of no use. p.67
35 Marx realised this intention in the article “The Future Results of
the British Rule in India”, printed in The New-York Daily Tribune,
on August 8, 1853. p .68
36 The Coalition Ministry (1852-55), headed by Aberdeen, consisted,
mainly, of representatives of the Whigs and a group of Peelites
(moderate Tories), to whom the Premier himself belonged. Some
of the secondary posts were assigned to Irish Liberals. Whigs
predominated in the Ministry. Aberdeen’s Coalition Government
was ironically called the “ministry of all talents”. p.69
37 The reference is to a draft Bill submitted by Aberdeen’s Govern
ment to the House of Commons in June 1853. The government
expected to normalise the relations between landlords and tenants
by giving the latter some rights and thereby mitigating the class
struggle in the country. After more than two years of debates in
Parliament the Bill was rejected. p.69
38 The article referred to was printed in The Times on June 25, 1853.
p .70
544 NOTES
39 With the introduction of the Union in 1801 the English Parliament
abolished the tariffs which had protected the emergent Irish
industry against European competition since the end of the
eighteenth century. The abrogation of the tariffs dealt a mortal
blow to Irish manufacture, which was unable to compete with the
far more powerful English industry. Cotton and wool manufacture
died out altogether and Ireland became an agrarian appendage of
England. p. 71
40 Free traders—champions of unencumbered trade and non-interven-
tion by the state in the economy. The centre of the free traders
was in Manchester, where the so-called Manchester School
emerged—a trend in economic thought reflecting the interests of
the industrial bourgeoisie. The movement was headed by the
textile manufacturers Cobden and Bright, who in 1838 organised
the Anti-Corn Law League. In the forties and fifties the free traders
were a separate political grouping of radicals, who at the end of the
fifties amalgamated with the emerging English Liberal Party, p.73
41 In 1845-47 a grievous famine blighted Ireland due to the ruin of
farms and the pauperisation of the peasants, who were cruelly
exploited by the English landlords. Occasion was the almost total
failure of the potato crop (potatoes were the principal diet of the
Irish peasants). About a million people starved to death and the
new wave of emigration caused by the famine carried away another
million. As a result large districts of Ireland were depopulated and
the abandoned land was turned into pastures by the Irish and
English landlords. p. 76
42 Jonathan Swift bequeathed his entire fortune to the building of a
lunatic asylum in Dublin. It was opened in 1757. p. 76
43 In 1853, Parliament adopted a Bill on the encumbered estates in
Ireland belonging to the Irish nobility. At that time there were
many estates in Ireland which had been mortgaged and mortgaged
anew because their owners were unable to make ends meet. More
over, according to English legislation, they were obliged to help the
poor residing on their lands. According to the 1853 Act, these
estates (the remnants of the Irish landed estates) were to be
quickly sold to the highest bidder and the proceeds used to pay off
creditors. This was one of the measures that helped English land
lords to take possession of Irish lands and to use them as pastures.
p. 77
44 See Note 36. p. 78
45 Karl Marx’s Lord Palmerston appeared as a series of articles in the
Chartist People’s Paper and in abridged form in The New-York
Daily Tribune. In addition, some of the articles were printed in
NOTES 545
England as a separate pamphlet. The pamphlet gives an accurate
and witty portrait of Lord Palmerston, England’s major statesman
and a typical representative of the bourgeois-aristocratic oligarchy.
In his person Marx gave a portrait and appraisal of English
diplomacy in general, of the country’s entire official foreign policy.
By giving concrete examples of Palmerston’s attitude to the
national liberation struggle of the Polish, Irish, Hungarian and
Italian people, Marx exposed the counter-revolutionary essence of
English foreign policy, the constant supportHt gave to reactionary
regimes in all countries, the deeply anti-popular policy of
hypocrisy and cynicism. Marx convincingly demonstrated that
Palmerston’s policy was typical of the English ruling circles, whose
interests he defended. p. 80
46 Catholic Emancipation—the abolition by the English Government
in 1829 of restrictions placed on the political rights of Catholics.
Catholics, most of whom were Irish, were granted the right to
stand for election to Parliament and to hold some government
offices. Simultaneously, the property census was raised five-fold.
The 1829 Act was introduced after several decades of struggle
waged by the Irish Catholic bourgeoisie, landowners and Catholic
clergy, into which they had drawn the peasantry. The Act was to
some extent a concession by the English Government, which at the
same time expected that this manoeuvre would split and weaken
the national movement and bring the elite of the Irish bourgeoisie
and the landowners over to its side. p. 80
47 The Irish Brigade—the name of the faction of Irish deputies in the
British Parliament. In the 1830s-1850s it was made up mainly of
representatives of the Right wing in the national movement,
reflecting the interests of the elite of the Irish bourgeoisie,, the
landlords and the Catholic clergy. Among the Irish Brigade there
were also Irish liberal leaders who were relying on support from
well-to-do tenants. Owing to the balance between the Tories and
the Whigs in the House of Commons, the Irish Brigade, alongside
with representatives of the free trade bourgeoisie, was able to tip
the scale in the House of Commons and to influence the struggle in
it, sometimes even to decide the fate of the government. p. 82
48 In February 1835, Daniel O’Connell, the leacter of the Irish
bourgeois nationalists, signed an agreement with representatives of
the Whigs according to which he was to support them in the House
of Commons in return for some concessions; in particular, Irish
political leaders were promised posts in the administrative appa
ratus after the Whigs came to office. For his part, O’Connell
undertook to stop the Repeal of the Union campaign. The agre
ement was negotiated in Lord Lichfield’s London house and
became known as the Lichfield-House Contract. It meant that the
liberal circles of the Irish bourgeoisie and the medium landowners
18-22 6
546 NOTES
had reached a compromise with the English politicians and had
renounced consistent struggle for Ireland’s independence. p. 83
49 The article “Ireland’s Revenge” was published in the Neue Oder-
Zeitung—s. bourgeois-democratic daily that appeared between 1849
and 1855 in Breslau. The most radical newspaper at the time, it
was often persecuted by the ruling circles. Max Friedlander, a
German journalist, and a cousin of Lassalle, invited Marx to co
operate in it, and as from December 1854 Marx became the
London correspondent of the paper, contributing two or three
articles a week. p. 84
so See Note 2. p. 84
51 See Note 40. p. 84
S2 See Note 46. p . 85
5 3 See Note 41. p. 86

54 In 1848, a popular uprising was being prepared in Ireland. Its aim
was the national liberation of the country and the establishment of
a republic. The preparations for the uprising were directed by the
Left wing of the Irish Confederation (Mitchel, Lalor, Reilly and
others, see Note 23), who set up armed clubs throughout the
country for training units of the national guard and manufacturing
arms. Mitchel and his friends established contacts with the Left
wing of the Chartists (Jones and others), who planned to rise
simultaneously with the Irish. At the end of May 1848, the English
authorities arrested Mitchel and other active leaders of the clubs.
Mitchel was deported to the Bermudas. More troops were sent to
Ireland and the inviolability of the person guaranteed by the
Constitution was revoked. After long hesitation, late in June 1848,
the surviving leaders of the Irish Confederation (Smith O’Brien and
others) called upon the Irish to revolt. But they had missed the
moment. The uprising took the form of uncoordinated actions in
several counties which were easily put down by the troops. The
English Government was supported by the Catholic clergy and the
landowner elite. p. 86
55 See Note 43. p. 86
5 6 Marx is referring to the new offensive begun by the English and
French troops in the spring of 1855 during the Crimean War
(1853-56). Marx and Engels believed that it could have led to the
rout of tsarism, if the Allied troops had taken energetic action.
Marx sharply censured the foreign policy pursued by the English
and French governments, who were striving to consolidate their
positions in die Balkans and oust Russia from that region while
n o tes 547
simultaneously trying to preserve the tsarist autocracy as an instru
ment for the suppression of revolutionary and national liberation
movements. In the articles describing the war, Marx and Engels
paid tribute to the skill of the Russian soldiers who defended
Sevastopol. p. 88
57 Marx’s Lord John Russell, consisting of six articles, is a vivid docu
ment revealing the essence of the two-partv system in England. It
was directed against John Russell, a typicarWhig, and exposed the
policies of that party. Marx showed that the struggle between
Whigs and Tories did not affect any crucial issues of domestic and
foreign policy, that the attacks by the opposition on the govern
ment were a component of the two-party mechanism, and that the
efforts of both parties were aimed at preserving the power in the
hands of the aristocracy andbourgeois elite. p. 89
5 8 The Anti-Jacobin war—the war England waged in alliance with
European absolutist states against republican France in 1793. p. 89
59 In April 1833, Parliament adopted an Act designed to suppress the
peasant movement in Ireland and introducing a state of siege in the
country. p.89
60 See Note 11. p. 89
61 See Note 48. p. 90
62 The Com Laws—the high import tariffs on com aimed at limiting
or prohibiting the import of com to England—were introduced in
1815 in the interests of the big landlords. The struggle over the
Com Laws between the industrial bourgeoisie and the landed
aristocracy ended in 1846 with the passing by the Peel Government
of a Repeal Bill. This was a heavy blow to the landed aristocracy
and promoted the development of capitalism in England. p. 91
63 The Habeas Corpus A ct was adopted by the English Parliament in
1679; it was a guarantee against police arbitrariness, for it required
that the authorities should state reasons for taking persons into
custody and release them if they were not brought before a court
within a limited period. However, Parliament was entitled to
suspend the Act, and the English ruling classes constantly abused it
in Ireland. p. 92
64 Clarendon, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, cruelly suppressed the
uprising of the Irish peasants in the summer of 1848 (see Note 54).
p. 92
65 A reference to the 1848 uprising. See Note 54. p. 92
66 Engels was accompanied or his tour of Ireland in May 1856 by his
wife Mary Bums. p. 93
18*
548 NOTES
67 A reference to the 1845-47 famine. See Note 41. p. 94
68 An error has crept into this passage: the English wars of conquest
began in 1169. p. 94
69 See Note 43. p. 95
70 The article was written by Marx in connection with the English
Government’s policy aimed at obstructing the liberation of the
islands from the English protectorate, established in 1815, and
their cession to Greece. The decision on the cession of the islands
to Greece was adopted by the Legislative Assembly of Corfu, the
main island. Gladstone went on a special mission to the Ionian
Islands in November 1858. The English Government succeeded in
delaying a solution of the problem up to 1864. p. 96
71 The editorial offices of The Times are on Printing-House Square in
London. p. 96
72 Orange Lodges or Orangemen (the Orangeist Order), named after
William III, Prince of Orange—an organisation set up in Ireland in
1795. The English authorities, the landlords and Protestant clergy
used this organisation for fighting against the national liberation
movement of the Irish people. The order united English and Irish
elements from all layers of society and systematically incited
Protestants against the Irish Catholics. The Orangemen had a
particularly great influence in Northern Ireland, where the majority
of the population were Protestants. p. 97
7 3 Dublin Castle was built by the English conquerors in the thirteenth
century and became the seat of the English authorities, a strong
hold against the Irish population. Dublin Castle was a symbol of
English colonial rule. p. 9 7
74 Phoenix Club—axi Irish secret society formed of the revolutionary
clubs smashed after 1848, and uniting mainly small employees,
sales-assistants and workers. The society was connected with Irish
revolutionary emigres in the U.S.A. In 1858, most of the club
members joined the secret Fenian society, and shortly after the
Phoenix Club was broken up by the English police. p. .99
75 m ooonism —an Irish peasant movement whose members were
united in secret societies and wore a green ribbon as an emblem.
The Ribbonmen movement was a form of popular resistance to the
arbitrary rule of the English landlords and the forcible eviction of
tenants from the land. The Ribbonmen attacked estates, organised
attempts on the lives of hated landlords and managers. The activi
ties of the Ribbonmen had a purely local, decentralised character
and they had no common programme of action. p. 99
NOTES 549
76 The English ruling circles and reactionary Irish landlords did every
thing they could to foment religious strife between Catholic and
Protestant Irishmen, which substantially weakened the national
liberation movement in Ireland. In the 1780s they helped set up
secret terrorist Protestant organisations in Northern Ireland, the
“Peep-o’-Day Boys” society among them. The members of these
societies generally broke into the houses of Catholics at daybreak
and, pretending to search for arms, which Catholics were not
allowed to possess, destroyed their property.
Defenders—the members of an organisation of Irish Catholics,
which emerged in the 1780s and 1790s in defence against the
terrorist gangs of Protestants (yeomen), particularly against the
“Peep-o’-Day Boys”. Many of the Defenders, recruited mainly
from among the Irish peasants, took part in the national liberation
uprising of 1798. p. 100
77 The reference is to the setting up in England in 1854 of corrective
schools to which juvenile delinquents, aged from 12 to 16, were
sent for crimes which according to former laws were punishable by
short-term imprisonment. p. 102
78 On the 1845-47 famine in Ireland see Note 41. p. 103
79 “ The Crisis in England”—an article published by Marx in the
Viennese newspaper Die Presse between October 1861 and the end
of 1862.
Die Presse, an Austrian bourgeois daily of a liberal trend which
appeared between 1848 and 1896 with small interruptions. In the
early sixties it took an anti-Bonapartist stand in foreign policy
questions and opposed the reactionary course of the quasi-consti
tutionalist government of the Austrian Empire. p. 105
80 See Note 62. p. 105
81 Marx is referring to the sluggishness of the English officials and
members of both Houses as regards the bills on landlords and
tenants in Ireland when these were debated in Parliament in
1853-55. On the nature and fate of these Bills, see Marx’s articles
“The Indian Question—Irish Tenant Right” and “From Parlia
ment” (pp. 69-75, 87-88) and also Note 37. p. 107
82 In 219 B.C., the ancient Spanish town of Saguntum, which was in
alliance with Rome, was besieged by Hannibal of Carthage. After
eight months the resistance of the citizens of Saguntum was
broken, but many of them burned themselves rather than surrender
and be enslaved. p- 107
83 Unionist troops—troops of the Northern States fighting the armies
of the slave-owning Southern Confederation during the American
NOTES
Civil War (1861-65). The seizure of New Orleans in April 1862 by
General Butler with the support of the Unionist navy was one of
the most important events in the spring and summer offensive of
the Northern armies. However, the successes achieved in this
offensive by Grant in the west and Butler in the south were
brought to naught by the defeat of the main Unionist forces on the
central front near Richmond. The tide did not turn in favour of the
Northern armies until 1863. p. 107
84 Statute Law—legal norms based on statutes, the legislative acts of
the English Parliament. p. 108
85 After the suppression of the 1798 national liberation uprising in
Ireland, on the instance of Castlereagh, State Secretary for Ireland,
the English Parliament adopted reactionary laws introducing a
stage of siege in Ireland and suspending the Habeas Corpus Act,
according to which reasons had to be stated for every arrest, p. 108
The December coup d'etat was carried out by Louis Bonaparte, the
o /
French President, on December 2, 1851, and led to the establish

ment of the Bonapartist dictatorship in France. Immediately after
the coup Palmerston, who was at that time English Foreign
Secretary approved of Louis Bonaparte’s actions in a talk with the
French ambassador. Palmerston made this statement without
consulting the other cabinet members and was forced to resign
because of it. In principle, however, the English Government
supported this line and was the first in Europe to recognise the
Bonapartist regime in France. p. 108
87 Zouaves—light-armed French infantry, originally recruited from the
Algerian Kabyle tribe of Zouaoua. p. 108
88 Chapter XXV of Volume I of Capital is called “The General Law of
Capitalist Accumulation”. In the first five subsections of Section 5
Marx illustrates the operation of that law by examples from the
position of different categories of the English working class, and in
subsection / , given in this collection, by the example of the work
ing people’s social conditions in agrarian Ireland dependent on
England. In the second German edition of 1872 and the French
edition of 1872-75 Marx made a number of additions which were
included in later editions. p jq 9
89 The reference is to the plague which ravaged Western Europe in
1348-49, decimating the population. It caused an acute labour
shortage, which in England led to a temporary rise in the wages of
workers in both town and country. In this the followers of the
reactionary economist Malthus saw proof of his thesis that the
pauperisation of the masses was due not to social causes but to an
notes 551
allegedly natural disproportion between the excessive growth of
the population and the production of means of consumption.
p. 116
90 The Thirty Years9 War (1618-48)—a general European war resulting
from the struggle between Protestants and Catholics. The Spanish
and Austrian Hapsburgs and Catholic princes of Germany rallied
under the banner of Catholicism and with tjie support of the Pope
fought against the Protestant countries: Bohemia, Denmark,
Sweden, the Dutch Republic and several Protestant German states.
The Protestant camp was supported by the rulers of Catholic
France—rivals of the Hapsburgs. Germany was the main battle
ground and bore the brunt of the devastation and havoc. p. 117
91 Marx refers to Section 8 of Chapter XV of the first volume of
Capital—“Revolution Effected in Manufacture, Handicrafts and
Domestic Industry by Modem Industry”. Subsection d of that
section deals with “Modem Domestic Industrv”. p. 118
92 -Fenians—Irish revolutionaries, who took their name from the
warriors of ancient Erin. The first Fenian organisations were found
ed in 1857 in the U.S.A. where they united Irish immigrants; later
they emerged also in Ireland. In the early sixties the Fenians set up
a secret Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, which unfolded the
struggle for an independent Irish republic, oriented on armed
revolt. The Fenians, who belonged to the revolutionary wing of the
Irish national movement, voiced the protest of the Irish people
against colonial oppression and against the eviction of the Irish
peasants from the land. At the same time they made mistakes of a
sectarian and nationalistic character, resorted to conspiratorial
methods, and failed to understand the importance o f an alliance
with England’s democratic and proletarian circles. As a result, they
failed to win the support of the mass of the Irish people. Most of
the Fenians were urban petty bourgeois or intellectuals. The
Fenians were very active in the latter half of the sixties, but the
movement declined in the seventies, giving way to more massive
and effective forms of national liberation struggle. p. 126
93 Chapter XXXVII opens Part VI of Volume III of Capital, which
deals with the transformation of surplus-profit into ground-rent.
The passage is taken from the Introduction to this part. p. 127
94 The reference is to the struggle over the bills on landlords and
tenants in Ireland that unfolded when they were debated in Parlia
ment in 1853-55. See Marx’s articles in this collection, “The Indian
Q u estion —Irish T enant R ig h t” and “From Parliament”
(pp. 69-75, 87-88) and also Note 37. p. 127
95 This memorial of the General Council of the International Working
Men’s Association written by Marx was adopted in connection with
552 NOTES
the conclusion in Manchester of the trial of the Irish Fenians, who
had made an armed attack on a prison van in an attempt to liberate
Kelly and Deasy, two Fenian leaders. The attack took place on
September 18, 1867. Kelly and Deasy managed to escape but
during the clash a policeman was killed. Five Irishmen charged with
murder were brought to trial and, although there was no direct
evidence, they were sentenced to death. Mac-Guire was subsequent
ly pardoned, and Condon’s sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment, but Larkin, Allen and O’Brien were executed. The
Fenian trial in Manchester aroused a storm of protest in Ireland
and England. On the instance of Marx, the General Council of the
International started, on November 19, a discussion on the Irish
q u estion (the minutes of the meeting will be found on
pp. 485-89), during which the leaders of the international
proletarian organisation expressed their solidarity with the struggle
of the Irish people for independence and condemned the position
of the reformist trade union leaders, who in the wake of the
English bourgeois radicals denied the right of the Fenians to resort
to revolutionary methods in the struggle. The discussion was
scheduled to continue on November 26, but when the news of the
conviction was received, the General Council convened an
emergency meeting on November 20 and addressed a memorial to
the Home Secretary asking for the commutation of the death
sentence. The English Government ignored the memorial of the
International Working Men’s Association. Because of the opposi
tion set up by the trade union leaders, the memorial was not
published in the English labour press in its original wording. The
French translation was published by Le courrier frangais, a weekly
which appeared in Paris and was linked with the International.
p. 128
96 A hint at the extensive amnesty granted by President Lincoln in
1863 and President Johnson in 1865 to persons who participated
in the American Civil War on the side of the South. p. 128
97 These notes were written by Marx as a conspectus for his speech to
be made at the meeting of the General Council of the International
Working Men’s Association on November 26, 1867, when the
discussion on the Irish question begun on November 19 was to
continue. In view of the immense excitement caused by the execu
tion of the three condemned Fenians (Larkin, Allen and O’Brien)
on November 23, Marx considered this speech as no longer suit
able. Feeling that at such a moment it would be more appropriate
for one of the English members of the General Council to express
sympathy with the Irish revolutionaries, he gave the floor to Peter
Fox, who was known for his support of the Irish national libera
tion movement. Marx described the meeting in great detail in his
letter to Engels of November 30, 1867 (see pp. 156-58). Later,
preparing for a report on the Irish question in the German Workers’
NOTES 553
Educational Association in London (see pp. 136-49), Marx used
this draft and the materials he had compiled for it. p. 130
A reference to the A ct o f Settlement adopted by the Long Parlia
ment on August 12, 1652, during the English bourgeois revolution,
following the suppression of the 1641-52 national liberation
uprising in Ireland. The Act legalised the reign of terror and
violence established by the English colonialists in Ireland and sanc
tioned the wholesale plunder of Irish laftds in favour of the English
bourgeoisie and the “new” bourgeoisified nobility. This Act
declared the majority of Ireland’s indigenous population “guilty of
revolt”. Even those Irishmen who had not been directly involved in
the uprising but had failed to show the proper “loyalty” to the
English Parliament were considered “guilty”. Those declared
“guilty” were classified into categories, depending on the extent of
their involvement in the uprising, and subjected to brutal reprisals:
e x e c u tio n , deportation, confiscation of property. On Sep
tember 26, 1653, the Act of Settlement was supplemented by the
A ct o f Satisfaction which prescribed the forcible resettlement of
Irish people whose property had been confiscated to the barren
province of Connaught and to County Clare and defined the
procedure for allotting the confiscated land to the creditors of
Parliament, the officers and men of the English army. Both Acts
consolidated and extended the economic foundations of English
landlordism in Ireland. p. 130
99 See Note 63. p. 130
100 Marx uses an appraisal of the Fenian movement given in Queen
Victoria’s address to Parliament of November 19, 1867, to describe
the brutal policy of the English Government towards the Irish
Fenians. p. 130
101 During an abortive coup in Boulogne in 1840, Prince Louis
Bonaparte wounded an officer of the government troops. This
crime did not stop the English Government from obsequiously
recognising the Bonapartist regime after the usurpation of power
by Louis Bonaparte in 1851. In 1867, however, three Irish Fenians
were sent to the gallows only on the suspicion of having made an
attempt on the life of a policeman while attacking a prison van in
Manchester. p. 130
102 The com-acre (conacre) system —the subletting to the poorest
peasants of small plots (up to half an acre) by middlemen on
fettering terms, which was extensively practised in Ireland. The
term came into use in the 18th century, after the adoption of a law
decreeing that com be sown on these small holdings. p. 132
103 The repeal of the Com Laws in 1846, which led to a drop in grain
prices due to the fall in the demand for Irish grain in England, and
554 NOTES
the rise in the demand for wool and other stock-breeding products
from Ireland made landlords and rich farmers switch to extensive
pasture farming which resulted in the mass eviction of small Irish
tenants from the land (“clearing of estates”) in the mid-19th
century. p. 133
104 A reference to the forcible eviction from the land of the popula
tion o f the Scottish Highlands (The Gaels) by the Anglo-Scottish
nobility in the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, a
process similar to the “clearing of estates” in Ireland. Marx des
cribes this process in Chapter XXVII of the first volume of Capital.
p. 133
105 The roundheads—the name given to the supporters of Parliament
during the English bourgeois revolution in the 17th century
because of their puritan custom of cutting their hair close, while
the cavaliers—supporters of the King—wore their hair long. p. 133
106 See Note 2. p. 133
107 In the first decades of the 19th century the Irish national move
ment developed under the slogan of the abolition of political
restrictions for the Catholic population and the granting to Cathol
ics (who formed the majority of the population) of the right to
stand for election to Parliament (see Note 46 on the Catholic
Emancipation Act of 1829). After the thirties the struggle was
waged under the banner of Repeal of the Anglo-Irish Union of
1801 (see Note 2). O’Connell and his supporters championed
moderate, peaceful means of struggle (“moral force”). In the mid
forties, however, the supporters of the liberation of Ireland by
revolutionary methods, up to and including armed uprising against
English rule (“Young Ireland” group, John Mitchel and his
friends), gained ground in the Repeal Association headed by
O’Connell. The differences between O’Connell and those advocat
ing the use of “physical force” led to a split in the Repeal Associa
tion and the formation of the more radical Irish Confederation (see
Note 23). p. 134
108 A reference to the reactionary foreign policy pursued by Castle
reagh, the British Foreign Secretary (1812-22). He supported the
efforts of the Holy Alliance aimed at strengthening the reactionary
feudal monarchies in Europe, notably the measures against the
revolutionary movements in Italy and Spain. The counter-revolu
tionary Tory policy of Castlereagh was continued by Palmerston,
the Whig leader, who relied on the support of the Right wing of
that party. He, however, masked the real nature of this policy in
liberal phrases and hypocritical expressions of sympathy with the
oppressed peoples. In his Lord Palmerston (an excerpt from which
is published in this collection, see pp. 80-81),, Marx showed that in
NOTES 555
his capacity of Foreign Secretary Palmerston played an ignoble role
with regard to the Polish struggle for independence during the
general uprising of 1830-31 and the uprising in the free city of
Cracow in 1846. While inciting the Poles to action by his false
promises of assistance, Palmerston sanctioned the suppression of
the Polish movement by tsarist Russia, Austria and Prussia, p. 135
109 The Reform League—an organisation set up in London in the
spring of 1865 on the initiative and \^*th the participation of the
General Council of the International. It was to be a political centre
for the guidance of the mass movement of workers for a second
electoral reform (the first, carried out in 1832, fully preserved the
political privileges of the ruling classes and denied rights to the
workers). By advancing the slogan of universal suffrage, the League
won considerable influence among the proletarian masses and set
up branches in many English towns. However, due to the vacilla
tions of the bourgeois radicals in the League’s leadership, who were
frightened by the mass movement, and because of the policy of
compromise pursued by the trade union leaders on the Council and
Executive Committee, the Reform League acted inconsistently and
half-heartedly. This enabled the English ruling classes to make the
1867 electoral reform a moderate one and to extend franchise only
to the petty bourgeoisie and the upper crust of the working class.
The leadership of the Reform League committed a grave error
in the Irish question by refusing to give any real support to the
Irish national liberation movement, although many of the League’s
rank-and-file members expressed sympathy with it. The meeting of
the League’s Council on November 1, 1867, adopted a resolution
condemning Fenianism, tabled by bourgeois radicals. When the
Irish question came up for discussion in the General Council of the
International in November 1867, the speeches were spearheaded
against this chauvinistic and anti-revolutionary position of the
Reform League and its supporters among the liberal trade union
ists. p. 135
110 This outline is a draft conspectus for a report on the Irish question
Marx was to make at the meeting of the German Workers’ Educa
tional Association in London on December 16, 1867, “Yesterday I
read in our German Workers’ Association (but three other German
workers’ associations were represented there, about 100 people in
all) a one-and-a-half hour long report on Ireland,” Marx wrote in
this connection to Engels on December 17, 1867. Some members
of the General Council of the International also attended the
meeting. Eccarius, a Council member who attached great import
ance to this report, which explained the attitude of the General
Council towards the Irish national liberation movement, took notes
in order to prepare them for publication (see p. 389). A copy
of these notes was sent to Johann Philipp Becker, the editor of
Vorbote, a monthly magazine in Geneva, which was the mouth-
556 NOTES
piece of the German sections of the International Working Men’s
Association in Switzerland; the notes were not published.
The London German Workers' Educational Association was
founded in February 1840 by German revolutionary emigrants.
After the Communist League—the first international communist
organisation of the working class had been founded—the leading
role in the Association was assumed by the local communities of
the League. Marx and Engels took an active part in the Associa
tion’s activities (except when sectarian elements temporarily gained
the upper hand). At the end of the fifties, Friedrich Lessner, a
pupil and comrade-in-arms of Marx and Engels, became one of the
leaders of the Association. The Association, which was linked with
English workers’s organisations, participated in the inauguration of
the International Working Men’s Association in 1864 and began to
act as its German section in London. The Association continued to
exist up to 1918. p. 136
1 11 A reference to the three biggest national liberation uprisings in
Ireland.
The 1641-52 uprising was provoked by the colonialist policy
which the English absolute monarchy pursued in Ireland, and
which was continued during the English bourgeois revolution by
the English bourgeoisie and the “new” nobility. The majority of
the insurgents were Irish peasants led by the expropriated clan
chiefs and the Catholic clergy. The Anglo-Irish nobility, descend
ants of the first English conquerors who had become related to the
Irish clan elite and adopted many Irish customs and habits, also
participated in the uprising. In October 1642, the insurgents
formed the Irish Confederation in Kilkenny. A struggle went on
within it between the indigenous Irish, who stood for Ireland’s
independence and action both against the Long Parliament and the
English Royalists, and the Anglo-Irish aristocrats, who endeavoured
to come to terms with Charles I on the condition that they would
be allowed to keep their estates and receive a guarantee of freedom
of -worship for Catholics. The latter gained the upper hand and a
treaty was signed with a representative of Charles I. After the rout
of the Royalists in England, Oliver Cromwell, the head of the new
bourgeois republic, organised an expedition to Ireland on the
pretext of suppressing a Royalist revolt there but in fact with the
aim of reducing her to colonial submission and plundering the land.
(He hoped that by confiscating Irish lands he would solve the
problem of paying the creditors of the republic, the officers and
men in the army.) In 1649-52, the Irish uprising was brutally
suppressed; the garrisons and population of entire towns were
destroyed, the Irish were sold en masse into slavery in the West
Indies, and Irish lands were confiscated and handed over to new
English landlords. These actions of Cromwell and his successors did
much to prepare the ground for the restoration of the monarchy in
England in 1660.
notes 557
The 1689-91 uprising followed in the wake of the 1688-89
coup d’etat in England (known as the Glorious Revolution), involv
ing the overcrow of James II Stuart and the establishment of a
bourgeois-aristocratic constitutional monarchy in England under
William III of Orange. The Catholic nobility in Ireland, supported
by the masses who were dissatisfied with the colonial regime, rose
against William. Under the banner of defence of the Stuarts the
insurgents fought for the abolition of Ireland’s political and reli
gious inequality and the return of the confiscated estates. James II,
who had taken refuge in Ireland and wls endeavouring to use the
Irish movement to regain the crown, became its official head and
recognised the demands of the Irish people. But the differences
between the reactionary Jacobites and the Irish patriots weakened
the insurgents. Despite their stubborn resistance, they were finally
defeated.
The 1798 uprising was the result of the upsurge of national
sentiments in Ireland, caused by the growth of the liberation move
ment and the impact of the American and French bourgeois revolu
tions at the end of the 18th century. It was prepared by Irish
b ou rgeois revolutionaries (Theobald Wolfe Tone, Edward
Fitzgerald and others), who in 1791 founded the patriotic society
“The United Irishmen” in Belfast (the chief town of the Northern
Irish province of Ulster) and proclaimed a fight for an independent
Irish republic. On the eve of the uprising, however, most of the
society’s leaders were tracked by government spies and arrested.
The uprising broke out on May 23 and lasted until June 17, 1798.
It flared up in a number of counties in South-Eastern and Northern
Ireland and was particularly strong in County Wexford. The
majority of the insurgents were peasants and urban poor. In August
and September 1798, after the landing of a French force in support
of the Irish patriots, the uprising spread to a number of places in
Connaught. The English authorities launched savage reprisals
against the rebels (almost all the leaders were executed) and passed
the Act of Anglo-Irish Union. p. 136
112 About 1155 Pope Adrian IV issued abull which conferred on the
English King Henry II the title of Supreme Ruler of Ireland in
exchange for the promise to subject the Irish Church to Rome.
Henry II used this “gift” to launch an aggressive expedition against
Ireland in 1171.
In 1576, in connection with the exacerbation of relations
between Protestant England and the Catholic powers, Pope
Gregory XIII declared that Queen Elizabeth Ihad forfeited the
right to the Irish crown. p. 137
113 The English Pale—the medieval English colony in South-East
Ireland founded by the Anglo-Norman barons in the 1170s. The
term came into use in the second half of the 14th century. The
boundaries of the English Pale changed during the continual wars
558 NOTES
of the conquerors against the hitherto unsubdued population.
Castles and fortifications were built in the border areas. At the end
of the 15th century the Pale included only part of the present
counties of Louth, Meath, Dublin and Kildare, but it served as a
bridgehead for the complete subjection of Ireland by the English in
the 16th century. Dublin was thecentre of the Pale and the seat of
the English Lord Deputy. p. 137
114 The Anglo-Irish Parliament, convoked at the end of the 13th
century, was initially made up of representatives of the big barons
and dignitaries of the Church of the English colony in Ireland (the
Pale). With the extension of the power of the English Crown to the
entire island (16th-early 17th centuries) the Parliament became a
representative body of the English and Anglo-Irish aristocracy
under the English Lord Deputy. The competency of that Parlia
ment was limited; according to the Act passed by Lord Deputy
Poynings in 1495, it could be convoked only with the sanction of
the Royal Privy Council. Under the impact of the growing national
liberation movement, in the 1780s the English Government was
compelled to extend the rights of the Irish Parliament. In 1801,
however, the Irish Parliament was abolished under the Act of
Union. p. 137
11 5 A reference to the Act of Settlement (1652) and the Act of Satis
faction (1653). For details, see Note 98. p. 138
116 A reference to the capitulation at Limerick, an agreement signed in
October 1691, between the Irish insurgents and representatives of
the English command, and approved by King William III. The
surrender terms were honourable: the insurgents were given permis
sion to serve either in foreign armies of in the army of William III;
the people were promised an amnesty, the preservation of their
property, suffrage and religious freedom. The Limerick terms,
however, were soon flagrantly violated by the English authorities.
p. 138
1 1 7 Absentees—landlords who owned estates in Ireland but lived
permanently in England. Their estates were managed by realty
agents who robbed the Irish peasants, or were leased to speculator-
middlemen, who subleased small plots to the peasants. p. 139
118 A reference to the book: W. Molyneux, The Case o f Ireland's Being
Bound by Acts o f Parliament in England Stated, Dublin, 1698.
p. 139
119 Penal Code or penal laws—a. set of laws passed by the English for
Ireland at the end of the 17th and in the first half of the 18th
centuries on the pretext of struggle against Catholic conspiracies.
These laws deprived the indigenous Irish, the majority of whom
were Catholics, of all civil and political rights. They limited the
n o tes 559
right of Catholics to inheritance, to the acquisition and alienation
of property, and introduced the practice of confiscating property
for petty offences. The Penal Code was used as an instrument for
the expropriation of the Irish who still owned land. It established
unfavourable lease terms for Catholic peasants, promoting their
dependence on the English landlords. The ban on Catholic schools,
the stem punishment meted o u t’to Catholic priests, and other
measures were intended to stamp out Irish national traditions. The
penal laws were abrogated, and then only in part, at the end of the
18th century under the influence of the growing national liberation
struggle in Ireland. p. 139
120 Catholics were officially deprived of voting rights by the Act on
the Regulation of Elections passed in 1727. Irish Catholics had not
enjoyed the right to stand for election to Parliament from the end
of the 17th century, following the introduction of an oath to be
taken by M.P.s involving an abjuration of Catholic dogmas. The
latter restriction was only lifted in 1829. Voting rights were
restored to the Catholic population somewhat earlier, in 1793,
since the English landlords themselves often needed the votes of
their Catholic tenants. p. 140
12 1 Freehold—a category of small landownership which had come
down from medieval England. The freeholder paid the lord a
comparatively small rent in cash and was allowed to dispose of his
land as he saw fit. p. 140
1 2 2 The war England waged against Napoleonic France ended in 1815.
p. 141
123 Cottiers—a category of the rural population consisting of land-
hungry or landless peasants. In Ireland cottiers rented small plots
of land and cottages from landlords or real estate agents on ex
tremely onerous terms. Their position resembled that of farm
hands. p. 142
124 See Note 48. p. 143
125 See Note 102. p. 146
126 The Irishman—an Irish bourgeois weekly published between 1858
and 1885', first in Belfast, later in Dublin. It supported the national
liberation movement and came out in defence of the Fenians. At
the same time it was subject to class and national limitations (refus
ing to publish the documents of the International in support of the
Irish revolutionaries). p. 149
127 The Reformation, begun in England under King Henry VIII (Act of
Supremacy, which declared the King the head of the Church in
560 NOTES
place of the Pope, and other Acts), was completed under Eli
zabeth I (the adoption, in 1571, of the “39 articles” of the
Anglican Church—a variety of Protestantism). The introduction of
the Reformation to Catholic Ireland was a means of subjecting her
to the English absolute monarchy and expropriating her population
in favour of the Englishcolonists on the pretext of struggle against
Catholicism. p. 150
A reference to the Restoration of the Stuart dynasty in England in
1660. The restored Stuarts (Charles II and James II) continued to
rule up to the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. The Restoration
was the result of a compromise between the bourgeois elite and the
“new” nobility, which had grown rich during the revolution, and
the aristocrats supporting the Stuarts. The adherents of the Stuarts,
many of whom had lost their estates in England, now received title
to confiscated Irish lands by way of compensation. The representa
tives of the new regime satisfied complaints and petitions for the
return of property to Irish owners only in rare cases; and following
the 1665 Act such complaints were no longer considered. Thus, the
sweeping expropriation of the Irish population implemented during
the English bourgeois revolution was sanctioned by the restored
monarchy. p. 150
12 9 See Note 114. p. 150
1 30 On the Fenian trial in Manchester, see Note 95. p. 153
131 A meeting of the Reform League Council was called on October
23, 1867, to discuss the letter in which the League’s President, the
bourgeois radical Beales, sharply censured the Fenian movement.
Odger and Lucraft, English trade union leaders who were members
of the League Council (and also members of the General Council of
the First International), objected to the publication of the letter
and expressed solidarity with the Irish liberation movement. This
was evidence of the influence on trade union leaders of the interna
tionalist ideas of Marx and his closest collaborators in the General
Council of the International Working Men’s Association. However,
at the meetings of the League Council on October 30 and
November 1, Odger and Lucraft, on whom pressure had in the
meantime been brought to bear by bourgeois radicals, denied their
former position and said that they had been misunderstood, p. 153
1 32 The reference is to Agricultural Statistics, Ireland. Tables showing
the Estimated Average Produce o f the Crops for the Year 1866;
and the Emigration from Irish Ports, from 1st January to 31st
December, 1866; also the Number o f Mills for scutching Flax in
each County and Province', Dublin, 1867. p. 153
NOTES 561
133 Despite the negative attitude to the Fenian movement of the
Reform League leaders, the Manchester trial of the Fenians aroused
among many League members a feeling of sympathy for the
fighters for Ireland’s liberation who had become victims of police
reprisals. The General Council of the International did everything
in its power to strengthen this sentiment. Marx mentions here two
meetings of the Reform League’s branches in London—one held on
October 31, precisely at the time the League Council debated the
anti-Fenian resolution, the other on November 5, 1867. The watch
word at both meetings was solidarity with the Irish national libera
tion movement and protest against the persecution of the Fenians
by the judiciary and the police. p. 154
134 In his letter to Engels of November 28, 1867, Marx pointed out
that he had to “behave diplomatically” with respect to Fenianism.
He implied that refusal at that particular juncture to publicly con
demn the mistakes of the Fenians, their conspiratorial tactics, the
manifestations of petty-bourgeois nationalist ideology, etc., in the
interests of strengthening the solidarity of the International with
the Irish national liberation movement, should not mean condon
ing these mistakes in general. In the letter published in this collec
tion Engels expresses his complete agreement with this opinion.
p. 155
135 Engels hints at the warm sympathy for the Irish national liberation
movement felt by Lizzy Burns, his second wife, who was a work-
ing-woman of Irish descent, and shared the revolutionary proleta
rian convictions of her husband (his first wife, Mary Bums, died in
1863). Lizzy Burns regarded the execution of the three Fenians in
Manchester as a personal tragedy (that is why Engels writes of
black and green in his house—green being the Irish national colour).
p. 156
136 The reference is to the article “London Meeting”, which appeared
in The Times on November 21,1867. p. 156
137 Marx is referring to a disagreement between Peter Fox and
Hermann Jung, the Corresponding Secretary of the General
Council of the International for Switzerland. At the Council
meeting of November 5, 1867, Jung criticised Fox for his intention
to refuse the post of Corresponding Secretary for America, p. 157
138 The resolution moved by Peter Fox essentially slurred over the
q u estion of Ireland’s national self-determination, proposing
instead, in very hazy terms, self-administration for Ireland; it
recommended to the English people “to accord an unprejudiced
hearing to the arguments advanced on behalf of Ireland’s right to
autonomy”. At Marx’s initiative the Standing Committee shelved
the draft resolution.
562 NOTES
The Standing Committee or Sub-Committee was the executive
body of the General Council of the International, which generally
assembled once a week and drafted many of the decisions which
were later adopted by the Council. The Standing Committee
evolved from a commission, elected when the International Work
ing Men’s Association was set up, to draft its programme docu
ments—the Rules and the Inaugural Address. On the Committee
were the President of the General Council (until this office was
abolished in September 1867), its General Secretary and the
corresponding secretaries for the different countries. Marx took an
active part in the work of the Standing Committee as Correspond
ing Secretary for Germany. p. 157
139 Marx refers to the demands advanced by the military patriotic
organisation, the Irish Volunteers, in the early 1780s. The
volunteers demanded above all Ireland’s independence in the field
of legislation, the responsibility of the administration to the
autonomous Irish Parliament, the reorganisation of the anti
democratic Parliament, representing a narrow clique of Anglo-Irish
landlords and obeying the English Government, into a genuinely
national representative body. In view of the upsurge of national
sentiment in Ireland, the English Government was compelled,
temporarily, to meet some of these demands. The Act of 1782
abolished the right of the English Parliament to pass laws for
Ireland, and the Irish Parliament could now be convened without
authorisation from the English' Government. In 1783 the auto
nomy of the Irish Parliament was reaffirmed by the Act of Renun
ciation. However, the reform of the Irish Parliament was obstruct
ed by the English authorities. Moreover, with the enactment of the
Anglo-Irish Union, Irish parliamentary autonomy was abolished
(see pp. 136-49). p. 158
140 Marx apparently did not make a speech on the Irish question in the
General Council as planned. In December 1867, the Council met
twice, on the 17th and 31st, and as of January 1868, illness
prevented Marx from attending the Council meetings for several
months. His view on the Irish question, which reflected the posi
tion of the revolutionary proletarian wing of the General Council,
was set forth in the detailed report he made on December 16 in the
London German W orkers’ Educational Association (see
pp. 150-52). p . 158
141 On December 13, 1867, a group of Fenians set off an explosion in

London’s Clerkenwell Prison in an unsuccessful attempt to free the
gaoled Fenian leaders. The explosion destroyed several neighbour
ing houses causing the death of several people and wounding 120 .
The Fenian attempt was used by the bourgeois press to incite
Chauvinistic anti-Irish feelings among the English population.
p . 159
NOTES 563
142 Richard Pigott, the Publisher of The Irishman (see Note 126) and
Alexander Sullivan, the owner of the Irish bourgeois radical Weekly
News appearing in Dublin from 1858, received prison sentences in
1867 and 1868 respectively for publishing articles in defence of the
Fenians. p. 159
143 Marx is referring to the elections to the English Parliament which
were to be held in November 1868, on the basis of the 1867 Act
on Household Suffrage, which extended the franchise to the
tenants of flats and cottages* that is, to the {Ifetty bourgeoisie and
the working-class elite. Before the elections, Gladstone, the leader
of the Liberal Party, made many promises to settle the Irish ques
tion in the hope of winning votes among the new categories of
voters. Even before the election campaign got under way, he
proposed the separation of the Anglican Church from the state in
Ireland, thereby depriving it of state support and subsidies. He
expected that this would win him popularity with the Irish
Catholic voters. After winning the elections and assuming office at
the end of 1868, Gladstone passed a bill through Parliament in
March 1869 which placed the Anglican Church in Ireland on an
equal footing with the Catholic Church. Gladstone and the Liberals
hoped that their policy of moderate reform would weaken the
revolutionary movement in Ireland. p. 160
144 On October 24, 1869, a mass demonstration was held in London in
support of the demand for an amnesty for Irish political prisoners.
The General Council of the International helped organise the
demonstration. From various parts of the capital columns of
demonstrators marched to Trafalgar Square, whence an impressive
procession moved to Hyde Park, where the mass meeting took
place. The demonstration was held under the slogan “Justice for
Ireland! ” It was part of the amnesty campaign conducted in
Ireland and England, which grew in intensity when Gladstone,
despite his pre-election promises, insisted on humiliating terms for
the Irish prisoners as a condition for granting them an amnesty.
p. 161
145 After Marx’s report at the General Council meeting on October 26,
1869, in which he said that the bourgeois press has given a distort
ed picture of the demonstration of solidarity with the Irish people
held in London on October 24, the General Council of the Interna
tional passed a decision on adopting an address to the English
people. However, on the instance of Marx, the Sub-Committee or
Standing Committee (see Note 138) decided to refrain from such a
general address and to pass resolutions on concrete items of the
agenda for a discussion of the Irish question. Eccarius, Secretary of
the Council, informed the Council of this decision on November 9.
On November 12 Marx wrote to Engels:
“Instead of the address on the Irish question, for which there
564 NOTES
was no real occasion, I put on the agenda for next Tuesday’s meet
ing (to adopt resolutions) the following items:
“1) The behaviour of the British Government over the Irish amnesty
question.
“2) The attitude of the English working class towards the Irish
question.” p. 161
146 See Note 96. p. 162
147 The reference is to the amnesty granted to the participants in the
Hungarian national liberation movement following the reorganisa
tion of the Austrian Empire into Austria-Hungary in 1867, on the
basis of an agreement between the Austrian Government and the
Hungarian aristocratic opposition. This action was theresult of
Austria’s defeat in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 and the growth
of national contradictions within the multinational Austrian state.
p. 162
148 Before they assumed office in December 1868, when the election
campaign was in full swing, Gladstone and the Liberals sharply
criticised in the House of Commons the Conservative Government’s
policy in Ireland, especially the reprisals against the participants in
the Fenian movement. The Liberals compared the actions of the
Conservatives with the conquest of England by William the Con
queror in the 1 1 th century.
The Fenian insurrection was prepared by the Fenian Irish
Revolutionary (republican) Brotherhood early in 1867 with the
aim of winning independence for Ireland. It was to start on
March 5. The organisers planned to form several mobile columns of
insurgents who were to conduct guerilla warfare from bases in
woods and mountainous areas. However, weak military leadership
and the fact that the authorities got to know the insurgents’ inten
tions prevented the plan from being brought to fruition. Armed
revolts broke out only in some eastern and southern counties. The
insurgents seized several police barracks and stations and for a
short time gained control of the town of Killmalock (County
Limerick). There were also clashes with the police in the suburbs of
Dublin and Cork. The insurrection failed because of the conspirato
rial tactics of the Fenians and their weak ties with the masses. Half
of the 169 participants in the insurrection who had been arrested
and brought to trial were sentenced to hard labour. p. 162
149 A reference to Gladstone’s negative reply to the petitions for an
amnesty for Irish prisoners adopted at mass meetings in Ireland,
including the one in Limerick on August 1, 1869. Gladstone
endeavoured to justify his refusal in his letters to O’Shea and Butt,
two Irish functionaries, which were published in The Times on
October 23, and 27, 1869. Marx criticises the motives given by
Gladstone in those letters. p. 163
notes 565
1 50 Marx refers to the New-York Irish People, an Irish newspaper
published in the U.S.A. which in one of its articles said that by his
refusal to grant an amnesty to the participants in the Fenian move
ment, Gladstone was only promoting the movement (this remark
was quoted by The Irishman in its issue of November 13, 1869).
The comparison of Gladstone with the Head Centre of the plot is a
touch of irony, since this was the title of the leader of the secret
Fenian organisation—the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, p 164
151 In a speech made on October 7, 1862, in Newcastle, Gladstone
(then Finance Minister) greeted the Confederation of the Southern
States in the person of its President Jefferson Davis, justifying the
rebellion of the southern slaveowners against Lincoln’s lawful
government. The speech was published in The Times on October 9,
1862. p . 164
152 Dissenters, or non-conformists—people who disagree with official
religious doctrine. The reference here is to the various sectarians
who dissented from the official Anglican Church. On Gladstone’s
promises to establish equality between the Anglican and Catholic
churches in Ireland in order to win the support of the Irish
Catholic elite, and on his Church Bill see Note 143. p. 164
153 In 1840, a single Parliament was set up in England’s Canadian
possessions. The 1867 Act transformed them into the self-govern
ing Canadian Confederation and granted it Dominion status, p. 165
154 On October 30, 1869, The Irishman carried a report which said
that in his letter to the Dublin branch of the Ancient Order of
Foresters (a mutual-assistance society founded in England as early
as 1745) which took part in the movement for the amnesty for
Irish prisoners, Gladstone had refused to acknowledge his pre-elec
tion promises to improve Ireland’s position. p. 165
155 At the by-elections to Parliament in County Tipperary (South-
Western Ireland), the candidature was advanced of O’Donovan
Rossa, a prominent Fenian who in 1865 had been sentenced to
penal servitude for life. On November 25, 1869, Rossa was elected
M.P. Even though the elections were quashed,the fact of his elec
tion testified to growing protest against Englishpolicy among the
Irish masses. p. 165
156 Political Register—an abbreviation for C obbett’s Weekly Political
Register which appeared between 1802 and 1835 in London. In it
W. Cobbett and other English radicals sharply criticised the policy
of the English Government, notably its police measures in Ireland.
p. 167
1 57 See Note 148. p. 167
566 NOTES
158 See Note 111. p. 167
159 A reference to the book: Ledru-Rollin, The Decline o f England,
London,1850. p. 167
160 On November 23, 1869, during the debate of the draft resolution of
the General Council of the International on the English Govern
ment’s policy towards the Irish prisoners, Odger, a trade union
leader, proposed to delete the word “deliberately” from the
sentence “Mr. Gladstone deliberately insults the Irish nation”. At
the next meeting on November 30, 1869, he made new attempts to
subdue the revolutionary and anti-government tone of the resolu
tion. p. 168
161 At the meeting of the General Council held on November 30,
Odger proposed several fresh amendments to the draft resolution
on the English Government’s policy towards the Irish prisoners.
This was an attempt of the reformist trade union leaders to reduce
the resolution, which was a document exposing English policy and
expressing solidarity with the fighters for Ireland’s independence,
to a humble appeal to the mercy of the ruling circles. In his speech,
Odger justified and defended Gladstone’s policy. Odger *s proposal
was rejected by the Council. Of all the amendments proposed by
him only the one to omit the word “deliberately”, advanced at the
former meeting, was accepted. p. 168
162 Marx wrote this article in October and November 1869 while
preparing for the forthcoming debate on the Irish question in the
General Council of the International. Besides Marx took extracts
from the newspaper Irishman about the movement for the amnesty
of the Irish political prisoners, and also used the text of the draft
resolution of the General Council on the amnesty question. At
later date, apparently when looking through Marx’s manuscripts
after his death, Engels attached a separate page with an inscrip
tion “Hibemica” and the date “1869” to this series of manus
cripts. On this basis we may assume that Marx intended to use
“Extracts and Notes” as preparatory material for a report on
item 2 of his plan for the forthcoming discussion in the General
Council—the attitude of the English working class towards the Irish
question (see Note 145). Marx’s letter to Engels, written on
December 10, 1869, shows that he took an interest in develop
ments in Ireland at the close of the eighteenth century, because he
wanted to examine the characteristic features of England’s policy
in Ireland and of the Irish national movement at the time, whose
progressive exponents demanded that Ireland be granted the status
of an independent republic, a demand which was just as urgent in
the nineteenth century (see pp. 397-98). It was particularly
important for Marx to show that the cruel treatment of the Irish
revolutionaries and the subjugation of Ireland by the English
NOTES 567
authorities had a detrimental effect on the English people itself.
Marx’s work consists of two parts: the main investigation and
a supplementary summary of comprehensive chronological data.
Each of the parts is in the form of a separate manuscript with the
author’s page-numbering. Page 9 of the second manuscript is
missing. The first manuscript is a rough draft of the main investiga
tion with evidence of subsequent editing. On several pages the text
is written in above lines crossed out by the author or insertions are
made on pieces of paper pasted to the manuscript. Marx used the
following sources for his “Extracts and Notes’ : J. Mitchel, The
History o f Ireland from the Treaty o f Limerick to the Present
Times, Vol. 1-2, Dublin, 1869 (the copy used by Marx and bearing
his marks and underlinings is extant); J. Ph. Curran, The Speeches.
Edited with Memoir and Historical Notices by Th. Davies, Dublin,
1855; G. Ensor, Anti-Union. Ireland as she ought to be, Newry,
1831, and other material such as the journal Political Register,
published by the English radical William Cobbett, some docu
mentary publications (Grattan’s speeches, etc.) and historical
treatises. Some of the sources have not yet been identified.
The article is not a synopsis of these books. Marx selected
material according to his own plan, showing how he understood the
course of Irish history at the time considered and its division into
periods. This is also shown by the structure of both manuscripts
and by the way Marx himself divided them into sections, para
graphs and items. Very often he selects facts from various sources
or from various sections of the same source (for example, from
Thomas Davies’ Memoir about Curran and from his historical
notices to Curran’s Speeches) and aranges them in his own way.
The exposition proves that Marx took acreativeapproach to the
material. He gives both direct quotationsfrom varioussources and
his own renderings of some passages (these are also given in brevier
but without quotation marks).Unlike extracts from sources, Marx
wrote his own remarks both in English and German (these are given
in great primer). In both manuscripts there are passages marked by
Marx with verticla lines in the margin (these are reproduced in the
given publication;. p. 169
163 The Peace o f Amiens. A reference to the peace treaty concluded by
Napoleon’s France and her allies with England on March 27, 1802.
It was no more than a short-lived armistice. In May 1803 these
countries resumed their armed struggle for world supremacy. The
change in the royal title under the Peace of Amiens amounted to
the final and formal repudiation by the English kings of their
claims to the French throne, claims that dated back to the Hundred
Years’ War (14th-l 5th centuries). p. 169
164 Poynings*s Law was passed in 1495 by the Parliament convened by
Poynings, representative of the English Crown in the town of
Droheda, in the south-eastern part of Ireland conquered by the
568 NOTES
English (see F. Engels, “Chronology of Ireland”, pp. 306-55). It was
repealed in May 1782 under the impact of the Irish national libera
tion movement. p. 169
165 'j’hg Statute of George I mentioned here was promulgated in 1719
and is also known as the Declaratory Act. It was repealed during
1782 and 1783 owing to the upsurge of the liberation movement in
Ireland. p. 170
166 xhe name given in the 16th and 17th centuries to merchants and
bankers, particularly those from the City of London, who took part
in colonial plunder and financial speculation. During the English re
volution of the mid-17th century, “adventurers” loaned Parliament
considerable sums of money to finance the war against the Royal
ists in exchange for land confiscated in Ireland. Among the “adven
turers” were many statesmen, members of the gentry, and civil
servants.
About absentees see Note 117. p. 170
167 See Note 119. p. 170
168 This passage from Curran’s speech to the Irish Parliament on
February 18, 1792, is quoted from J. Ph. Curran The Speeches,
Dublin, 1855, pp. 140-41. This book contains speeches which
Curran made in Parliament between November 1783 and May
1797, as well as those he made later in courts and elsewhere in
defence of participants in the Irish revolutionary movement and in
the 1798 uprising. The quoted edition was supplied with the
“Memoir” and “Historical Notices” containing a biographical notes
on Curran and a description of the most important developments
of the time. The author was Thomas Davies, a prominent Irish
democrat, historian and poet, one of the leaders of the “Young
Ireland”—a revolutionary patriotic society in the 1840s. Through
out his work, Marx quotes passages both from Curran’s Speeches
and the “Memoir” and “Historical Notices” written by Davies (he
gives either direct quotations or his own rendering). Marx regarded
this book as the most important source for a study of the political
history of Ireland in the late 18th century and considered Curran
himself a “great lawyer and the noblest personality” (see Marx’s
letter to Engels of December 10, 1869, pp. 397-98 of this collec
tion). p. 172
***** Protestant ascendancy—a. principle employed openly in governing
Ireland between 1691 and 1800, according to which the Protest
ants, mostly English colonists and their descendants, enjoyed broad
political, social and religious privileges, whereas the Catholic
majority was deprived of all rights and had to pay tithes to the
state Anglican Church. This principle was expressed most glaringly
in the Penal Code against the Catholics. p. 172.
n o tes 569
170 The principles of armed neutrality proclaimed by the government of
Catherine II in 1780 were soon recognised by several states as the
norm for international maritime law. They envisaged freedom of
trade between neutral and belligerent countries, prohibition of
privateering, inviolability of neutral cargo carried by enemy vessels
and of enemy cargo carried by neutral vessels (with the exception
of arms smuggling), and refusal to recognise a port under blockade
if access is not blocked by the enemy navy. The declaration on
armed neutrality undermined Great Britain’s monopoly domina
tion of the seas and helped the North American states in their
struggle for independence. p. 173
171 Marx borrowed the expression “Armed Protestantism of Ireland”
from Thomas Davies* “Memoir” in the book J. Ph. Curran, The
Speeches, p. XIX, to describe the Irish Volunteers movement in the
late 18th century. p. 173
172 The Catholic Committee was founded in the late 1750s. Among its
members were liberal Catholic landowners, Catholic merchants,
manufacturers and intellectuals whose aim was to fight for allevia
tion and repeal of the penal laws against the Catholics. Originally
the Catholic Committee took a very moderate and loyal stand in
regard to the English authorities. But the national upsurge at the
end of the 18th century changed its composition and tactics and
radical elements of the Irish bourgeoisie now prevailed in the
Committee. Its Left wing took part in the Volunteers movement
and subsequently joined the revolutionary society of United Irish
men. The efforts of the Catholic Committee to secure equal rights
with the Protestants for the Catholics continued in the first decade
of the 19th century.
The Whig Club was founded in 1789 in Dublin and the North
ern Whig Club in 1791 in Belfast. The composition and political
tendencies of this organisation were diverse. Its Protestant leaders
voiced the interests of Protestant liberal landlords and big bour
geoisie. They stood for a compromise with the English Government
and wanted to keep the national movement within strictly consti
tutional bounds. The committee’s radical wing, on the contrary,
proposed more resolute action and later formed the nucleus of the
United Irishmen Society. p. 175
173 See Note 73. p. 178
174 The full text of the resolution moved by Hussey Burgh reads as
following: “We beg to represent to his majesty that it is not by
temporary expedients, but by a free trade alone, that this nation is
now to be saved from impending ruin.” This resolution is quoted in
the book: J. Mitchel, The History o f Ireland, Vol. 1, ch. XIX,
p. 127.
Marx made wide use of the factual information in this book
570 NOTES
and of the quoted texts of speeches and documents, but on almost
no occasion did he quote the author’s text. Marx must have
borrowed from Mitchel’s book excerpts from some of Grattan’s
speeches, the text of the resolution adopted by the Volunteer
Convention at Dungannon, data concerning the correspondence
between Fitzwilliam and Lord Carlyle (Mitchel, op. cit., Vol. I,
Ch. XX, XXVIII). Information on the Irish uprising of 1789, on
the use of the Hanover and other German troops for the suppression
of the Irish national movement also came from the same source
(Mitchel, op. cit., Vol. I, Ch. XXVI, XXXII, XXXIII). In estimating
the policy of the English Prime Minister Pitt the Younger, Marx
also took some of Mitchel’s conclusions into account. He highly
appraised Mitchel’s activities as a leader of the revolutionary-
democratic trend in the Irish national movement in the 1840s and
valued his opinion as a historian. p. 178
175 This law was adopted by the English Parliament in 1689 after a
coup d’etat, resulting in the establishment of the William of Orange
monarchy. It strengthened parliamentary control over the size and
finances of the standing army, but at the same time enabled the
British Crown to maintain large military contingents in Ireland and
in overseas colonies. The law also provided for the formation of
courts martial to deal with cases of mutiny. p. 180
176 The Treaty o f Methuen concluded between England and Portugal
in 1703, was signed by the English diplomat John Methuen, hence
its name. Under this treaty, England was allowed to export her
textiles to Portugal, a liberty which she and all other countries
were denied by the Portuguese Government in 1677. p .181
177 See Note 63. p. 181
178 Marx must have taken these passages of Portland’s and Grattan’s
speeches from the book The Speeches o f the Right Honourable
Henry Grattan, published in London in 1822-30 in four volumes
(the quoted passages are from Vol. I, pp. 131-34). Other passages
from Grattan’s speeches are, probably, from the same source.
p. 186
179 The Court o f the King's Bench—one of the oldest courts in
England, which examined criminal and civil cases and was
empowered to review decisions taken by lower courts. p. 190
180 Rotten boroughs—the name giver to rural electoral districts in
England with few voters dependent on the local landowner who
arbitrarily disposed of their votes. p. 191
181 Right Boys (from the name of an imaginary leader known as
Captain Right)—a secret peasant society that arose in 1785 in the
notes 571
southern counties of Ireland as a spontaneous protest by the Irish
peasants against cruel oppression. The Right Boys employed the
same organisational forms (special ritual, oath of loyalty) and the
same methods of struggle (threatening letters, raids on estates, acts
of terror against landlords, middlemen, tax and tithe collectors,
destruction of enclosures put up on communal lands, seizure of the
harvest grown on landlords’ fields, etc.) as did the secret peasant
societies that appeared in various localities of Ireland in the 1760s,
such as Whiteboys, Steelhearts and the like. The actions of these
societies often developed into local peasant revolts. The English
authorities resorted to the most cruel punitive measures against
them. p. 203
182 See Note 121. p. 205
18 3 A reference to the final stage of the royalist uprising that flared up
in March 1793 in Vendee, a department in the west of France. The
rebels were mostly backward peasants, incited by counter-revolu
tionary noblemen and priests. The English ruling circles supported
the Vendee rebels with arms and money. The decisive blow against
them was inflicted in 1795 by republican troops under Lazar
Hoche. Many leaders of the uprising were executed in 1796, but
attempts to renew it were made in 1799 and in later years.
Vendee has become a synonym for reactionary uprisings.p. 207
184 A reference to the so-called corresponding societies—democratic
organisations that arose in England and Scotland under the impact
of revolutionary events in France. A particularly important role
was played by the London Corresponding Society founded at the
beginning of 1792 with Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker, as chairman.
The corresponding societies disseminated the ideas of the French
Revolution, demanded peace with the French Republic and fought
for democratic reforms in England. The societies survived for a
number of years in spite of cruel persecution from the government.
p. 209
185 Dissenters—persons who do not profess the state religion. Here the
author refers to adherents of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland
among the descendants of the Scottish colonists who had moved to
Northern Ireland, and to members of various Protestant sects not
in agreement with the official Anglican Church. p. 209
186 This means the support given by English ruling circles to the anti-
French coalition of Prussia, Austria and other European countries,
as well as to counter-revolutionary elements within France, which
marked the beginning of England’s open intervention in revolution
ary France. This caused the government of the French Republic to
declare war on England on February 1, 1793. An official declara
tion of war by the English Cabinet followed on February 11, 1793.
p. 211
572 NOTES
187 See Note 46. p. 212
188 Marx is referring to the sharp criticism to which the 1793 Assemb
ly Act was subjected by the English radical writer William Cobbett
in the columns of his journal Cobbett's Weekly Political Register
(see Vol. XIX, 1811, pp. 417-18) and to its application in Ireland
at the beginning of the 19th century. p. 212
189 See Notes 76 and 75. p. 214
190 The expedition under General Hoche was organised by the French
Government (Directory) on the insistence of Wolfe Tone, a leader
of the United Irishmen Society, who came to France early in 1796
to obtain military assistance for the Irish patriots. He thought the
arrival of the French landing force would be the signal for a general
uprising in Ireland. The flotilla with the landing force sailed from
Brest in mid-December 1796, but only a few ships reached the
Bantry Bay, the rest either being scattered by storms or sunk by
English ships, as is stated in Marx’s excerpts. The expedition was a
failure and towards the end of December, surviving ships returned
to Brest. In spite of this the English authorities waited with
apprehension for General Hoche to resume landing operations early
in 1797. However, fresh attempts to land French troops in Ireland
were undertaken only later (one attempt, in the autumn of 1798, is
described below) with very weak landing forces, since support
for Ireland’s fight for independence was a subordinate issue
in the strategy of the French bourgeois rulers, as compared with
plans for conquering colonies in the Middle East and other re
gions (Bonaparte’s campaign in Egypt, Syria, etc.). p. 216
191 A reference to the provocative role of Prussian ruling circles during
the second and third partitions of Poland at the close of the 18th
century. Secretly inciting Polish patriots against tsarist Russia, the
Prussian Government took part in the second partition of Polish
lands (1793) and in suppressing the uprising led by Tadeusz
Kosciuszko, which was followed by the third partition of Poland
(between Prussia, Austria and Russia) and the final liquidation of
the Polish state (1795). As early as 1863 Marx exposed Prussia’s
perfidious policy in the preparatory material for his unfinished
pamphlet on the Polish question (see Marx-Engels Archives,
Vol. XIV, Russ, ed., Moscow, 1973).
The policy of the English Government with respect to Ireland
at the close of the 18th century is compared with Prussia’s policy
on the Polish question in the book: G. Ensor, Anti-Union. Ireland
as she ought to be, Newry, 1831, p. 85. In some of the sections of
the present work Marx made wide use of this Irish publicist’s
accusatory pamphlet. Marx refers to Ensor’s pamphlet mainly
when he examines the concrete situation and methods of enforcing
the Union. He also borrows some historical parallels from Ensor
NOTES 573
(with the Cromwellian period, with the Union of 1707 between
England and Scotland and with the Swedish-Norwegian Union of
1814), plus quotations from speeches made by various statesmen,
and passages from newspapers and books by Petty, Laurence,
Harris and other authors whom Ensor himself often quoted with
out giving reference to actual editions. p. 221
192 a reference to the Peace Treaty, which Charley Cornwallis conclud
ed in 1792 with Tippoo Sahib (or Tippoo Sultan)—ruler of the
South-Indian state Mysore, who offered stubborn resistance to
English expansion. Under the treaty Mysore lost a considerable
part of its territory and had to pay the East-India Company 33
million rupees. Further attempts by Tippoo Sultan to prevent
England’s conquest of India resulted in a new, fourth Anglo-
Mysore war (1799), in which Tippoo was killed and Mysore be
came a vassal state. p. 222
193 In the manuscript, the bottom of page 46 is left blank with a
remark in Marx’s handwriting “See continuation p. 47”. In turn,
part of the text on page 47, repeating the foregoing description of
Cornwallis’ actions against the French landing force and Irish
insurgents, is crossed out by a vertical line. The text that is not
crossed out begins with a repetition of the sentence “Pitt now
conceived...” which is, however, a little longer this time. p. 224
194 See Note 14. p. 226
195 A reference to the unification of England andScotland into a
single state—the Kingdom of Great Britain—by the Anglo-Scottish
Union of 1707, which abolished Scotland’s Parliament allowing
Scottish deputies several score of seats in the English Parliament.
However, the autonomy and the rights of the Presbyterian Church
were retained. The people came out against the Union, seeing it as
an encroachment on their country’s independence. It was,
however, enforced thanks to the efforts of the Scottish aristocrats,
who sought thus to secure their privileges, and of the Scottish
upper bourgeoisie seeking access to enterprises in colonies and to
England’s world trade. p. 227
196 The Swedish-Norwegian Union of 1814 reflected the interests of
Sweden’s ruling classes. By their promises to help in incorporating
Norway into the Swedish Crown, the governments of some
European countries, including England, secured Sweden’s participa
tion in the anti-Napolean coalition of 1813-14. The annexation was
sanctioned by the Vienna Congress (1814-15). The Union,
however, provided for an autonomous Norwegian Parliament and
administration. In 1905 the Norwegian Parliament abrogated the
Union and Norway regained her independence. p. 228
574 NOTES
197 Threshers were members of a secret peasant organisation that
operated in the Irish counties of Mayo, Leitrim, Sly go w and Ros
common in 1806 and 1807. They rose against excessive requisi
tions made by church tithe collectors. The authorities meted out
cruel punishments to the threshers, many of whom were hanged.
p. 231
198 Marx is quoting a passage from Curran’s speech made on October
17, 1812, during parliamentray elections in Newry (Ireland). (See
J. Ph. Curran, The Speeches, pp. 465-69.) p. 232
199 On August 16, 1819, troops and the police shot down unarmed
participants in a meeting to support electoral reform at St. Peter’s
Fields, near Manchester. After the “battle of Peterloo”, as this
massacre was ironically called by analogy with the battle of
Waterloo, Parliament hastened to pass six reactionary acts against
freedom of the press and assembly (“gagging laws”), Castlereagh
being one of initiators of their adoption. p. 232
2 0 0 A reference to two major uprisings against English rule in Ireland.
The first uprising started in 1315 when a detachment led by
Edward Bruce, brother of the Scottish King Robert Bruce, landed
in Ireland shortly after routing the army of the English King
Edward II. Many chiefs of the Irish clans joined him. However,
although the army led by Robert Bruce himself came to the assist
ance of the Irish insurgents, the uprising was quelled in 1318. (For
details see Frederick Engels, “Chronology of Ireland”, pp. 306-55.)
Concerning the uprising of 1641-52 see Note 111. p. 234
201 The second part of the work is subdivided in almost the same way
as the first. The only difference being that here two paragraphs are
designated by the letter c): “The Volunteer Organisation” and
“Declaration of Independence”, whereas in the main part of the
work the first of these paragraphs is designated by the letter b).
p. 234
202 The reference is to item 2 in Marx’s draft for the debate on the
Irish question—the attitude to it of the English working class. (See
Note 145.) Marx explained the stand of the General Council of the
International on this question in the “Confidential Communica
tion” published in this collection. In this report and a number of
letters, including that written to Meyer and Vogt on April 9, 1870,
Marx deals with the international importance of the problem.
p. 251
203 This document is an answer to the attacks against the General
Council made by Bakunin, the anarchist leader, and his supporters.
After his unsuccessful attempt at the Basle Congress (1869) to win
the leadership in the International by transferring the General
NOTES 575
Council to Geneva, Bakunin changed his tactics and resorted to
open attacks against the Council. Bakunin’s supporters gained
control over the editorial board of the Swiss organ of the Interna
tional, the newspaper Egalite, and in the autumn of 1869 brought a
number of accusations against the Council in its columns, one of
the main ones being that by its statements on the Irish question the
Council was diverting the attention of the international workers*
organisation from its direct task—the solution of social problems.
The fact that the General Council was simultaneously fulfilling the
function of the British Federal Council was also basely slandered.
These and similar attacks by the anarchist sectarians revealed their
inert, nihilistic attitude to the question of the proletariat’s support
of the national liberation movement, their failure to understand its
role as an ally of the. yvorking class, and their denial of the need for
workers to take part in political struggle.
Somewhere around January 1, 1870, Marx wrote a circular
letter—“The General Council to the Federal Council of Romance
Switzerland”—in which he gave a strong rebuff to the Bakuninists
and explained, in particular, the International’s position on the
Irish question. The circular letter was sent to the various sections
of the Association. On March 28, 1870, Marx appended some new
information on the intrigues of the Bakuninists and sent the docu
ment in the form of a “Confidential Communication” to the Ex
ecutive of the German Social-Democratic Workers’ Party.
Early in 1870, even before the receipt of the circular letter, the
Federal Council of Romance Switzerland succeeded in removing
the Bakuninists from the editorial board of Egalite and the
newspaper resumed its former revolutionary proletarian trend.
p. 252
204 In November 1866, J. Hales proposed the reorganisation of the
branch of the International in England so that it would rely not on
the trade unions affiliated with it, but' on the newly organised
sections, formed according to the territorial principle and headed
by a special Federal Council. Similar proposals were advanced at
the end of 1869. Marx and other leaders of the Council considered
the moment inopportune since this would have isolated the Inter
national from the workers’ mass organisations. Only after the
events of 1871 (the Paris Commune), when the situation in
England and in the world had changed radically and reformist
trends had gained supremacy in the trade unions, did Marx and his
supporters consider it advisable to form the British Federation of
the International with a special Council at its head. p. 252
205 The Land and Labour League was founded in London in October
1869 with the participation of the General Council of the Interna
tional. Ten members of the Council were on the League’s Executi
ve Committee. The programme of the League, drafted by Eccarius
with Marx’s help, included the demands for the nationalisation of
576 NOTES
the land and the banks, for a shorter working day, universal suf
frage and the abolition of the standing army. On the basis of these
demands, which transcended purely bourgeois-democratic reforms
and expressed proletarian interests, the organisers of the League
endeavoured to rally the working people not only of England, but
also of Ireland, Scotland and Wales (see Address of the League
published in the Supplement to this collection, pp. 490-95). Marx
regarded the League as a means of setting up an independent
workers’ party in England. However, reformist elements soon
gained ground in the League’s leadership and it eventually lost its
connections with the International. p. 253
206 The position of the International on the Irish question as expound
ed in this document essentially anticipated the resolution on item 2
of the programme for the debate on this question in the General
Council, proposed by Marx early in November 1869, namely, on
the item defining the attitude of the English working class to the
liberation struggle of the Irish people (see p. 161). Even though
other official documents of the International were soon to remove
the need for a special resolution on this issue, Marx stuck to his
idea of continuing the debate on the Irish question in the General
Council for a long time. Circumstances prevented this, notably
Marx’s protracted illness which stopped him from regularly attend
ing Council meetings in the winter and spring of 1870. Later more
urgent matters arose, and in July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War
broke out, which absorbed the attention of the Council. Therefore,
the Council confined itself to the decisions already adopted on the
Irish question. p. 255
207 This article was sent by Marx to the organ of the Belgian sections
of the International Working Men’s Association, the weekly
LInternationale, which appeared between 1869 and 1873 in
Brussels. It was sent as a private letter to the editor Cesar De Paepe.
Marx expected that the letter would be edited by De Paepe before
it was printed. The editors, however, printed it almost without
changes, only adding some explanations in brackets and dividing it
into two parts. A small editorial comment was appended, which is
not published in this edition. p. 256
208 The reference is to the book: Garibaldi, The Rule o f the Monk, or
Rome in the Nineteenth Century, London, 1870. p. 256
209 The Irish People—an Irish weekly, the main organ of the Fenians,
appearing in Dublin between 1863 and 1865. It was banned by the
English Government, the members of its editorial board were
arrested and sentenced to long terms of hard labour. O’Donovan
Rossa, its publisher, was sentenced to penal servitude for life.
p. 256
NOTES 577
210 On O’Donovan Rossa’s election to Parliament, see Note 155.
p. 258
2 11
See Note 63. p. 259
2 1 2 A reference to Gladstone’s pamphlet Two Letters to the Earl o f
Aberdeen on the State Persecution o f the Neapolitan Government,
published in London in 1851, in which Gladstone exposed the
cruel treatment by the Government of thfe Neapolitan King
Ferdinand II (nicknamed “Bomba” for the bombardment of
Messina in 1848) of political prisoners arrested for their part in the
1848-49 revolutionary movement. p. 259
213 The Land Bill for Ireland was discussed in the English Parliament in
the first half of 1870. Submitted by Gladstone on behalf of the
English Government on the pretext of assisting Irish tenants, it
contained so many provisos and restrictions that it actually left the
basis of big landownership by the English landlords in Ireland
intact. It also preserved their right to raise rents and to drive
tenants off the land, stipulating only that the landlords pay a
compensation to the tenants for land improvement, and instituting
a definite judicial procedure for this. The Land Act was passed in
August 1870. The landlords sabotaged the implementation of the
Act in every way and found various ways round it. The Act greatly
promoted the concentration of farms in Ireland into big estates and
the ruination of small Irish tenants. p. 260
214 Marx is referring to Gladstone’s speech in the House of Commons
of February 15, 1870, which was published in The Times on
February 16,1870* p. 260
215 The report on the coroner’s inquest on the body of Michael
Terbert was published in The Irishman on February 19, 1870.
p.* 261
216 The Bee-Hive Newspaper—an English weekly published by the
trade unions in London between 1861 and 1876. In November
1864, the paper became the official organ of the International
Working Men’s Association, and took to printing the documents of
the International and reports on the meetings of the General
Council. However, the general reformist trend of the newspaper
and its chauvinistic position on the Irish question were in sharp
contrast with the revolutionary principles of the International. The
editors of the paper often deferred the publication of the Interna
tional’s documents, sometimes falsified them, and handled reports
on the meetings of the General Council in a most arbitrary fashion.
At the beginning of 1870, bourgeois radicals and liberals began to
exert an even greater influence on the newspaper and Samuel
Morley, a liberal businessman, became its owner. Marx believed it
19-226
578 NOTES
essential to break with the Bee-Hive and to make this break public,
since on the Continent the paper was still considered an organ of
the International. In his speech printed in this collection Marx gives
the reasons for the break. The resolution on the break with the
Bee-Hive proposed by Marx was adopted by the General Council
early in May 1870. p. 262
217 The reference is to the Coercion Bill submitted by Gladstone to the
House of Commons on March 17, 1870. Aimed against the national
liberation movement, the Bill provided for the suspension of
constitutional guarantees in Ireland, the introduction of a state of
siege and the granting of extraordinary powers to the English
authorities for the struggle against Irish revolutionaries. The Bill
was passed by the English Parliament. p. 262
218 History o f Ireland is a fragment of a voluminous work Engels
intended to write and on which he worked at the end of 1869 and
during the first half of 1870. Engels studied a vast selection of
literary and historical sources: the works of antique and medieval
writers, annals, collections of ancient law codes, legislative acts and
legal treatises, folk-lore, travellers’ notes, numerous works on
archaeology, history, economics, geography, geology, etc. Engels’s
bibliography, embracing over 150 titles, is selective and includes
but a fraction of the sources he studied.
The draft plan (see p. 303) shows that Engels’s work was to
consist of four long chapters, the last two being subdivided into
sections. Engels actually succeeded in finishing only the first
chapter—“Natural Conditions”. The second chapter—“Ancient
Ireland”—is unfinished. The manuscript breaks off where Engels
intended to throw light on the social structure of Irish society
before the invasion of the English conquerors in the second half of
the 12th century. Engels did not begin writing the last two
chapters, which were to describe the development of the country
up to the events of his own day, although he had compiled most of
the material for them. In his letter to Sigismund Borkheim in 1872
(see pp. 415-16), Engels mentioned that the Franco-Prussian War,
the Paris Commune, the clash with the Bakuninists in the Interna
tional, etc., interrupted his work. Engels used the results of his
research in his theoretical works, including The Origin o f the
Family, Private Property and the State, and in his letters to various
correspondents.
The fragment History o f Ireland and some preparatory material
Engels collected for this work were first published in 1948 in
Russian in the Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. X. It was also included
in the second Russian edition of K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected
Works, Vol. 16. p. 263
219 Engels is referring to the formation of a centralised feudal state in
England after her conquest in 1066 by William, Duke of Norman-
NOTES 579
dy. The reforms carried out in the 12th century by Henry II
Plantagenet were particularly instrumental in strengthening the
King’s power. One of the objects of the English monarchy’s aggres
sive designs was Ireland, a country at an earlier stage of social and
political development than England, and still in a state of feudal
decentralisation. Between 1169 and 1171 part of the island was
conquered by the Anglo-Norman barons, who founded a colony in
South-East Ireland (see Note 113). p. 263
r
220 a reference to County Laoighis (Leix) in Central Ireland, which, in
1557, following the confiscation by the Tudors of the lands of
local tribal communities (the clans), was renamed Queen’s County
in honour of Mary Tudor, the English Queen. The neighbouring
Offaley (Offaly) County, the population of which had also failed
victim to the expropriation policy of the English colonial authori
ties, was renamed King’s County in honour of Mary’s husband,
Philip II of Spain. p. 265
2 21 In modem terms—deposits of the Mezozoic and Cainozoic periods.
p. 266
222 A reference to the period of cmel reprisals against the Irish popula
tion and their wholesale expropriation, which began soon after
the suppression of the Irish national liberation uprising of
1641-52 by the troops of the English bourgeois republic. Accord
ing to the Acts of the English Parliament of 1652 and 1653, some
of the Irish landowners, who were declared guilty of revolt (see
Note 98), were to be forcibly moved to the barren province of
Connaught and the swampy southern County of Clare. Resettle
ment was carried out under pain of execution.
On the eve of the 1798 Irish uprising, Connaught, and to an
even greater extent the bordering counties of the province of Ulster
in the north, became the scene of widespread terrorism by the
English mercenaries and Protestant gangs hired by the landlords
from among their menials (Ancient Britons, Orangemen, etc.),
against the local Catholic population and its self-defence units.
Under the pretext of confiscating arms from the population and
billeting, soldiers and the Orangemen committed all kinds of
outrages, torturing and murdering Irish people who fell into their
hands and burning down their homes. Many Catholic peasants were
evicted from Ulster aftei receiving threatening notes reading: “Go
to the devil (to hell) or Connaught.” p. 274
223 A reference to the Repeal of the Com Laws in 1846 (see Note 62),
leading to the inflow of cheap com to England and creating condi
tions which from the point of view of the landlords and bour
geoisie favoured the development of stock-breeding in Ireland.
19*
580 NOTES
224 G. B o a t Ireland’s Natural H istory, London, 1652. Engels, like
Wakefield, gives an earlier date of publication. p. 278
225 The reference is to England’s participation in the war against
Napoleonic France and the European countries depending on her
(in 1812 England fought Napoleon in alliance with Russia, Spain
and Portugal), and to the Anglo-American War which broke out in
the same year because the English ruling classes had refused to
recognise the sovereignty of the U.S.A. and attempted to re
establish colonial rule there. The war was won by the United States
in 1814. p. 280
226 The third volume of this publication, comprising the conclusion of
the collection Senchus Mor (The Great Book of Old), appeared in
1873, after Engels had written the passage in this book. Senchus
Mor is one of the most detailed written records of the laws of the
Brehons, the guardians of and commentators on laws and customs
in Celtic Ireland. p. 281
227 Engels is referring to the collection Rerum Hibemicarum Scriptores
Veteres (Ancient Annalists of Ireland), published in four volumes
in 1814, 1825 and 1826 by Charles O’Conor in Buckingham.
The collection contains the first publications of part of the
Annales IV Magistrorum, the Annales Tigemachi, which were
written between the 1 1 th and 15th centuries and described events
from the close of the third century, the Annales Ultonienses
(compiled by various chroniclers between the 15th and 17th
centuries and describing events beginning with the mid-5th
century), and the Annales Inisfalensis (generally assumed to have
been compiled from 1215 onwards, and treating events up to
1318), all of them mentioned by Engels. p. 284
228 Arthur O’Connor was one of the few leaders of the United Irishmen
Society, which prepared the 1798 uprising (see Note 111), who
managed to escape execution. After his release from gaol in 1803
O’Connor was banished to France, where he stayed to the end of
his days. p. 285
229 Saerrath and Daerrath—two forms of tenancy in ancient Ireland,
whereby the tenant, generally an ordinary member of the com
munity, was given the use of stock and later also of land by the
chief of the clan or tribe and by other representatives of the tribal
elite. They involved partial loss of personal freedom (especially in
the case of Daerrath) and various onerous duties. These forms of
dependence were typical of the period of the disintegration of tribal
relations in ancient Irish society and of the early stages of feudalisa-
tion. At this time land tenure was on the whole still communal,
while stock and farming implements were already private property,
and private landownership already existed in embryonic form.
notes 581
Engds’s “see below” refers to the section of this chapter which
remained unwritten. p. 288
230 St. Bernard, Vita S. Malachiae. p. 288
231 The works of Giraldus Cambrensis on Ireland, Topographia Hiber-
nica and Expugnatio Hibemica (in Engels’s manuscript Hibernia
Expugnata), were included in the 5th volume of the Giraldi
Cambrensis Opera, mentioned by Engels, the publication of which
was begun by J. S. Brewer. The 5th volume published by
J. F. Dimock appeared in 1867. p. 289
232 A reference to the following works: M. Hanmer, The Chronicle o f
Ireland; E. Campion, History o f Ireland; E. Spencer, A View o f the
State o f Ireland, published in Ancient Irish Histories. The Works o f
Spencer, Campion, Hanmer and Marieburrough, vols. I-II, Dublin,
1809, and also to: John Davies, Historical Tracts, London, 1786;
W. Camden, Britannia, London, 1637; F. Moryson, An Itinerary
Containing Ten Years Travels Through the Twelve Dominions o f
Germany, Bohmerland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark,
Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland and Ireland,
London, 1617. p. 289
233 Engels is referring to Huxley’s public lecture on the subject “The
Forefathers and Forerunners of the English People”, read in
Manchester on January 9, 1870. A detailed account of the lecture
was published in the Manchester Examiner and The Times on
January 12,1870. p. 290
234 Diodorus Siculus, Bibliothecae historicae, Vol. 5. p. 291
235 Strabo, Geographie, translated by K. Karcher, Buch 7, Tubingen,
1835. p. 291
236 Ch. Fourier, Le nouveau monde industriel et societaire invention
du procede d ’industrie attrayante et naturelle distribute en series
passionnees. The first edition appeared in Paris in 1829. For the
passage mentioned by Engels see p. 399 of that edition. p. 291
237 Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geographia, Book II, Chapter 2. p. 291
238 A reference to The Poems o f Ossian written by the Scottish poet
James Macpherson, who published them in 1760-65. He ascribed
them to Ossian, the legendary Celtic bard. Macpherson’s poems
are based on an ancient Irish epos in a later Scottish interpreta
tion. p. 292
2 39 S. Eusebius Hieronymus, Commentariorum in Jeremiam Pro-
phetam libri sex. Prologus. p. 293
582 NOTES
240 Gennadius, Illustrium virorum catologus. p. 293
241 The references are to the following medieval works: Claudianus, De
IV consulatu Honorii Augusti panegiricus; Isidorus Hispalensis,
Etymologiarum libri XX; Beda Venerabilis, Historiae Ecclesiasticae
libri quinque; Anonymus Ravenatis, De Geographiae libri V;
Eginhard, Vita et gesta Karoli Magni; Alfred the Great, Anglo-
Saxon Version o f the Historian Orosius. In all probability Engels
used extracts from the above-mentioned works contained in
K. Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstaemme. See pp. 568-69
of the edition published in Munich in 1837. p. 293
242 Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum gestarum libri XX X I, liber XX.
p. 293
243 Nennius, Historic Brittonum, with an English Version by Gunn,
London, 1819, p. 15. p. 293
244 Triads—medieval Welsh works written in the form characteristic of
the poetry of the ancient Celts of Wales, with persons, things,
events, etc., arranged in sets of three. As regards their content the
Triads are subdivided into historical, theological, judicial, poetical
and ethical. The early Triads were composed not later than the
10 th century, but the extant manuscripts of these works relate to
the period from the 12th to the 15th century. p. 293
245 G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiher die Geschichte der Philosophic
(Lectures on the History of Philosophy), Bd. 3. In: Werke, Bd. XV,
Berlin, 1836, S. 160. p. 295
246 Alexandrian Neoplatonic school—a trend in ancient philosophy
originating in the 3rd century A.D. in Alexandria during the
decline of the Roman Empire. The source of Neoplatonism was
Plato’s idealism, and the idealistic aspect of Aristotle’s teaching,
interpreted in a mystical spirit by the Neoplatonic philosophers. In
the 5th century A.D. an unknown adherent of this school, who
attempted to combine the Christian teaching with Neoplatonism,
signed his works with the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the
first Christian Bishop of Athens. p. 295
247 Haraldsaga was written early in the 13th century by the Icelandic
poet and chronicler Snorri Sturluson. He tells of the life and ex
ploits of the Norwegian King Harald (9th-10th centuries), founder
of the Harfagr (Beautiful hair) dynasty. p. 296
248 Krakumal (Song of Kraka)—a medieval Scandinavian poem, com
posed as the death-song of Ragnar Lodbrok (9th century), a Danish
Viking taken prisoner and put to death by Ella, the King of
Northumberland. According to the legend Kraka Ragnar’s wife,
notes 583
sang the song to her children to inspire in them the desire to avenge
their father’s death. Engels used the text of the song as given in the
reader: F. E. Ch. Dietrich, Altnordisches Lesebuch, Leipzig, 1864,
S . 73 -8 0 . p . 2 9 7
249 J. Johnstone, Lodbrokar-Ouida; or, the Death Song o f Lodbroke,

London, 1782. p. 297
250 Nialssaga—an Icelandic saga which according to recent research was
recorded at the end of the 13th century from oral tradition and
ancient written documents. The central theme is the life story of
Gunnar, an Icelandic Hawding (a member of the clan nobility) and
his friend Bond Nial (a free community member), an expert on and
commentator of ancient customs and laws. The saga tells of the
battle of the Norsemen against the Irish King Brian Bora, and is an
authentic source for the study of a major event in Irish history—the
Irish victory over the Norse invaders in 1014 at the battle of
Clontarf. Engels quoted the excerpt from the Nidlssaga according
to the text of the reader: F. E. Ch. Dietrich, Altnordisches Lese
buch, Leipzig, 1864, S. 103-08. p. 298
251 Modem scholars transcribe the name of King Brian’s residence in
Munster as Kankaraborg, or Kincora. p. 301
252 The Cimbri and Teutons, Germanic tribes, invaded Southern Gaul
and Northern Italy in 113-101 B.C. In 101 B.C. these tribes were
routed by the Roman General Marius in the battle at Vercelli
(Northern Italy). The battle of the Romans against the Cimbri and
Teutons was described by Plutarch in his biography of Marius, by
Tacitus in Germania, and by other ancient historians. p. 301
253 Beowulf—a poem about the legendary hero Beowulf is supposed
to have been recorded in the 8th century and ranks as the finest
known work of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The poem is based on folk
sagas about the life of the Germanic tribes of the early 6th
century.
Hildebrandslied—an 8th century German epic poem, of which
only some passages have survived.
Edda—a collection of epic poems and songs about the lives and
deeds of the Scandinavian gods and heroes. It has come down to us
in a manuscript dating from the 13th century, discovered in 1643
by the Icelandic Bishop Sveinsson—the so-called Elder Edda—and
in a treatise on the poetry of the scalds compiled in the early 13th
century by Snorri Sturluson (Younger Edda). p. 301
254 Leges barbarorum—records of the common law of various German
ic tribes, compiled between the 5th and 9th centuries. p. 302
584 NOTES
255 The preparatory material for Engels’s uncompleted History o f
Ireland is vast. Passages copied from various sources fill the better
part of 15 large exercise-books. In addition, there are numerous
notes and fragments on separate pages and a large number of
newspaper cuttings. The material is extremely varied, including
analyses of sources (ancient laws, medieval chronicles, legal and
historical treatises of the 16th and 17th centuries, travel notes,
etc.), precis of books, notably, those relating to Irish history from
ancient times to the 1860s, and jottings of Engels’s own thoughts.
Some of the notes represent Engels’s own synthesis of data drawn
from several sources. Engels generally made remarks, sometimes
sharply critical ones, on the excerpts taken from the works of
various authors.
Only a small part of Engels’s manuscript has been published to
date (in Russian,, in the edition: Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. X,
Moscow, 1848 and in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, Second
Russian edition, Vol. 45, Moscow, 1975). The materials chosen for
this collection show Engels’s own creative contribution to the
study of Irish history. They include the plan for his book contain
ing in general outline his own division of Irish history into periods,
the most complete and significant fragments, a chronological
review of events from ancient times to the mid-17th century and
other works. The editors’ explanations are given in brackets, p. 303
256 A reference to the uprising of the Scottish highlanders in 1745.
The rebellion was the result of oppression and eviction from the
land carried out in the interests of the Anglo-Scottish landed
aristocracy and bourgeoisie. Part of the nobility in the Scottish
Highlands, who supported the claims to the English crown of the
overthrown Stuart dynasty (the official aim of the insurgents was
to enthrone Charles Edward, the grandson of James II), took
advantage of tiie dissatisfaction of the highlanders. The suppression
of the rebellion put an end to the clan system in the Scottish
Highlands and brought about increased evictions. p. 304
257 The Island o f Heligoland (North Sea) was in early times settled by
a Germanic tribe, the Frisians. Having become a Danish possession
in the 18th century, it was captured by the English in 1807 and
ceded to England in 1814 by the Treaty of Kiel. In 1890, England
gave Heligoland to Germany in exchange for Zanzibar. p. 304
258 The Prussians defeated the Austrians on July 3, 1866, near the
village of Sadowa, in the vicinity of the town of Koniggraetz in
Bohemia (now Hradec Kralove).
North-German Confederation—a. federal German state est
ablished in 1867 under the leadership of Prussia after her victory
over Austria in 1866. It existed until the formation, in January
1871, of the German Empire, incorporating in addition to the
North-German Confederation the South-German states. p. 304
NOTES 585
C Q
The name given in Ireland to those who took part in the movement
against the colonial authorities and landlords in the latter half of
the 17th and early 18th centuries. The name was derived from the
original meaning of the word—a bully, a ruffian. The Tories were
mostly peasants, their leaders—expropriated Irish noblemen. At the
end of the 17th century there emerged detachments made up of
peasants alone—the rapparees. The authorities used extremely
brutal methods in the fight against the Tories and rapparees. Those
caught were hung, drawn and quartered. People giving information
leading to their capture received high rewards. In England the nick
name Tory was given by the Whigs to their opponents—the repre
sentatives of. the conservative aristocratic circles, supporting the
absolutist claims of the Stuarts, who were restored in 1660.
p. 305
2 6 0
A reference to the trial,
a •
held in
•
Dublin
• •
in the autumn of 1865,
.
of
the prominent participants in the Fenian movement, accused of
organising an anti-government plot. The main accused were
O’Leary, Luby, Kickham and O’Donovan Rossa, the publishers and
editors of The Irish People, the Fenian newspaper suppressed by
the police on September 15 (see Note 209). Many other Fenians
were also arrested on denunciation by agents provocateurs and
traitors. The picked jury was composed of supporters of English
rule hostile to the Irish revolutionaries. The sentences were ex
tremely severe: O’Leary, Luby and Kickham were sentenced to
twenty years of penal servitude and O’Donovan Rossa to penal
servitude for life. p. 305
261 “Chronology o f Ireland” was compiled by Engels, mainly accord
ing to the book by Thomas Moore, outstanding Irish poet and
historian, The History o f Ireland, vols. I-IV, Paris 1835-46.
Engels admired this book for wealth of facts, literary merits and
the author’s deep sympathy with the oppressed people. Apart from
the “Chronology”, Engels used also other passages from the book.
Scientifically Moor’s History o f Ireland did not excel other works
on Irish history written in the first half of the 19th century, and
reflected many of the shortcomings of Irish romantic historio
graphy of that period. This largely explains Engels’s wish to make
the information he drew from it fuller and more precise by turning
to other sources, references to which crop up frequently in the
“Chronology of Ireland”. Engels, however, did not have the
opportunity at that time to make all the necessary corrections to
Moore’s dating of events. Yet, the general line of Ireland’s histor
ical development in his work, and his appraisals of events and
people are extremely valuable and have been corroborated by later
historical research. “Chronology of Ireland” ends, as does Moore’s
book, with 1646, the climax of the 1641-52 Irish uprising. Engels
traced the subsequent course of this uprising in his excerpts from
other books. p. 306
NOTES
262 The Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan defeated the Danes of Northum
berland, and the Normans and Irish who came to their assistance,
in the battle of Brunanburh (Central England) in 937. p. 307
263 In the “Chronology of Ireland” Engels refers to this important
landmark in Ireland’s history only in general outline; a detailed
description of the beginning of the conquest of Ireland by the
English is given in his other excerpts and notes. The Anglo-Norman
barons from South Wales were the organisers of the first aggressive
campaigns. The most influential among them, Richard de Clare,
Earl of Pembroke (nicknamed Strongbow), consented to return the
crown to Dermot, the King of Leinster, who had been banished
from Ireland, on condition that the latter would give him his
daughter in marriage and appoint him his successor. In May 1169,
troops under the Anglo-Norman barons Fitzstephen and Prender-
gast landed on the South-eastern coast of Ireland. The next spring,
troops under Maurice Fitzgerald and Raymond Le Gros invaded
Ireland, and in August of the same year Pembroke himself captured
Dublin. More and more feudal adventurers landed in Ireland in
later years in search of booty. In October 1171, King Henry II
invaded Ireland at the head of an army. Henry not only wanted to
subjugate Ireland, but also to make the Anglo-Norman barons
amenable to his wishes and foil their intention of creating a king
dom of their own. Henry forced the barons and the Irish chiefs to
recognise him as the “supreme ruler” of Ireland, and placed his
garrisons in the strongpoints of Wexford, Waterford and Dublin. He
left Ireland in April 1172, leaving a Governor behind (Hugh de
Lacy was the first).
In the fierce battles against the Anglo-Norman invaders, the
Irish clans suffered defeat because of the lack of unity among their
leaders and the enemy’s superiority in arms and tactics. The est
ablishment of the Anglo-Norman colony in Ireland marked the
beginning of the age-long struggle between conquerors and local
population. p. 310
264 Magna Carta Libertatum (the Great Charter of Liberties)—a deed
the insurgent barons of England, supported by the knights and
townspeople, forced King John Lackland to sign on June 15, 1215.
Magna Carta introduced certain limitations to the royal prerogative
primarily in the interests of the big feudal lords, and made the
latter’s privileges secure. Some concessions were also granted to the
knights and townspeople. p. 314
265 Geraldines—Anglo-Irish aristocratic family descending from the
first conquerors of Ireland, the Anglo-Norman nobles from South
Wales. In Ireland the Geraldines became related with the clan
chiefs, thereby acquiring considerable connections and influence.
At the same time they participated in the wars of conquest against
the indigenous Irish. From the beginning of the 14th century, two
notes 587
branches of the Geraldine family—the Earls of Desmond and the
Earls of Kildare—played a particularly prominent role. Both were
descendants of Maurice Fitzgerald, the leader of one of the armies
of the Anglo-Norman barons to invade Ireland in 1169-71. p. 315
266 Engels is referring to his excerpts from Thomas Moore’s History o f
Ireland. Regarding the 1295 Acts of Parliament, they say the fol
lowing: “In 1295 Irish Parliament Acts:
“ 1 ) ...a new division of the kingdom into counties....
“ 2 ) ...all such marchers as neglected to maintain their necessary
wards should forfeit their lands....
“3) ...all absentees should assign (thus, already so early \ ), out of
their Irish revenues, a competent portion for that purpose [ for the
maintenance of a military force.—E d .].
“4) ...no lord should wage war but by licence of the chief governor,
or by special mandate of the king....
“5) ...an effort was made at this time to limit the number of their
retainers, by forbidding every person of whatever degree, to
harbour more of such followers than he could himself maintain;
and for all exactions and violences committed by these idle men ...
their lords were to be made answerable.”
Engels’s remark(in italics) noted a feature typical of later
times: the English owners of Irish estates did not reside in Ireland
(see Note 117 on absentees). p. 316
267 In 1286, following the death of the Scottish King Alexander III,
King Edward I of England laid claim to the Scottish crown and
succeeded in annexing Scotland. In 1297, an uprising flared up
against English rule, and in 1306 it developed into a full-scale war
of independence. The revolt was headed by Robert Bruce, a
remarkable soldier. In 1314, the army of Edward II was defeated
and Scotland once again became an independent kingdom, p. 316
268 On July 24, 1314, the Scots led by Robert Bruce defeated the far
bigger English army at Bannockburn, thereby liberating Scotland
from English rule. p. 317
269 In 1367, the Parliament of the English colony in Kilkenny adopted
the famous Statute of Kilkenny—a code of prohibitions designed to
protect the colonists from the spread among them of Irish customs
and habits* The adoption of the Statute was prompted by the
desire of the English authorities to intensify their policy of con
quest in Ireland and to legalise the inequality of the Irish popula
tion in the vanquished part of the island, as well as to counteract
the separatist tendencies of the Anglo-Irish nobility, whose
strength lay in their ties with the Irish clan chiefs. The racialist,
colonialist Statute demanded that the Irish be treated as enemies
and their laws (the laws of the Brehons, the keepers and com
mentators of ancient Irish law) as the customs of an inferior race.
588 NOTES
In the excerpts from Thomas Moore’s History o f Ireland Engels
interprets the content of this Statute as follows (Engels’s own
remarks are italicised): “The Statute of Kilkenny, 1367, directed
against Irelandisation. Intermarriages with the natives, or any con
nection with them in the way o f fostering or gossipred (see
E. Spencer, [A View o f the State o f Ireland] ) should be considered
and punished as high treason:—that any man of English race,
assuming an Irish name, or using the Irish language, apparel, or
customs, should forfeit all his lands and tenements:—that to adopt
or submit to the Brehon law was treason ... that the English should
not permit the Irish to pasture or graze upon their lands, nor admit
them to any ecclesiastical benefices or religious houses... (Where
were the Irish o f the Pale to pasture their stock? A t that time it
was their main occupation'.).” p. 320
270 Bonaght—a duty which the supreme and local kings, and also major
clan chiefs in Ireland, levied on the smaller vassal chiefs for the
maintenance of the troops. After the English conquest it was
often paid to the English crown and its representatives in Ireland.
p. 320
271 Coyne, livery —taxes in kind the rank-and-file members of Irish
clans paid to their chiefs in the form of food and equipment for
the troops. p. 321
272 A reference to the participation of Irish troops in the Hundred
Years’ War between England and France, which lasted, with inter
ruptions, from 1337 to 1453. At the end of the 14th century only
a few strongholds in France remained in English hands, but in 1415
King Henry V launched a new invasion, beating the French knights
at Agincourt and capturing the entire north-western part of the
country. In the course of a stubborn struggle, attended by a great
upsurge of patriotic feeling (Joan of Arc), the French halted the
advance of the English and gradually drove them from their land.
p. 321
273 At Wakefield, the army of Richard, Duke of York, claimant to the
English crown, was beaten on December 27, 1460, by the support
ers of the ruling house of Lancaster. The battle was one of the
episodes in the Wars of the Roses (1455-85), caused by the struggle
for the English throne between the houses of York and Lancaster.
The war was so called after the white and red roses, that were the
emblems of the Yorkist and Lancastrian parties respectively. The
war was attended by the destruction of the feudal nobility and
ended in the accession of the new, Tudor dynasty. p. 322
27 4 Degenerate English—the name given to members of the Anglo-Irish
families, who had long since settled in Ireland, become related to
the clan elite, and assimilated many Irish customs. p. 324
notes 589
275 In the 15th century the power of the English colony in Ireland was
at a low ebb. The English feudal lords were exhausted by the
Hundred Years’ War and later by their feuds in the War of the
Roses, the settlers in Ireland had great difficulty in withstanding
the onslaught of the Irish clan chiefs. In order to get the latter to
refrain from raids into the Pale they paid them an annual tribute,
which became known as the “Black Rent”. p. 326
276 See Note 127. r p. 329
277 See Note 220. p. 331
R
0 H
In view of the advance of the Reformation in •
England and the
anti-Catholic policy of the government of Elizabeth I, Pope Pius V
issued a special bull in February 1570, excommunicating Elizabeth
and releasing her subjects from their oath of allegiance. Other acts
of the Papal Curia against Elizabeth followed, and in 1576 she was
deprived of her right to the Irish crown (see Note 112). p. 333
279 A reference to the restitution by James I of the Act of Uniformity
passed in 1559 during the reign of Elizabeth I. The Act confirmed
the principles of the Anglican Reformation (see Note 127) and
decreed that worship was to be conducted according to a Book of
Common Prayer sanctioned by the sovereign, as the head of the
Church of England. p. 338
280 Tanistry—a system regulating the inheritance of chieftainship of
the Celtic clans and septs (tribes) in Ireland. Like many other Irish
customs, it was a relic of the tribal system. According to this
custom, the successor of the clan chief, the tanist, was appointed
during the lifetime of the chief from a definite family in the
clan, whose members were considered the “eldest and worth
iest”.
Gavelkind—a term borrowed from the common law of the
inhabitants of Kent and applied by English jurists to the Irish rules
regulating the passing of the lands of a deceased member of the
clan or sept into other hands. Ever since the time when tribal
relations prevailed, land was regarded by the indigenous Irish not
as private property but as a temporary tenure. Thus, after the death
of its owner it did not pass to his descendants but was distributed
among all free male kinsmen, including his sons out of wedlock.
Although the lands of the chiefs and members of the clan elite
were by that time no longer parcelled out after their death, they
were not regarded as their private property and were not inherited
by the family but passed to new ownership in accordance with the
described tanistry principle.
The King’s Bench. See Note 179. p. 339
281 See Note 226. p. 340
590 NOTES
282 The name given at that time to landowners among the colonists,
and also to land speculators. p. 341
283 A reference to Engels’s work, published in 1948 in Russian in the
Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. X, under the heading “Excerpts on the
History of Ireland in the 17th and 18th Centuries”. These excerpts
are based on material contained in the book: Matthew O’Conor,
The History o f the Irish Catholics from the Settlement in 1691
with a View o f the State o f Ireland from the Invasion by Henry II
to the Revolution, Dublin, 1813. Engels supplemented this
material with facts from many other works.
In particular, the reference is to the following passage (Engels’s
own remark is italicised):
After the confiscation carried out in Ulster, the estates of the
native Irish, in other parts of the kingdom, were invaded on the
score of defective titles. “The confusion of the civil wars, and the
uncertainty and fluctuation of Brehon tenures rendered them an
easy prey to the rapacity of the administration; 66,000 acres
between Dublin and Waterford, the properties of the Cavanaghs,
Nolans, Byrnes, and O’Tooles were by inquisitions of office found
to be the King’s, and although a considerable portion of these
escheated lands was regranted to the natives, yet the establishment
of an English Protestant colony on 16,500 acres gave new vigour to
old animosities, and inflamed the old proprietors with implacable
hatred to the spoilers” (p. 22). This happened apparently in 1612
or 1613.
In 1614, “A commission issued to inquire into titles in the
King’s and Queen’s counties, in Westmeath, Longford, and Leitrim,
the co u n ties of the O’Mullev’s, O’CarrolTs, M’Coughlan’s,
O’Doyne’s, McGeoghegan’s, and O Mallachlin’s, 385,000 acres were
in those districts found in the King, and planted as Ulster had
been” (p. 24). p. 341
284 See Note 121. p. 342
285 Engels is referring to the following place in his notes from
O’Conor’s book (the latter having borrowed the facts from
Th. Carte, A History o f the Life o f James. Duke o f Ormonde,
vols. M il, London, 1736):
“The incident with Phelim Byrne and his sons Brian and
Turloug is illustrative. They owned the place of Ranelagh in
County Wicklow according to a grant by Elizabeth (after the death
of old Feag Byrne it had been regranted to Phelim) and James had
issued orders on two occasions, one after another, that their rights
should be accordingly respected. Nevertheless, Sir Richard Graham
used counterfeited documents and invoked his connections in
Dublin to seize part of the land belonging to Phelim, while Sir
James Fitzpearce Fitzgerald tried to seize Brian’s share for himself
in like manner but did not succeed. At long last the case was
NOTES 591
submitted to a commission in England where Sir William Parsons,
who had formerly in his capacity of judge in Dublin said that the
contested land belonged to Phelim and not to any dummy free
holders of Graham, now asserted that the opposite was true. Since
things still did not go smoothly enough, Graham and Parsons (who
had by that time also become interested) declared that the land
belonged to the crown. This put the matter in a new light. Lord
Esmond gave evidence in their favour. A commission headed by Sir
William Parsons was immediately appointedf-to investigate the
matter. Although the King had ordered that the case should be
heard in the last instance also by the English Council, Sir William
Parsons succeeded in gaining possession of Phelim’s land. He did
not succeed, however, in seizing Brian’s land. After all attempts
had failed, Parsons, Esmond and others succeeded in having the
two brothers, Brian and Turloug, gaoled in Dublin Prison on
grounds of false evidence given by criminals and other persons who
were forced to perjury by torture. The main accusation was that
they had concealed several runaway Irish rebels. From 1625 to
1628 there were unceasing attempts to have them convicted by
resorting to false evidence and by reshuffling the composition of
the jury, until, finally, Sir Francis Ennesli, later Lord of Mountnor-
ris, and others came to their defence and a commission was
appointed to investigate the charge. In December 1628, the com
mission found them not guilty and liberated them. However, the
larger part of their possessions, notably Carrick Manor in Ranelagh,
had by that time, by a grant of August 4, been handed over to Sir
William Parsons, and they did not get it back!
“All the above has been taken from Th. Carte (Life o f Duke o f
Ormondef Vol. I, pp. 25-32).” p. 342
286 People who refused to conform to the established religion. In
Ireland the name was applied to Roman Catholics, who were
opposed to the Anglican Church. p. 342
287 In 1639, the war between England and Scotland ensued from an
uprising of the Scots following the attempts by Charles I and his
counsellors to extend absolutist ways to Scotland and introduce
the Anglican prayer book to which the Scottish Calvinists, or
Presbyterians, objected. After a series of Scottish victories Charles
was obliged to conclude a peace treaty in the autumn of 1639 in
Berwick. Meanwhile, however, he made secret preparations for
revenge. In desperate need of money for his military schemes,
Charles called a Parliament (the Short Parliament) in the spring of
1640, dissolving it, almost immediately, upon its refusal to grant
war subsidies. Thereupon he called a new Parliament—known as the
Long Parliament. The King’s conflict with that body eventually led
to civil war—the English bourgeois revolution. Early in 1641, the
Long Parliament declared the need for the establishment of lasting
peace and closer union with Scotland. p. 345
592 NOTES
288 A reference to the following passage Engels took from Matthew
O’Conor’s book:
“1641. February. The deputies submitted to the King a
remonstrance of grievances. There were complaints about ‘fines,
imprisonments and punishments in various shapes of torment and
dishonour, for not joining in the established worship; the execution
of martial law in the midst of profound peace; proclamations and
acts of state made paramount to acts of the legislature; infringe
ments of proclamations punished by imprisonment, by mutilation
o f members, and by confiscations, the constitution of Parliament
subverted by the disfranchisement of cities and boroughs at the
will of the court, the subversion of titles, and insecurity of all
property by state inquisitions, by persecution of juries’, etc.”
p. 346
289 Engels is referring to the following passage in his notes from
Matthew O’Conor’s book, which repudiates the slanderous inven
tions about “cruelty”, “treachery”, “conspiratorial tricks”, etc., of
the Irish rebels and their Ulster leader—Phelim O’Neill (Engels’s
own remarks are italicised):
“As regards the beating up of Protestants by Catholics,
O’Conor maintains that the populous towns in the north remained
in the hands of the English and thus served as refuges for the
Protestant population of rural areas; many [Protestants] got safe
to Derry, Enniskillen, Coleraine, and Carrickfergus, besides several
thousands got safe to Dublin, 6,000 women and children were
saved in Fermanagh, the Scots in Ulster did not come to harm, the
capitulation of Bellyaghie was faithfully observed by the Catholics
and generally at the commencement of the uprising no murders
were committed (p. 33).
“Sir Phelim O’Neill was no coward; this can be seen from his
‘constancy and fortitude in his last moments, his rejection of life
and pardon, proffered to him on the terms of heaping dishonour
and infamy on the grave of the late King’. (Carte, Ormonde,
Vol. I, p. 181.)
“The fact that at first (in October-December 1641) only the
Irish who had been deprived o f their possessions by James and
ousted by the English settlers participated in the rebellion shows
how badly it had been prepared.” p. 347
290 A reference to the following passage in Engels’s notes from
Matthew O’Conor’s book:
“To all intents and purposes the government drove the English
of the Pale and the Anglo-Irish Lords of Munster into the rebel
army to have reasons for new confiscations. The Catholics of the
Pale kept their faith to the King particularly zealously and with all
their power resisted participation in the uprising but had to [join
it ] . The situation became particularly clear to them when the Irish
Parliament which was to convene on November 9 and to confirm
NOTES 593
the ‘graces* was suddenly, and contrary to the King’s orders,
postponed by the Lords Justices a few days before the date set for
its convocation (p. 39). The session of Parliament was to have
lasted only one day and it had been decided to submit to the King
a remonstrance proposing that he should allow [the Irish Parlia
ment] to suppress the uprising by its own forces. Lord Dillon, a
Protestant who was sent to England, was arrested there by the
[Long] Parliament and the remonstrance was destroyed. The
impudence of the Lords Justices could be expjained by the fact
that the English Commons had voted £20,000, 4,000 boot, 2,000
horse for fully squashing the resistance in Ireland and the reinforce
ments were expected (Resolution of November 3, 1641).” p. 348
291 See Note 105. p- 353
292 Name of the agreement signed on September 25, 1643, between
the Long Parliament and the Scottish Presbyterians: it reaf
firmed die rights of the Scottish Calvinist Church and the free
doms and privileges of the Parliaments of both kingdoms; the terms
of the agreement extended also to Scottish settlers in Ireland.
p. 353
2 93
Owen Roe O’Neill’s success at Benburb, which temporarily tipped
• • • •
the scale in the Irish Confederation in favour of radical elements

who wanted to break not only with the Long Parliament but also
with the King’s party, was a major victory of the Irish rebels.
However, as a result of the incessant quarrels and clashes of interest
in the Confederate camp, the moderate Anglo-Irish aristocrats soon
gained the upper hand and signed a new agreement with Ormonde,
the commander of the Royalist forces. This enabled Cromwell and
his followers (who had by now defeated the Royalist forces in
England, proclaimed a republic and beheaded Charles I) to organise
a punitive expedition to Ireland on the pretext of destroying a
Royalist stronghold. The true aim of the expedition was the
colonial subjugation of the country. On August 15, 1649, Crom
well’s army landed in Ireland and commenced the brutal suppres
sion of the Irish rebellion, which was continued by Cromwell’s
successors—the Republican Generals Ireton and, later, Fleetwood.
The last centres of resistance by the Irish, who had taken to guer
rilla warfare, were subdued in 1652. p. 354
294 Notes on Goldwin Smith’s book Irish History and Irish Character
(Oxford and London, 1861) are to be found in Notebook IV, one of
those with excerpts that Engels wrote while working on the History
o f Ireland. Smith’s book drew Engels’s attention not as a source for
studying Irish history, but rather as a specimen of liberal falsifica
tion of this history, reflecting the colonialist tendencies of the
English bourgeoisie. Engels considered refutation of such chauvin
istic conceptions as one of his most important tasks, as witnessed
594 NOTES
by his sharp criticisms of Smith in this and other articles, in
particular in his excerpts from M. O’Conor’s History o f the Irish
Catholics (see Note 283), as well as by his description of this
author in the History o f Ireland and in his letters to Marx (see
pp. 329, 330, 338, 342, 343, 344, 346, 347, 348, 350, 376, 380).
Engels wrote these excerpts and critical remarks about Smith’s
book in November 1869. The work consists of two parts: the first
opens Notebook IV; the second follows Engels’s excerpts from
another book on Irish history and is entitled: “Goldwin Smith.
Conclusion (passages quoted word for word and addenda) Apart
from new excerpts referring to the book as a whole, Engels quotes
whole passages that were merely mentioned in the first part. In
both parts there are insertions in the margin made by the author at
a later date and references to other notebooks with excerpts
comparing Smith’s views to those of other authors and to data
supplied from different sources. Quotations from Smith’s book are
given in the original English, Engels’s notes and renderings of
separate passages are translated from the German. p. 356
295 Engels is referring to the book, I. G. Kohl, Reisen in Irland, Bd. I,
II,DresdenundLeipzig, 1843,excerpts from which he later inserted
in the notebook of notes on Smith’s book. Engels said that, at the
time when Kohl travelled in Ireland, the Irish people were still in the
grip of superstition.
“Two year olds” and “three year olds99—names applied to
groups of fighters in Ireland. It is believed that these names derived
from debates about the age of steers. p. 357
296 Here and below Engels is referring to his excerpts from the book,
John Davies, Historical Tracts, London, 1786, which he wrote
down on separate sheets, apparently, in order to compare evidence
concerning Irish customs as interpreted by Smith and other English
historians with that taken directly from source. Excerpts are made
from Davies’ main treatise: True Causes Why Ireland was never
entirely subdued and brought under obedience o f the Crown o f
England until the Beginning o f his Majesty fs happy Reign (the
reference is to Games I, during whose reign this treatise was
published, 1612).
In his excerpts, Engels gave an explanation of such Irish
customs as tanistry and gavelkind (see Note 280), either by quoting
the source or by giving his own rendering.
In Engels’s opinion, the treatise written by Davies was very
important source for a study of the medieval history of Ireland. So,
in addition to his excerpts, Engels made a detailed conspectus of
this book to which he refers in his insertions to Notes on Goldwin
Smith’s work and in other material on the history of Ireland.
p. 357
297 See Note 112. p. 359
notes 595
298 See Note 113. p. 360
299 See Note 117. p. 360
300 The Brotherhood of St. George embraced the thirteen biggest
English and Irish feudal lords of the Pale. Edward IV who feared
that the Pale would separate from England hastened to renounce
the services of this Brotherhood.
The note in brackets to the effect that the fact mentioned in
Thomas Moore’s book The History o f Ireland (see Note 261) is not
to be found in Engels’s “Chronology of Ireland” was apparently
inserted at a later date.
Concerning the Wars o f the Roses see Note 273. p. 360
301 See Note 269. p. 360
302 In his synopsis of Davies’ book, to which Engels is here referring,
he accuses Smith of misinterpreting the quoted sources. Among
other things, Davies wrote that indigenous Irishmen accused of
murder were convicted and fined a specified sum of money in
favour of the English King. From Davies’ text it also followed that
one Irish chief’s answer concerning the sheriff was given in joke,
whereas Smith quotes it to prove that the laws on the legal privi
leges of English colonists in Ireland are allegedly fully justified.
Excerpts from Spencer’s book, A View o f the State o f Ireland,
to which Engels refers in connection with the Kilkenny Statute, are
to be found in his notebooks with preparatory material. (Edmund
Spencer was a colonial official in Ireland and a poet at the court of
Elizabeth I. He wrote the allegorical poem the Faery Queen men
tioned below.) p. 361
303 See Note 265. p. 361
304 See Note 166. p. 362
305 “Potemkin villages99—an expression synonymous with sham, osten
tatious prosperity, originating from rumours that, when the
Russian Empress Catherine II made a trip to the South in 1787, her
favourite G. A. Potemkin, governor-general of the southern prov
inces of Russia, had fictious villages put up all along her route to
demonstrate the “prosperity” of his region. 362
306 See Note 220. p. 363
307 See Note 72. p- 363
308 In this passage Engels exposes the apologies of Smith and other
English historians for English cruelty in Ireland in references to the
intolerance and fanaticism characteristic to the whole period of
596 NOTES
religious wars (including the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-48, between
Protestants and Catholics, whose main battleground was Germany),
and to persecutions against Protestants in the absolutist Catholic
states of Europe. p. 363
309 See Note 116. p. 363
310 Following its defeat (1866) in the war against Prussia, the Austrian
Empire was reorganised into the dualistic federal state of Austria-
Hungary. Both Austria and Hungary had their own legislative and
administrative institutions, but the subordinate position of the
other nations comprising the Hapsburg Empire, remained un
changed.
Concerning the Swedish-Norwegian Union of 1814 see Note
196. p .365
311 Major battles in the Hundred Years9 War (see Note 272) took place
at Crecy (1346) and at Poitier (1356). p. 366
312 Irishry—the name used from the second half of the 14th century to
distinguish the indigenous population of Ireland from the English
settlers. The former were mainly Irishmen who lived beyond the
Pale and who retained their independence, their social order and
customs up to the 16th century. p. 366
313 See Note 179. p. 368
314 A reference to the uprising in Ulster that broke out on October 23,
1641, under the leadership of Phelim O’Neill sparking off the Irish
people’s national liberation uprising (see Note 111).
On the slanderous inventions circulated by enemies of the Irish
insurgents and English bourgeois historians about “atrocities”
perpetrated by the Irish Catholics during the Ulster uprising of
1641, see Engels’s excerpts from O’Conor s book (quoted in Note
289) and also Engels’s letter to Jenny Marx of February 24,1881
(see pp. 443-46). p. 369
315 Sicilian Vespers—popular uprising against French invaders that
broke out in Palermo on March 30, 1282, during vespers. Inflamed
by the cruelty of the French soldiers, the uprising spread through
out Sicily. As a result, the French army was driven out and the
Enjou dynasty, which had ruled the Kingdom of Sicily from 1266,
was dethroned. p. 369
316 See Note 43. p. 370
317 Varia zur Geschichte der irischen Konfiskationen is Engels’s own
title for the preparatory material to his unfinished work on the
history of Ireland included in Notebook X. The book, J. Murphy,
NOTES 597
Ireland, Industrial, Political and Social, London, 1870, of which he
made a conspectus in the previous notebook, served Engels as the
main source for this work. In the Varia, however, Engels strove to
reveal and generalise historical facts relating to the cardinal
problem in the history of Anglo-Irish relations, that of the ex
propriation of the indigenous population of Ireland in the 16th and
17th centuries and of her conversion into a mainstay of English
landlordism as a result of the plunder of Irish lands by the “new”
nobility and bourgeoisie. This process, Sfrhich took place in the
period of English absolutism and bourgeois revolution, led to the
final colonial subjugation of Ireland by bourgeois-aristocratic
England.
The pages in Notebook X are divided into two columns.
Excerpts from Murphy’s book are in the left-hand column. The
right-hand column was, most probably, meant for excerpts from
other sources but remained blank (except for two lines on one of
the pages). However, on the basis of numerous references made by
Engels to his own notebooks, as well as to works and collections of
documents mentioned by Murphy, we may assume that Engels
intended to collect extensive material on this subject from various
sources and to supplement and in some cases verify data given by
Murphy with evidence from other authors (Thomas Leland,
Thomas Carte, John Patrick Prendergast, Matthew O’Conor and
others). The notebook is page-numbered by Engels. At the top of
every page he wrote the titles of relevant sections, which some
times repeat those given on the preceding page, adding the word
“continued”.
The first page entitled “15h Century” remained blank. There
are pages where the left-hand column is not entirely filled, or
totally blank pages merely reproducing the titles given on the
preceding page. p. 372
318 See notes 113 and 220. p. 372
319 Fee tail—an estate the use of which is limited to a category of heirs
stipulated in the grant; in practice it means life tenancy. p. 373
320 In this passage Engels is summing up the features of the anti-
Catholic act passed by the Government of Elizabeth, given by
Murphy on pp. 256-60 of his book. (This act imposed fines for
non-attendance of a Protestant Church, inroduced the Oath of
Supremacy to the Queen as head of the Anglican Church, making
this oath a condition of access to government service, to practice at
the bar and to obtaining documents for the acquisition of the land,
etc.) Engels describes the act of 1560 and similar later acts as penal
laws, evidently by analogy with the widespread term used to
describe the anti-Catholic legislation for Ireland at the end of the
17th century and in the early half of the 18th century (see Note
119). p . 374
598 NOTES
321 Engels is referring to the following passage he took from J. Davies,
Historical Tracts, London, 1786. “Under Elizabeth only several
Irish chiefs surrendered their estates and were regranted all their
lands. However, the inferior chiefs and peasants as before held their
several portions in course of tanistry and gavelkind, so that English
law extended only to the lords. But James sent two special com
missions [to Ireland] -?-‘the one, for accepting surrenders and for
regranting estates,... the other, for strengthening of defective titles’.
These commissions, in particular, took care to secure also the
under-tenants [to the lord]. Before accepting each surrendered
estate the commission had to enquire: 1 ) of the limits of the land;
2 ) how much the lord himself holds in demesne and how much is
possessed by his tenants and followers; 3) what customs, duties and
services he receives. After that the owner was returned the owner
ship of the demesne, his duties however were valued and reduced
into certain sums of money, to be paid yearly in lieu thereof as
rents, but the lands were left to them. In the case of defective titles
like steps were taken before the title was confirmed.” p. 375
322 See Notes 280 and 179. p. 375
323 Engels is referring to the following passage in his excerpts from the
first volume of Carte’s book (Engels s own remark is italicised):
“Plantation in Leinster. Around the year 1608, the King’s title
had be^n found to ‘all the lands between the river of Arckloe and
that of Slane in the County of Wexford, and former possessors
thereof had to make surrenders of their lands into his hands. They
amounted in all to 66,000 acres, 16,500 of which lying near the
sea, the King determined to dispose of to an English colony, which
was to be settled there, and to regrant the rest, in certain propor
tions, to the old proprietors under the like regulations and
covenants as had been imposed on and submitted to by the plant
ers of Ulster’ ” (p. 22). “After that came the turn of Longford and
Leitrim, and also of the lands belonging to O’Carrols, O Molloys,
M ac-Coughlans, the Foxes, O’Doynes, Mc-Geoghegans, and
O’Melaghlins in the Counties of the King, Queen and Westmeath.
These regions became wild again and Irelandised; they caused a lot
of trouble to [the English] —they were now safe receptacles of
thieves and robbers. In 1614 it was decided ‘to take a view of the
counties and to enquire into' the title which the Crown had to them
or any part thereof’, that is, to take away these lands and to
appropriate their incomes. All this was done by a special commis
sion... ‘It was an age of adventurers and projectors; the general
taste of the world ran in favour of new discoveries and plantings of
countries; and such as were not hardy enough to venture into the
remote parts of the earth, fancied they might make a fortune
nearer home by settling and planting in Ireland. The improvement
of the King’s revenues was the cover made use of by such pro
jectors to obtain commissions of enquiry into defective titles, and
NOTES 599
grants of concealed lands and rents belonging to the Crown, the
great benefit of which was generally to accrue to the projector or
discoverer, whilst the King was contented with an inconsiderable
proportion of the concealment, or a small advance of the reserved
rent.*” p. 376
324 Engels is referring to the passage in his excerpts from M. O’Conor’s
The History o f the Irish Catholics, already referred to in his
“Chronology of Ireland” (see Note 283). In addition to the quota
tion given in that note, the relevant passage contains data on con
fiscations made in 1614 in County Longford, neighbouring on Con
naught Province. These confiscations victimised the Irish aristocrat
ic family of the O’Ferells and 25 clans, who lost their property
which was parcelled out to English colonists; the other clans of the
county were banished to mountainous and unfertile lands. Of the
attempts to confiscate land in one of the counties of Connaught
Province itself (Leitrim) the following is said: “In Leitrim immense
possessions of Bryan na Murtha O’Rourke [see above (in O’Conor),
p. 21] had been granted to his son Teige by patent in the first year
of King James’ reign by the King himself\ and to the male heirs of
his body. Teige died leaving several sons, their titles were clear, no
plots or conspiracies could be urged to invalidate them. Then the
commission declared them all to be bastards and confiscated their
lands.” p. 376
325 The Court o f High Commission was founded in England in 1559 by
Elizabeth I to deal with cases of breaches of royal edicts and Acts
of Parliament, instrumental in furthering the Reformation, and
with offences against the Church of England. It was directed not
only against the Catholics but also against the radical Protestant
sects—the Puritans. p. 377
326 The Star Chamber was founded in England in 1487 by Henry VII
as a special court for judging local barons. Under Elizabeth I it
became one of the supreme judicial bodies investigating political
crimes, a weapon in the ruthless struggle conducted against the
opponents of absolutism. Like the Court of High Commission, it
was abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641.
In Ireland, the introduction by Strafford of similar institutions
(one of them was called the Castle Chamber because it convened in
Dublin Castle, the residence of the Lord Deputy) mainly served the
purpose of expropriation and colonisation. p. 377
327 Ed. Spencer, “A View of the State of Ireland”, in Ancient Irish
Histories, Dublin, 1809. In Engels’s excerpts from Spencer’s book
the following passage refers to the Irish clergy:
“...ye may find there ... gross simony, greedy covetousness,
fleshly incontinency,careless sloth, and generally all disordered life
in the common clergyman. And besides ... they do go and live like
600 NOTES
laymen, follow all kinds of husbandry and other wordly affairs as
other Irishmen do. They neither read Scriptures, nor preach to the
people, nor administer the Communion, but baptism they do, ...
they take the tithes and offerings and gather what fruit else they
may of their living, ... and some of them ... pay, as due, tributes
and shares of their livings to their b ish o p s..E n g els added the
following remark: “All the above, apparently, refers to the Protest
ant priests o f that time. ” p. 378
328 A reference to the order given in 1641 by Lords Justices Parsons
and Borlase to the English Commander, which contained instruc
tions on the treatment of Irish rebels. The order instructed “to
wound, kill, slay, and destroy all the rebels and their adherents and
relievers, and bum, spoil, waste, consume, destroy, and demolish
all the places, towns, and houses where the rebels were or have
been relieved or harboured, and all the com and hay there, and to
kill and destroy all the men there inhabiting able to bear arms”.
p. 378
329 Drogheda, an ancient fortress in Eastern Ireland, was besieged on
September 3, 1649, by Oliver Cromwell (see Note 293) and taken
by storm on September 12. In accordance with the order of the
Commander-in-Chief to show no mercy to anyone caught with
arms the three-thousand-strong Irish garrison was annihilated and
many peaceful citizens were killed. Ruthless bloodshed by Crom
well^ troops also attended the capture of Wexford on October 11,
1649. p .378
330 Titles to plots of Irish land of definite size. They were given to
soldiers of the Parliamentary army in lieu of wages. In many cases
officers and speculators bought them from the soldiers for a song.
p. 379
331 Engels is referring to his excerpts from the book J. Prendergast,
Cromwellian Settlement o f Ireland, London, 1865. In these ex
cerpts, the author describes the Act of Settlement (August 12,
1652) and the Act of Satisfaction (September 26, 1653) (on these
acts see Note 98). Both acts legalised the expropriation of the local
Irish population in favour of the English conquerors, which
followed the suppression of the 1641-52 national liberation upris
ing in Ireland. The English set up a special commission in Athlone
(which is mentioned by Engels below), to implement the second
act and compensate the Irishmen found only partially guilty of
revolt, by allotting them lands in the barren province of Connaught
and in Clare County. This commission defined the size of domains
to be retained, the other one, at Lougry allotted lands in Con- /
naught and Clare on instructions of a special Committee in Dublin.
p. 379
NOTES 601
332 See Note 166. p. 379
333 Engels is referring to his notes from Matthew O’Conor’s \ book,
The History o f the Irish Catholics, supplemented by excerpts from
other sources. In this particular case the reference is to the passage
dealing with the declaration made in 1660 by the government of
Charles II at the outset of the Stuart Restoration (on the Irish
policy of the post-Restoration Stuarts see Note 128). According to
that declaration the “adventurers”, the cffficers and men of the
Parliamentary army retained their possessions in Ireland, while
officers of Ormonde’s Royalist army, who had served under him up
to 1649 (hence the term “forty-nine officers”; in that year the
majority of the defeated English Royalists left Ireland and the
resistance to Cromwell’s troops was continued mainly by the Irish
rebels), received compensation out of the same fund of confiscated
Irish lands. Indigenous Irishmen, who had fought under the King’s
banner during the Civil War and been deprived of their possessions
because of it, received practically no compensation. p. 380
334 The A ct o f Settlement was passed by the restored Stuart monarchy
in 1662. The Act instituted a complicated procedure of enquiry
into complaints and petitions for the return of lands to the Irish
Catholics who had fought in civil war on the Royalist side. The
satisfaction of complaints was encumbered by a whole system of
casuistic objections and reservations. As a result, only a small part
was considered and a still smaller satisfied (those who received
compensation for their forfeited lands were designated in the docu
ments as “provisors”). The A ct o f Explanation passed in 1665
under pressure from the Protestant colonists cancelled all com
plaints not hitherto considered. It was called the “Black Act” in
Ireland.
p. 380
335 Given below are data on the confiscations of Irish lands carried out
by William III after the suppression of the 1689-91 Irish uprising,
in violation of the surrender terms signed with the insurgents at
Limerick (see Notes 111 and 116). p. 381
336 This article was written by Engels at the request of Marx’s eldest
daughter Jenny. It was intended as a preface to Erins-Harfe, a
collection of songs on the words of Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies,
which was being prepared for publication in Hanover. Jenny Marx
sent the article to Ludwig Kugelmann, Marx’s friend in Hanover,
asking him to hand it to Joseph Risse, the compiler of the collec
tion. However, it did not appear in the collection which was
printed in 1870, and was first published only in 1955. p. 383
337 Commission o f Inquiry—Marx’s way of referring to the Special
Commission of the Commons, appointed to study the effects of
the Act on the Bank Restriction of 1797. The Act fixed a com-
602 _ _ __________________________________________________ NOTES
pulsory rate for banknotes issued by the Bank of England and
abrogated their exchange for gold. Exchange was reintroduced by a
new Act in 1819. p. 385
338 An inaccuracy seems to have crept into Marx’s statement.
W. Blake’s Observations on the Principles which regulate the
Course o f Exchange; and on the Present Depreciated State o f
Currency, investigating the difference between the nominal and
real rate of bills of exchange,appeared in London in 1810. It was
Henry Thornton’s An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects o f the
Paper Credit o f Great Britain that appeared in London, in 1802. In
the sections on the real and nominal rates of bills of exchange
Blake makes frequent references to Thornton’s work.
The works of William Petty, relating to the difference between
the nominal and real rate of bills of exchange, are mentioned by
Marx in his Theories o f Surplus-Value. p. 385
339 Marx compares Gladstone’s Cabinet (1868-74) with the “ministry
o f all talents” (see Note 33). p. 386
340 A reference to A. Knox and J. Pollock, Report o f the Commis
sioners on the Treatment o f the Treason-Felony Convicts in the
English Convict Prisons, London, 1867. p. 386
341 See Note 75. P* 386
342 Engels mentions the issue of Bee-Hive of October 30, 1869. Its
editorial “Ministers and the Fenian Prisoners” justified Gladstone’s
policy of repressions against the Irish Fenians. On the Bee-Hive see
Note 216. p. 387
343 See Note 144. p. 388
344 In the first volume of Capital Marx quotes the work of George
Ensor, An Inquiry concerning the Population o f Nations, contain
ing a Refutation o f Mr. Malthus*s Essay on Population, London,
1818. p .388
345 See Note 205. p. 390
346 The amnesty ukase (edict) of May 25 (June 6), 1868, applied to
some categories of people convicted for political crimes before
January 1, 1866. It also affected some prisoners of foreign descent
who, according to the Imperial Ukase, had been exiled from Russia
for life. The amnesty entitled some Poles, who had been sentenced
to terms of imprisonment of less than twenty years, to return
home.
The Guelf conspiracy—a. reference to events after the Austro-
Prussian War of 1866 in Hanover, which lost its independence and
NOTES 603
was annexed by Prussia. In the spring of 1867, in France, Georg V,
the former King of Hanover, formed the Guelf legion, consisting of
Hanoverian emigrants, in an attempt to restore the Guelf dynasty.
On April 8, 1868, the Prussian judicial organs sentenced several
officers who had had a part in forming the legion to ten years’
imprisonment. Wishing to strengthen its positions in Hanover,
however, early in May of the same year the Prussian Government
granted an amnesty to the rank-and-file members of the Guelf
legion. r p. 391
347 The Chetham Library—one of England’s oldest libraries, founded in
Manchester in 1653. Marx used it during his first stay in England in
July and August 1845. p. 392
348 Der Volksstaat—the central organ of the German Social-Democratic
Workers’ Party (the Eisenachers)—was published in Leipzig from
October 2, 1869, to September 29, 1876. The newspaper, which
expressed the views of the revolutionary wing in Germany’s labour
movement, was constantly persecuted by the government and the
police. Although its editors changed overnight due to frequent
arrests, general guidance was constantly given by Wilhelm Lieb-
knecht. August Bebel had great influence in the newspaper. Marx
and Engels contributed to it from the day it was founded, and
constantly helped its editors in defining the paper's trend, p. 393
349 See Note 63. p. 395
350 On the instance of Marx, in November 1869, the General Council
decided to arrange a debate on two questions: the attitude of the
English Government to the Irish question and the attitude to this
question of the English working class. Although the second ques
tion was never actually debated, Marx’s point of view is known
from his letters and the documents of the International. It is
outlined in his letter to Engels of December 10, 1869, his letter to
the Lafargues of March 5, 1870, and in the “Confidential Com
munication” of the General Council. Marx’s main thesis was that
the English working class could not achieve its own emancipation
from capitalist oppression until it put an end to the colonial
oppression of Ireland. p. 395
351 The United Irishmen—a patriotic society which prepared the 1798
uprising. See Note 111. p. 398
3 5 2 Marx suggests that Engels should dedicate a separate chapter to this
period in his book on the history of Ireland (see Note 218). Engels
intended to write a section “Rebellion and Union. 1780-1801’ to
be included in the chapter “English Rule”. p. 398
353 Gladstone addressed the House of Commons-on February 15, 1870;
604 NOTES
his speech on the Land Bill for Ireland (see Note 213) was
published on the following day in The Times. p. 401
354 In February 1870, three candidates stood for election to Parlia
ment from Southwark: Beresford for the Conservative Party, Odger
for the workers and Sydney Waterlow for the Liberal Pary; Beres
ford polled 4,686 votes, Odger—4,382 and Waterlow—2,966.
p. 402
355 See Note 260. p. 403
356 Head Centre—the name given to the leader of the secret organisa
tion of the Fenian Brotherhood. p. 404
357 In the issue of The Irishman of March 5, 1870, Engels read a review
by a Paris correspondent who highly praised the article Marx’s
daughter Jenny had written for Marseillaise. Jenny Marx came out
in defence of the arrested Fenians, notably of O’Donovan Rossa,
who were subjected to brutal treatment in “the prisons of humane
England”. The article was signed J. Williams. She borrowed this
pen-name from Marx, who often signed his articles “Williams” but
used the initial A. Therefore Engels writes that he “couldn’t
account for the first name”. p. 404
5 8 Shamrock—Ireland’s national emblem, generally depicted as a
clover leaf and symbolising the Holy Trinity of the Christian faith.
It is customary for Irish people to wear shamrock on 17 March, on
St. Patrick’s Day. p. 405
359 At Marx’s suggestion Joseph Patrick McDonnell, an Irish worker
and former participant in the Fenian movement, was co-opted to
the General Council on November 1, 1871. Preliminary enquiries
had been made because some of the Irish nationalists spread malici
ous rumours about him. On July 4, 1871, Marx informed the
General Council that nothing detrimental to McDonnell’s character
had been discovered. Some functionaries of the Irish national
movement, notably Murphy (a businessman and the owner of The
Irishman), who claimed leadership of the movement and co-option
to the General Council, continued the smear campaign. p. 414
360 O’Donovan Rossa, one of the Fenian leaders in whose defence
Jenny Marx came out (see Note 357), spoke in the U.S.A., whereto
he had emigrated after being amnestied, against the Paris Com
munards, accusing them of murders. p. 415
361 On September 22, 1871, Marx addressed the London Conference
of the International on the position of the Association in England.
He paricularly emphasised the need to organise independent Irish
sections in the International, having in mind the specific relations
NOTES
between English and Irish workers, notably the antagonism be
tween them which had for many years been fomented by the ruling
classes. p. 417
362 On May 14, 1872, a meeting of the General Council discussed the
question of the relations between the Irish sections emerging in
England and Ireland and the British Federal Council. Engels
censured the chauvinistic positions held by Hales and several other
English members of the General Council andgthe British Council,
who obstructed the formation in the International of an independ
ent Irish organisation and its struggle for Ireland’s independence. In
the debate that ensued the majority of Council members supported
Engels.
Engels’s speech has been preserved in the form of notes he
made with a view to having the speech published in the press, and
also (in part) in the minutes of the General Council. The speech was
not published because at the next meeting of the General Council
it was decided not to include the debate on the Irish question in
the report intended for the press; it was thought that some of the
speeches, notably that made by Hales, might be harmful to the
International. p. 418
36 3 A reference to a clash between the Chartists and the Irish Repealers
in Manchester on March 8, 1842, provoked by the bourgeois
nationalist leaders of the Irish National Repeal Association
(champions of the Repeal of the Act of Union of 1801), who were
hostile to the labour movement in England, notably to Chartism.
O’Connor and a group of Chartists were driven by the Repealers
from the Hall of Science, where O’Connor was to deliver a lecture.
p. 419
364 The Hague Congress, held from September 2 to 7, 1872, was called
to reaffirm by its decisions the resolutions of the London Con
ference of 1871, notably, those on the political action of the work
ing class and the struggle against sectarianism. The preparations for
the Congress involved a violent struggle between the Marxists and
the anarchists and their allies who rejected the basic principles of
the theory of scientific communism.
The Hague Congress was more representative than all previous
congresses. Sixty-five delegates from 15 national organisations
attended. The inclusion by the Hague Congress in the General
Rules (Article 7) of the fundamentally important Marxist principle
on the need to found mass working-class parties and to establish a
proletarian dictatorship, and its decisions on organisational ques
tions were a major victory for the Marxists. The Congress crowned
with success the persistent struggle Marx, Engels and their support
ers had waged against all sorts of petty-bourgeois sectarianism in
the working-class movement; the anarchist leaders (Bakunin and
Guillaume) were expelled from the International. The decisions of
606 NOTES
the Hague Congress laid the foundation for the setting up in each
country of an independent political party of the working class.
p. 421
365 Engels’s Letters from London appeared in La Plebe, the newspaper
of the International's sections in Italy, early in April 1872, and
continued throughout the year. Early in 1873, Engels’s co-opera
tion with La Plebe was temporarily interrupted due to government
reprisals against the paper’s editors. La Plebe was published under
the editorship of E. Bignami in Lodi between 1868 and 1875, and
in Milan between 1875 and 1883. Up to the early seventies the
newspaper followed a bourgeois-democratic line, later it became
socialist. In 1872-73 La Plebe played an important role in the
struggle against the anarchist influence in the Italian working-class
movement. Engels’s contributions greatly promoted the paper’s
success. In 1882, the first independent party of the Italian proleta
riat—the Workers’ Party—formed around La Plebe. p. 423
366 See Note 212. p. 423
367 By the “last” General Council Engels means the London Council
that existed before the Hague Congress of the International at
which a decision was adopted to transfer the seat of the General
Council to New York. p. 425
368 In the fourth article of the Letters from London series: “Meeting
in Hyde Park.—The Position in Spain”, written on December 11,
1872, Engels reported that the Justice of the Peace could do no
more ,than impose the smallest possible fine, and since his decision
anyway ran contrary to the Rules governing behaviour in Hyde
Park the accused demanded that the case be brought before a court
of appeal. p. 425
369 In December 1872, a split occurred in the British Federal Council.
By refusing to recognise the decisions of the 1872 Hague Congress
the Council*s Right wing, headed by J. Hales, was, according to the
Rules of the International, making itself liable to expulsion from
the Association. This was confirmed by a decision of the General
Council of May 30, 1873. The Left wing of the British Federal
Council established itself as the British Federal Council and was
recognised by the majority of sections of the British Federation as
their leading body. In January 1873, the self-appointed Federal
Council attempted to organise a congress of the Federation but
only 12 delegates, representing a small portion of the British sec
tions, arrived. Soon afer the failure of the congress this British
Council disintegrated. p. 426
370 Engels had in mind the debate on the Mines Regulation Act of
1872. p .427
NOTES 607
371 See Note 148. p. 428
372 Dialecics o f Nature—Engels’s outstanding philosophical work which
gives a detailed dialectical materialist interpretation of the most
important theoretical problems of natural science. Engels did not
succeed in completing the book. Dialectics o f Nature was first
published in full in the Soviet Union in 1925. p. 430
373 In this work Engels subjected to devastatinjJ'criticism the views of
the German petty-bourgeois philosopher and economist Eugen
Diihring, who criticised Marxism and claimed to have evolved a
new system of philosophy, political economy and socialism. In his
polemics with Diihring, Engels expounded all the three component
parts of the Marxist teaching: dialectical and historical materialism,
political economy and the theory of scientific communism, p. 431
374 G. L. Maurer’s works (12 volumes) analyse the agrarian, urban and
state systems of medieval Germany. They are: Einleitung zur Ges-
chichte der Mark-, Hof-, Dorf- undStddt- Verfassung und der offent-
lichen Gewalt, Miinchen, 1854; Geschichte der Markenverfassung
in Deutschland, Erlangen, 1856; Geschichte der Fronhofe, der
Bauerhofe und der Hofverfassung in Deutschland. Bd. I-IV,
Erlangen, 1862-1863; Geschichte der Dorfverfassung in Deutsch
land, Bd. I-II, Erlangen, 1865-1866; Geschichte der Stddtverfassung
in Deutschland, Bd. I-IV, Erlangen, 1869-1871. The first, second
and fourth of these works make a special study o f the system of the
German Mark. p. 431
375 Engels’s article “American Food and the Land Question” was
printed in The Labour Standard, the organ of the London Trades
Union Council, which appeared weekly between 1881 and 1885
under the editorship of G. Ship ton. Between March and August
1881 it carried eleven articles by Engels directed against the narrow
aims pursued by the trade union movement, which tended to reduce
the working-class struggle to everyday economic demands. In these
articles Engels expounded the principles of Marxist political
economy. p. 433
3 7 6 a reference to the Anti-Socialist Law introduced by Bismarck’s
Government with the support of a majority in the Reichstag on
October 21,1878, for the purpose of fighting the socialist and work-
ing-class movement. The law deprived the Social-Democratic Party
of Germany of its legal status; it prohibited all its organisations,
workers’ mass organisations and the socialist and workers’ press,
decreed confiscation of socialist literature, and subjected Social-
Democrats to reprisals. The law was extended every 2-3 years.
Despite this policy of reprisals the Social-Democratic Party in
creased its influence among the masses. Under pressure of the mass
working-class movement the law was not extended in October
1890. p. 435
NOTES
377 The Irish National Land League—a peasant organisation founded by
Irish revolutionary democrats in 1879. It was headed by Michael
Davitt, a former Fenian. The Land League was supported by the
urban poor. The most progressive section of the Irish national
bourgeoisie—the Home Rulers, headed by Parnell—also associated
themselves with the League. The Left wing of the Land League’s
leadership (Davitt, Dillon, Devoy and others) demanded full
independence for Ireland, the abolition of landlordism and the
transfer of the land to the peasants. The rights confined themselves
to the demand for Home Rule—the granting to Ireland of self-
government within the framewok of the British Empire and the
normalisation of relations between the landlords and tenants. The
Land League was very active and resorted to diverse methods of
struggle: boycott of the supporters of the English Government,
refusal to pay rent, etc. In 1881, the English Government prohibited
the League and many of its leaders were arrested, but the League
continued its activity almost up to the end of the decade. p. 435
378 Marx made this synopsis of J. R. Green’s book in the last years of
his life, while working on a chronology of world history.
He began to make excerpts not from the beginning of the book
but from the second half of the first volume. p. 437
379 See Note 269. p. 438
380 Engels’s article on Jenny Longuet was published in the newspaper
Der Sozialdemokrat.
Der Sozialdemokrat—a German weekly, the central organ of
the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany, was published during the
time the Anti-Socialist Law was in force, from September 1879 to
September 1888 in Zurich, and from October 1888 to September
2 7,1890, in London. p. 440
381 Isaac Butt’s letter from Dublin was read at the meeting of the
General Council of the First International on January 4, 1870.
Butt offered his offices in bringing about a union between English
and Irish workers. p 442
382 The fact that A. Regnard, a French petty-bourgeois journalist and
historian, approached Marx’s daughter, Jenny Longuet, about his
articles on Irish history, is explained by the popularity she had won
by writing articles censuring Gladstone’s policy towards the
Fenians for the French newspaper La Marseillaise. p. 443
383 The Scottish Covenanters—supporters of the National Covenant,
the agreement signed in 1638 in Scotland after the successful upris
ing in 1637 against the absolutist government of Charles I. Under
the banner of protection of the Presbyterian (Calvinist) religion
against bishopry, the participants in the Covenant fought for
NOTES 609
Scotland’s national autonomy, against all attempts to implant
absolutist ways in the country. The war accelerated the outbreak
of the bourgeois revolution in England. See also Note 287. p. 443
384 See Note 183. P* 444
385 See Note 119. p. 445
386 In 1795, Pitt’s government helped to found the Irish Catholic
college in the town of Maynooth and granted considerable sub
sidies to it. This policy was intended to draw the elite of Irish
landowners, bourgeoisie and clergymen over to the English side and
thereby split the Irish national liberation movement. p. 445
387 See Note 180. p. 445
388 A reference to the school system introduced in Ireland in 1831 by
Stanley (Earl of Derby), the then Chief Secretary for Ireland. Joint
schools were set up for Catholics and Protestants and only religious
subjects were taught separately. p. 445
389 Apparently a reference to the resolution adopted by the House of
Commons at Gladstone’s proposal on February 3, 1881, to
introduce a new procedure in the British Parliament. Since the
obstruction tactics resorted to by the Irish opposition in the House
of Commons prevented the passing by Parliament of a Bill in
troducing coercion laws in Ireland, Gladstone proposed to accord
the Speaker the right to interrupt speeches of orators and in case of
insubordination to evict them from the premises. p. 446
390 The spread of peasant action against English landlords moved
Parliament to adopt, early in 1881, two bills on the introduction of
coercion laws in Ireland. These laws suspended constitutional
guarantees and introduced a state of siege in the country; troops
were sent to help the landlords evict tenants refusing to leave.
The Land Bill for Ireland, proposed by Gladstone’s Liberal
government at the end of 1880, was an attempt to divert the Irish
peasants from the revolutionary struggle by somewhat restricting
the arbitrary rule of the English landlords over the peasant tenants.
It was finally passed on August 22, 1881. According to the Land
Act of 1881, a landlord was not allowed to evict a tenant from the
land if he paid rent in time, the size of the rent being stipulated for
15 years in advance. Although the Land Act gave the landlords the
opportunity to sell their land profitably to the state and the size of
the rent fixed by it continued to be extremely high, the English
landlords obstructed its implementation because they wanted to
preserve their unlimited power in Ireland. p. 446
391 The meeting of English landlords was held in Dublin on January 3,
2 0-2 2 6
610 NOTES
1882, with the Duke of Abercom in the chair. It was called to
discuss the activities of the assistant commissioners, officials
appointed to implement measures connected with the 1881 Land
Act for Ireland (see Note 390). Referring to the lack of proper
qualifications and the inexperience of these officials and also to the
absence of Parliamentary decisions defining their competency, the
landlords accused the assistant commissioners of adopting biased
decisions on lowering the rents collected by the landlords. In an
attempt to sabotage the Land Act, the landlords demanded that
the government consider their appeals without delay and pass a law
on compensation for losses they might incur if the government
sanctioned a reduction of rents. p. 449
392 See Note 110. p. 450
39 3 The Democratic Federation—an association of various British
radical societies of a semi-bourgeois, semi-proletarian trend, set up
on June 8, 1881, under the guidance of H. M. Hyndman. The
Federation adopted a democratic programme containing 9 points:
universal suffrage, a three-year Parliament, a system of equal
electoral districts, the abolition of the House of Lords as a legisla
tive body, independence for Ireland in the field of legislation,
nationalisation of the land, etc.
At the inaugural conference of the Democratic Federation
Hyndman’s pamphlet England for All was distributed among the
participants. In its two chapters (Chapter II—“Labour”, and
Chapter III—“Capital”) Hyndman included whole sections from
the first volume of Capital as programme principles of the Federa
tion. He made no reference to either the author or the book, and in
many cases distorted Marx’s propositions.
In 1884 the Democratic Federation was reorganised as the
Social-Democratic Federation. p. 450
3 94 j k g mass action of the Irish peasants led by the Land League and
various secret societies forced Gladstone to repeal the emergency
measure introduced in 1881. On May 2, 1882, the Irish M. P.s, the
leaders of the Land League (see Note 377) Parnell, Davitt, Dillon
and O’Kelly, were released from goal. At the same time the
champions of the emergency measures—F. T. Cowper, the Viceroy
for Ireland, and W. Forster, Chief Secretary for Ireland—had to
resign, Lord Cavendish was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland.
p. 450
395 Gladstone’s repressions in Ireland intensified the activities of
various secret societies which resorted to terror against the land
lords and their managers, and against government officials. As a
result many estate owners left Ireland. p. 450
396 Engels wrote this letter after reading “Die Situation in Ireland”, an
notes 611
article by Eduard Bernstein signed “Leo”, in May 18, 1882, issue
of Der Sozialdemokrat. Bernstein gave Engels’s letter to W. Lieb-
knecht, who published a large portion of it in the same newspaper
on July 13, 1882, in the form of an article entitled “Zur irischen
Frage”, in which he inserted his editorial comments. He also
appended Engels’s text with an introduction and a conclusion by
the editorial board. In his letter to Bernstein of August 9, 1882,
Engels expressed his indignation with Liebknecht’s misrepresenta
tion of his views on the Irish question (see pp. 454-55). p. 451
397 The Alabama affair—a. conflict between the U.S.A. and England due
to the military help rendered by the latter to the Southern States
during the Civil War of 1861-65. The English Government built and
equipped cruisers for the Southern States, including the Alabama,
which did considerable damage to the Northern States. After the war
the U.S. Government demanded of the English Government full
compensation for the losses inflicted by the Alabama and other
vessels. The tribunal of arbitration in Geneva adjudged on Sep
tember 14, 1872, that England should pay the United States
£15,500,000 damages. England submitted to the tribunal’s decision
because she wanted the U.S.A. to keep out of Irish affairs and to
stop supporting the Irish revolutionaries. p. 452
398 Lord Cavendish, the newly appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland,
and Thomas Henry Burke, the former Under-Secretary, were assas
sinated on May 6 , 1882, in Phoenix Park in Dublin by members of
the terrorist organisation “The Invincibles”, which incorporated
some former Fenians. Marx and Engels did not approve of the
terrorist tactics of these epigoni of Fenianism; in their view, such
anarchistic acts could not in the least affect England’s-colonial
policy towards Ireland but only involved unnecessary sacrifices on
the part of the Irish revolutionaries and disorganised the national
liberation movement.
On the Fenians see Note 92. p. 453
399 In 1878, attempts to assassinate Kaiser Wilhelm I were made by
Max Hodel, an apprentice from Leipzig, and by Karl Nobiling, an
anarchist. These attempts became the pretext for the institution of
the Anti-Socialist Law. See Note 376. p. 454
400 The conquest of Wales by the English was completed in 1283.
However, Wales retained its autonomy after that, and was finally
united with England in the mid-16th century. p. 456
401 Engels is referring to his work on the history of Ireland which
remained uncompleted (see Note 218). In studying the history of
the Celts he also looked ino the ancient Welsh laws. p. 456
402 In September 1891, Engels made a trip to Scotland and Ireland.
p. 458
20*
612 NOTES
403 See Note 256. p. 459
404 L. H. Morgan, Ancient Society, London, 1877,pp. 357,358. p. 459
405 Beda Venerabilis, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, Book I,
Chapter I. p. 459
406 Engels gave this interview to a reporter of the New Yorker Volks-
zeitung on September 19, 1888, after a trip round the U.S.A.
Engels travelled incognito and wanted to avoid all contacts with
he press. Jonas, the editor of the New Yorker Volkszeitung,
however, got to know of Engels’s stay in New York and sent
T. Cuno, a former functionary of the First International, to him on
behalf of the paper. The interview was published in the paper
without preliminary discussion of its text with Engels. On
October 13, the interview was reprinted in Der Sozialdemokrat,
apparently without any objections being voiced by Engels, p. 460
407 This preface was written by Engels for the English edition of his
book The Condition o f the Working-Class in England, published in
London in 1892. The first edition of the authorised English transla
tion appeared in New York in 1887. Most of the preface—with a
few editorial changes and a few deletions—consisted of the
appendix to the American edition written by Engels in 1886 and
his article “England in 1845 and 1885”, which it included. The
concluding part of the preface was written by Engels specially for
the 1892 English edition. p. 461
408 “Little Ireland”—a. workers’ district in southern part of Manchester
inhabited mainly by Irishmen. It is described in Engels’s work The
Condition o f the Working-Class in England (see p. 49).
“Seven Dials”—a workers’ district in central London. p. 461
409 This article was written by Engels for the journal Die Neue Zeit,
a theoretical organ of the German Social-Democrats, published
in Stuttgart from 1883. Speeches made by the German Right-
wing Social-Democrat G. Vollmar on the agrarian question
prompted Engels to write it. He felt that it was necessary to ex
plain the fundamentals of the revolutionary proletarian attitude
towards the peasant question in a special article and to criticise
Vollmar’s opportunist views and deviations from the Marxist
theory in the agrarian programme of the French socialists, adopted
at the Marseilles Congress (September 1892) and supplemented at
the Nantes Congress (September 1894). p. 463
410 The general election in England was held between November 23
and December 19, 1885. As a result of this first election after the
1884 Parliamentary Reform, the Liberals obtained 331 seats, losing
20, the Conservatives—249 and supporters of Home Rule for
Ireland—86. p. 465
n o tes 613
411 The Centre Party—a political party of the German Catholics found
ed in 1870-71. It generally held intermediate positions manoeuvr
ing between the parties supporting the government and the Left
opposition factions in the Reichstag. Under the banner of Catholic
ism it united various sections of the Catholic clergy, landowners,
bourgeoisie, some of the peasants, predominantly in the small and
medium-sized states in Western and South-Western Germany—that
is, people of very different social status—and supported their
separatist trends. The Centre Party was in opposition to Bismarck’s
Government but voted for its measures directed against the labour
and socialist movement. p. 465
412 In the late seventies and early eighties, when England encountered
growing competition from the U.S.A. and Germany on the world
market, the English bourgeoisie who had hitherto supported the
Manchester School (see Note 40) began to change their attitude
and press for the introduction of protective tariffs. p. 465
413 The debates on the Irish Arms Bill mentioned by Engels were held
during its second reading in the House of Commons on May 20,
1886. The Bill was to prolong the ban established by the 1881 law
on the sale, import and carrying of arms in some districts of
Ireland. John Morley, the Secretary for Ireland, in bringing the Bill
before Parliament, said that it was particularly important for
Northern Ireland (Ulster), where open agitation was being conduct
ed among the Protestant population for the organisation of armed
resistance against the introduction of self-government in Ireland on
a Home Rule basis. Randolph Churchill said in his speech that
these actions were legitimate and referred to Althorp and Robert
Peel, who in 1833 had said that civil war could be morally justified
in the face of a threat to the integrity of the British Empire. In his
reply Gladstone reproached Churchill for supporting resistance to
government measures. The Bill was passed by the House of Com
mons by 353 votes to 89. p. 466
414 During the first half of April 1887, the House of Commons
discussed the draft Crimes Bill for Ireland, which provided for the
introduction there of a simplified judicial procedure with a view to
quelling the growing peasant disturbances. The executive organs
were to be granted the right to outlaw various societies, and sen
tences on charges of conspiracy, illegal meetings, insubordination,
etc., could be passed by the judiciary without a jury. Mass meetings
in protest against the Bill, held on April 11, 1887, in Hyde Park,
were attended by 100,000-150,000 people. The meetings called by
various organisations were addressed by speakers from the Liberal
Party (Gladstone and others), the Social-Democratic Federation
(Bateman, Williams, Bums and others), the Socialist League
(Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling and others) and from other
organisations.
614 NOTES
In its report on the meeting entitled “Irish Crimes Bill, Great
Demonstration in Hyde Park, Processions and Speeches,, the Daily
Telegraph said on April 12, 1887, that Eleanor Marx-Aveling’s
speech had evoked lively interest and had been greeted enthusiast
ically. p. 467
415 Engels is referring to differences within the Liberal Party. In 1886,
its right wing opposed to the granting of self-government to Ireland
split away to form the Liberal Unionist Party under J. Chamber-
lain. On most issues the Liberal Unionists supported the Conserva
tives. p. 467
416 See Note 72. p. 468
417 A reference to the stand of the Progressist Party in the Reichstag
elections in February 1887. During the second ballot the support
ers of the Progressist Party voted for the candidates of the
“cartel”—the bloc of both conservative parties and the National-
Liberals—against the Social-Democrats, thereby helping that bloc,
which supported Bismarck’s Government, to victory. p. 468
418 In April 1886, hoping to win the support of the Irish M.P.s,
Gladstone tabled the Home Rule Bill providing for self-government
for Ireland within the framework of the British Empire. This Bill
led to a split in the Liberal Party and the break-away of the Liberal
Unionists (see Note 415). The Bill was defeated. p. 469
419The National Union o f Gasivorkers and General Labourers o f Great
Britain and Ireland, founded in April 1889, had over 100,000
members. It was one of the first trade unions in the English and
Irish labour movements to organise unskilled workers. Its chief
demand was the introduction of an eight-hour working day.
Eleanor Marx-Aveling played a major role in its organisation and
leadership.
The active dissemination of socialist ideas among the trade
union members by Eleanor Marx and her comrades helped the
Gasworkers’ Union exert a major influence on Ireland’s working-
class movement. Its example promoted the formation of the
dockers’, agricultural workers’ and other trade unions. p. 470
420 The Second Congress o f the National Union o f Gasworkers and
General Labourers o f Great Britain and Ireland was held on May
17, 1891, in Dublin. The Congress adopted a decision on the parti
cipation of the Union in the forthcoming International Socialist
Workers’ Congress in Brussels: and Eleanor Marx-Aveling and
William Thorne were elected delegates. p. 470
421 The gasworks owners in Leeds demanded that workers should be
hired for a term of four months and not be entitled to strike during
NOTES 615
that period. They also demanded that the volume of work done
during an 8-hour shift be 25 per cent greater than it was when the
working day was longer. These conditions were tantamount to the
destruction of the gasworkers’ trade union in Leeds and the aboli
tion of the 8-hour working day. They caused a storm of indigna
tion among the workers and were rejected by them. Early in July
1890 clashes occurred between the strikers and strike-breakers,
who were supported by troops. The staunch resistance of the
strikers forced the strike-breakers and the troops to retreat, and the
bosses were compelled to waive their conditions. p. 471
422 Engels is referring to the success of the workers and socialists in the
Parliamentary elections in England in the summer of 1892. The
English workers’ and socialist organisations nominated a large
number of candidates, three of whom—Keir Hardie, John Bums
and J. H. Wilson—were elected to Parliament. The elections were
won by the Liberals. p. 472
423 Engels is referring to the persecution by English and Irish reac
tionaries of Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Irish national
movement. At the end of 1889, the Liberal Unionists (former
members of the Liberal Party, who left it in 1886 because they
opposed Home Rule) had Pamell brought to court on a charge of
adultery. The court (November 1890) found Pamell guilty and this
let loose a smear campaign against him. Both Liberal and Conserva
tive M.P.s demanded that he be removed from the post of leader of
the Irish Parliamentary faction. The attacks against Pamell, which
played on bourgeois hypocrisy in questions of morals, pursued the
aim of removing him from the political scene and weakening the
Irish national movement. The smear campaign against Pamell was
supported by the Right wing of the Irish faction and the Irish
Catholic clergy, who feared his influence and did not share his
aspirations for Home Rule. All this led to a split of the Irish Parlia
mentary faction and weakened the Irish national movement. The
campaign was largely responsible for Parnell's early death in 1891.
p. 472
424 Yhe Fabian Society was founded in 1884. The name was derived
from Quintus Fabius Maximus, a Roman general of the 3rd century
B.C., nicknamed the “Cunctator" (or Delayer) because he achieved
success in the second Punic war against Hannibal by avoiding direct
battle and using dilatory tactics. Most of the Fabians were bour
geois intellectuals, chief among whom were Sidney and Beatrice
Webb. They rejected Marx's teaching on the class struggle of the
proletariat and the socialist revolution and maintained that a transi
tion from capitalism to socialism could be effected by petty
reforms and the gradual transformation of society, through so-
called municipal socialism. The Fabian Society diffused bourgeois
influence among the working class and propagated reformist ideas
616 NOTES
in the English labour movement. Lenin defined Fabianism as “the
most consummate expression of opportunism and of liberal-labour
policy”. In 1900 the Fabian Society was incorporated in the
Labour Party. “Fabian socialism” is still one of the sources of the
ideology of class conciliation. p. 473
425 The Social-Democratic Federation—an English socialist organisa
tion founded in August 1884, on the basis of the Democratic
Federation. It united heterogeneous socialist elements, mainly
intellectuals. The Federation was for a long time led by reformists,
with Hyndman at the head, who followed an opportunist and
sectarian policy. The group of revolutionary Marxists in the
Federation (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, Tom Mann
and others) opposed Hyndman’s line and fought for the establish
ment of close links with the mass working-class movement. After
the split in the autumn of 1884 and the formation in December
1884 by the Left-wingers of an independent organisation—the
Socialist League—the opportunists became more influential in the
Federation. Under the influence of the revolutionary-minded
masses, however, revolutionary elements kept forming in the
Federation and dissatisfaction with the opportunistic leadership
grew.
The Socialist Labour Party o f America was founded in 1876.
Most of its members were immigrants (chiefly Germans) who had
little contacts with the native American workers. As its programme
the party proclaimed the struggle for socialism, but, owing to the
sectarian policy of its leadership, which ignored work in the
American proletariat’s mass organisations, it did not become a
genuinely revolutionary Marxist Party. p. 473
426 The Labour Leader—an English monthly founded in 1887 as Miner.
From 1889, under this new name, it appeared as the organ of the
Scottish Labour Party, and in 1893 it became the organ of the
Independent Labour Party. James Keir Hardie was its editor up to
1904. p. 474
427 General Parliamentary elections were held in England from July 12
to 29, 1895, and were won by the Conservatives with a majority of
more than 150 seats. Many candidates of the Independent Labour
Party, including Keir Hardie, were blackballed. p. 474
428 This document was drawn up by Peter Fox, a member of the
General Council, following the debate of the question of Irish
political prisoners at the Council meetings on February 20 and
March 6 , 1886. On the decision of the General Council it was
published under Odger’s name in the newspaper Commonwealth
No. 157, March 10, 1866. p. 477
429 Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania)—a penal colony to which English
NOTES 617
courts exiled political convicts sentenced to hard labour for life.
p. 479
430 Hyde Park was the scene of mass meetings organised by the
Reform League, which led the struggle for the election reform in
1865-67. The tens of thousands of workers attending them wanted
decisive action and the leaders of the League were unable to keep
them within the “bounds of the law". The workers clashed with
the police, broke into the territory of the Eark despite the ban on
entry and smashed windows in houses belonging to M.P.s opposing
the reform. In May 1867, a new wave of mass meetings began in
Hyde Park. This made the ruling circles rush to carry out the
reform. p. 485
431 This address, which is in fact the manifesto of the Land and
Labour League (see Note 205), founded in October 1869, was
drawn up by Eccarius.around November 14, 1869. It was edited by
Marx. p. 490
432 In agitating for the repeal of the Com Laws, the speakers of the
Anti-Corn Law League endeavoured to prove to the workers
attending the meetings that with the introduction of free trade
their real wages would rise and their loaf of bread would be twice
as large. p. 490
433 This category of taxpayers includes people deriving their income
from trade, and people of the free professions. p. 491
434 The Poor Law adopted by Parliament in 1834 abolished all relief to
the poor, which had until then existed in parishes; all the needy,
including children under age, were now sent to special workhouses.
Because of the prison regime in them, the people called these
houses Bastilles of the poor. p. 492
435 These articles were written by Marx’s daughter Jenny for the
French republican newspaper Marseillaise and dealt with the ques
tions raised in Marx's article “The English Government and the
Fenian Prisoners". The third article was written together with
Marx. All except the second article were signed J. Williams. See
also Note 357. p. 496
436 Gladstone's speech appeared in The Times on March 4, 1870.
p. 498
437 The author paraphrases Voltaire’s words: “All genres are good
except the boring one." p. 506
43 8 The demonstration demanding an amnesty for the Fenians
detained in English prisons was held in Hyde Park on October 24,
618 NOTES
1869. See Note 144. p. 507
439 An anonymous article in The Times of March 16, 1870, written by
Henry Bruce, Home Secretary in the Liberal Government, attempt
ed to disprove the facts adduced by O’Donovan Rossa. p. 507
440 George Moore’s speech in the House of Commons and Gladstone’s
reply on March 17, 1870, were published in The Times on March
18, 1870, p . 508
441 See Note 141. p. 508

442 See Note 148. p. 509
443 See Notes 217 and213. p. 511
444 A reference to the book: F. T. H. Blackwood Mr. Mill's Plan for
the Pacification o f Ireland Examined, London, 1868. p. 511
445 A quotation from Reynolds's Newspaper of March 20, 1870. The
article was signed “Gracchus”. p. 511
446 The author paraphrases Shakespeare. See King Henry VI, Part I,
Act I, Scene 2. p. 517
447 Lawyer Laurier made this speech on March 25, 1870, at the trial of
Prince Pierre Bonaparte, who was accused of the murder of the
journalist Victor Noir. The speech was published in the French
newspaper Marseillaise No. 97, March 27,1870. p. 520
448 At the meeting of the General Council of the International Work
ing Men’s Association on April 2, 1872, MacDonnell, the Cor
responding Secretary for Ireland, reported on the persecution to
which the Irish sections in Dublin, Cork and other places were
being subjected by the police. A commission made up of Marx,
MacDonnell and Milner was charged with drawing up a special
declaration in this connection. On April 9, MacDonnell submitted
to the General Council a declaration on police terror in Ireland.
The text was approved and it was decided to print 1,000 copies in
the form of a leaflet for distribution in Ireland.
The text of the General Council’s declaration was also printed
in the Spanish newspaper Emancipacion with a foreword by the
editors quoting MacDonnell’s report of April 2, 1872. p. 523
449 See Note 73. p. 524
450 The Universal Federalist Council was formed early in 1872 of
representatives of the 1871 French section which had not been
accepted into the International, of various bourgeois and petty-
NOTES 619
bourgeois organisations, Lassalleans, who had been expelled from
the London German Workers’ Educational Association, and other
elements. This body pretended to the leadership of the interna
tional working-class movement including the International. The
organisers of the Universal Council claimed, in particular, that the
General Council of the International Working Men’s Association
was not a legitimate body. p. 526
451 Eleanor Marx-Aveling’s and William Thom as letter on behalf of
the Gasworkers’ and General Labourers’ Union was addressed to
the Chairman of the association of the trade unions of American
workers—the American Federation of Labour (A.F.L.). The
authors, who expressed the sentiments of the revolutionary forces
acting under Engels’s leadership, advocated the unity of the inter
national labour movement, and did all they could to bring it about.
p. 533
NAME INDEX
A Aleny John—Lord Chancellor of

Ir e la n d (1 5 3 8 -4 6 and
Abercorn, James Hamilton, 1548-50).—329
Duke of (1811-1885)—Lord Alexander the Great—see Ale
L ie u t e n a n t o f Irelan d xander o f Macedon
(1866-68 and 1874-76).-133, Alexander of Macedon (356-323
145, 149, 153-54, 389, 449 B.C.)—soldier and statesman
A b e r c r o m b y , Ralph of Ancient Greece.—284
(1734-1801)—English general, Alexander II (1818-1881)—Rus
Commander-in-Chief in Ire sian Emperor (1855-81).—454
land (1797).—220 Alexander III (1845-1894)-Rus-
A b e rd e e n , George Hamilton- sian Emperor (1881-94),^-468
Gordon, Earl of (1784-1860) — Alfred the Great (849-899)—
British statesman, Tory; from King o f W est Saxons
1850 leader of Peelites, Foreign (871-899).—293
Secretary (1828-30, 1841-46) A l i s o n , S ir A r c h ib a ld
and Prime Minister (1852- (1792-1867)—English histori
55).—79,478 an and economist, Tory.—50
A b in g d o n —see Bertie, Wil A l l e n , W illia m P h ilip
loughby (1 8 48 -18 6 7)—Irish Fenian,
Acland, Sir Thomas Dyke—Engl sentenced. to death by an
ish bourgeois radical.-^ 154 English court and executed.^
Adam o f Bremen (d. c. 155-56
1085)—chronicler, author of Althorp, John Charles Spencer,
Gesta Hammaburgensis Eccle- Viscount (1782-1845)—British
siae Pontificum.—301 Whig statesman; Chancellor of
Adrian IV (Nicholas Breakspear) Exchequer (1830-34).—466
(d. 1159)—Pope (1154-59), of Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 332-c.
English origin.—137, 310, 437 400)—Roman historian.—293
Albinus (4th cent.)—Irish Chris Anne (1665-1714)—Queen of
tian missionary.—293 Great Britain and Ireland
Albinus (latter half of 8th (1702-14).—133, 139, 150,
cent.)—Irish scholar.—295 158
NAME INDEX 621
Annesley, John, Baron Mount- Bagenal, Beauchamp—member
norris—member of the Irish o f the Irish Parliament
Parliament (1799).—2 (1782).—186-87, 239
Anselm o f Canterbury (1033- Bagenal, Henry
1109)—theologian, representa (1556-1598)—Marshal of Ire
tive of early scholasticism.'— land.—335
295 Baker, Robert—British factory
Applegarth, Robert inspector in the 1850s and
(1 8 3 3 -1 9 2 5 )—British trade 1860s.—12E
union leader, General Secre Baltinglass, Eustachius (d.
tary of Amalgamated Society 1585)—a leader of an Irish
of Carpenters and Joiners uprising against English rule.^
(1862-71), member of London 334
Council of Trade Unions, Barrett, Michael (d. 1868)—Irish
member of General Council of Fenian, sentenced to death by
I n t e r n a t io n a l ( 1 8 6 5 , English authoritiesv-r-515
1868-72)^392, 524 Barrington, John
Argyll, George Douglas Camp (1760-1834)—lawyer, Protest
bell, Duke of ant, member of the Irish
(1 823-1900)—British states Parliament, opposed the Ang
man, Liberal, Lord Privy Seal lo-Irish Union.—231, 365
(1880-81) in Gladstone’s go Barry, David de (mid-13 th
vernment .—44 7 cent.)—Lord Justice of Ire
Arnaud, Antoine land.—315
(1831-1885)—French revolu Barry, Maltman (1842-1909)—
tionary, Blanquist, member of English journalist, socialist;
Paris Commune, member of member of General Council
General Council of Interna (1871-72) and British Federal
tional (1871-72).-526 Council (1872-74) of Interna
A v e Iing , Edward tional; contributed to the
(1851-1898)—English socialist, conservative newspaper Stan
writer and publicist, one of dard; in 1890s supported so-
translators of first volume of called socialist wing of Conser
Capital into English; member vative Party.—442, 524, 526,
of Social Democratic Federa 527
tion from 1884, then a found B eau fort, Daniel Augustus
er of Socialist League and (1739-1821 )h-Irish geographer
organiser of General Labourers and clergyman of French
Union; husband of Marx’s origin, author of Memoir of:
daughter Eleanor.—47 0, 473 Map of Ireland.—272
Bebel, August (1840-1913)—out
standing figure in German and
B interna tional working-class
movement, one of founders
Bacon, Francis, Baron Verulam and leaders of German Social-
(1561-1626)—prominent Engl Democratic Party, associate
ish philosopher, Lord Privy and friend of Marx and En-
Seal and Lord Chancellor of gels.—435-36, 468, 472-73,
England.—361 533
622 NAME INDEX
Becker, Johann Philip United Irishmen society.—217
(1809-1886)—prominent figu B is m a r c k , O tto , Prince
re in German and international (181 5-1898)—statesman of
working-class movement, orga Prussia and Germany, repre
niser of German sections of sentative of Prussian Junkers;
First International in Switzer Prime Minister of Prussia
land, associate and friend of (1862-71) and Chancellor of
Marx and Engels.^-466 German Empire
Beda th e Venerable (c. (1871-90).—435-36, 449, 524
673-735)—Anglo-Saxon eccle B la ck b u rn e , Francis
siastic, scholar and histo (1782-1867)—Irish lawyer and
rian.—293, 459 statesman, held high posts in
B ellin gh am , E dw ard (d. English judiciary in Ireland.—
1549)—Lord Deputy of Ire 142, 154
land from 1548.—372 Blake, J, ,4.—British politician,
Belvidere—Irish Lord.—226 Liberal M .P.-514
Benignus (d. 468)—Irish priest; Blake, William—English econo
according to tradition, one of mist of first half of 19th
compilers of Senchus Mor, a century, author of works on
collection of ancient laws.— money circulation.—385
287 Blount, Charles, Lord Mountjoy
Beresford (1738-1805)—member (1563-1606)—Lord Deputy of
of the Irish Parliament, sup Ireland from 1599.-219,248,
ported the Anglo-Irish Uni- 336-37,338,373
on.—213-14 Boate, Gerard (1604-1650)—
B ernard o f Clairvaux (c. English physician of Dutch ori
1091-1153)—French theolo gin, author of Ireland's Natural
gian, fanatical champion of H istory.—278
Catholicism.—288, 359 B o h n , Henry George
B e rn ste in , Eduard (1796-1884)—English publish-
(1850-1932)—German Social- er.—289
Democrat, publicist, editor of Bo iIe au, Nicolas
the newspaper Sozialdemokrat (1636-1711)—French poet and
(1881-90); in the latter half of theorist of classicism.—508
the 1890s, after Engels* death, Bonaparte—see Napoleon III
openly advocated revision of (Louis Napoleon Bonaparte)
M arxism .—446-47, 450-51, Bond, Oliver (1760-1798)-
454, 466 member of the United Irish
Bertie, Willoughby, Earl Abing men society in Dublin.—218
don (1740-1799)—Speaker in Boon, Martin James—prominent
the House of Lords (1775-99), figure in British working-class
Whig supporter.—190, 240 movement, member of Gene
B esson , A lex a n d re—French ral Council of International
emigre, lived in London; mem (1869-72), Secretary of Land
ber of General Council of and Labour League, member
International (1866-68), Cor of British Federal Council
responding Secretary for Bel (1872).—495, 524, 526, 529
gium.—129 Borkheim, Sigismund Ludwig
Bird—a. government spy in the (1826-1885)—German demo-
NAME INDEX 623
cratic publicist, lived in Eng American farmer, a prominent
land from 1851; Was friendly leader of revolutionary wing
with Marx and Engels.—415 of abolitionist movement; exe
Borlase, Edmund (d. 1682)—son cuted in 1859 after unsucces
of John Borlase, wrote an sful attempt to organise insur
apologetic book on the hi rection of Negro slaves in
story of the 1641-52 Irish Virginia.—130, 155
uprising in which he tried to Brownlo w—member of the Irish
justify actions of English Parliament (1785).—184, 195,
colonisers .—3 7 8 243
Borlase, John (1576-1648)— Bruadhair—see Brodhir
Lord Justice of Ireland in Bruce, Edward (d. 1318)—broth
1640-43; governed Ireland er of Robert Bruce, proclaim
with Parsons in absence of ed King of Ireland by rebel-
Lord Deputy.—347, 378, 444 lious I r is h c la n s
Bradlaugh, Charles (1315-18).—317-18, 437
(1833-1891)—English journal B r u c e , Henry Austin
ist, bourgeois radical and re (1815-1895)—British states
publican.—154 man, Liberal, Home Secretary
B radn ick, Frederick—English (1868-73).—163, 258, 504,
worker, member of General 510, 513-15, 519-20
C ouncil of International Bruce, Robert (1274-1329)-
(1870-72) and of British Fede King of Scotland (1306-29),
ral Council.—524 one of leaders of Scottish
B r e w e r , J o h n S herren rebellion against English.—
(1810-1879)—English histo 317-18, 437
rian and philologist, professor B u rgh , R ich ard de (c.
of King’s College, London.— 1269-1326)-ruler of Ulster
289,401 and Connaught.—315
Brian Borumha (926-1014)---- Burgh, Ulick de, Marquis of
King of Ireland (1001-14) who Clanricarde (1604-1657)—
routed Norsemen in Battle of representative of Anglo-Irish
Clontarf (1014).-298-301, aristocracy, Commander-in-
307-08, 383 Chief of King’s army in
Bright, John (1811-1889)- Ireland in 1650-52.—349
British politician and a leader B u r g h , Wa l t e r H u ssey
of Free Traders; from the (1 742-1 7 83)—lawyer from
early 1860s led Left wing of Dublin, Whig member of the
Liberal Party, held portfolio in Irish Parliament (1769).—178,
a number of Liberal cabi- 236
nets.—98, 162, 164, 258, 512 Burke, Richard (d. 1 8 7 0 )-Irish
Broadstreet, Samuel—member of Fenian, served in American
the Irish Parliament.—186 army; one of organisers of
Brodar—see Brodhir 1867 uprising in Ireland; died
Brodhir (d. 1014)—Norman Vik in prison.—257, 498, 504-05,
ing, killed Irish King Brian 507-08, 513-15
Borumha in Battle of Clontarf Burke, Thomas F. (b. 1840)—
(1014).—298-301, 308 Irish Fenian, general of South
Brown, John (1800-1859)— ern army in American Civil
624 NAME INDEX
War; one of organisers of 1867 (1315-16).—318
uprising in Ireland; sentenced Butler, Edmond (d. 1551)—son
to life imprisonment in April of Piers Butler, Earl of Ormon
1867.-257 de, Archbishop of Cashel.^-
B u r k e , T h o m a s H enry 330
(1829-1882)—from 1868 per Butler, Sir Piers, Earl of Ormon
manent Irish Under-Secretary; de (d, 1539)—Lord Justice of
assassinated by members of Ireland (1528).—326
Irish terrorist organisation Butler, Thomas—Lord Justice of
Invincibles on May 6 , Ireland (1408-09).-321
1882.-453 Butt, Isaac (1813-1879)—Irish
Burke (Burgh) lllick, Lord Clan lawyer and politician, Liberal
ricarde (d. 1504)—representa M.P., defended Fenian priso
tive of Anglo-Irish aristocracy ners in state trials in the
in Ireland.—325 1860s; one of organisers of
Burnet, Gilbert (1643-1715) — Home Rule movement.—82,
English bishop, author of a 163, 165-66, 389, 396, 416,
number of historical works.— 428, 442
378 Buttery, G. //.—member of Ge
Bums, John (1858-1943)—active neral Council of First Interna
participant in British working- tional.—524
class movement; one of leaders Byrne, Hugh—one of leaders of
of new trade unions in the insurgent army of Irish Confe
1880s but in the 1890s adopt derates in the 1640s.—347,
ed positions of Liberal trade 350
unionism.—533 Byrne, WiIIia m
Burns, Lydia (Lizzy) (1775-1799)—member of the
(1 827-1878)—Irish working United Irishmen society, hang
woman, participant in Irish ed for his participation in the
national liberation movement; 1798 uprising.—211, 218
Engels’ w ife.-386, 391, 405
Burt, Thomas (1837-1922)- C
English trade unionist, Secre
tary of Miners’ Union of Caesar (Gaius Julius Caesar) (c.
Northumberland, Liberal M.P. 100-44 B.C.)—Roman general,
(1874-1918).—427 statesman and writer, author
B u s h e , C h arles K endal of De Bello Gallico.-^302, 457
(1 7 67 -1 8 4 3 )-L o r d Chief Caird, James (1816-1892)—Scot
Justice; from 1796 member of tish agriculturist, Liberal M.P.,
the Irish Parliament; opposed author of a number of works
the Anglo-Irish Union.—225, on agrarian question in Eng
230 land and Ireland.—273
B u tler, Benjamin Franklin Cairnech (5th cent.)—Christian
(1818-1893)—American poli missionary in Ireland; according
tician and general; commander to tradition, one of compilers
of Northern army during Ame of Senchus Mor, a collection
rican Civil War.41108 of ancient laws.—287
Butler, Edmund (d. 1337) —Lord Camden—see Pratt, John Jef
J u s t i c e o f Ir e la n d freys
NAME INDEX 625
Camden, William Castlereagh, Robert Stewart,
(1551-1623)—English histo Viscount (1769-1822)—British
rian.—289, 373 statesman, Tory, one of orga
Campion, Edmund (1540- nisers of suppression of Irish
1581)—Catholic missionary uprising in 1798; Chief Secre
in England, author of Hi tary for Ireland (1799-1801),
story o f Ireland.—289 Secretary for War and Colo
Canning, George nies (1805-06, 1807-09) and
(177 0-1827)—British states F o r e i g*n S e c r e t a r y
man, a leader of Tories, (1812-22):—98, 108,135,
Foreign Secretary (1807-09, 167, 184, 195, 214, 217-18,
1822-27), and Prime Minister 221-27, 230, 232, 247-50,
(1827).—80, 231 388, 512
Careio, George (1555-1629)— Cavendish, Frederick Charles,
Lord President of Munster in Lord (1836-1882)—British sta
South Ireland, suppressed up tesman, Liberal, Chief Secre
rising of 1595-1603.-219, tary for Ireland; assassinated
248,336 on May 6, 1882 by members
Carey, Martin Henley—Irish jour of Irish terrorist organisation
nalist, Fenian; in 1865 was Invincibles.—453
sentenced to five years penal Cavendish, Henry, Lord
servitude.—164, 257, 498 (1732-1804)-English politi
Carhampton—see Luttrell, Henry cian; member of the British
Carlisle s e t Howard, Frederick Parliament from 17 68 to
Carl y le, Tho mas 1774, and member of the Irish
(1795-1881)—Scottish writer P a r lia m e n t ( 1 7 6 6 - 6 8 ,
and historian, idealist philo 1776-1800); from 1795 De
sopher, aligned with Tories.— puty Chancellor of the Exche
51 quer of Ireland.—197
Carnarvon, Henry Howard Moly- Cavour, Camillo Benso, di, Con
neux Herbert, Earl of (1831- te (1810-1861)—Italian states
1890)—British statesman, man, leader of liberai-monar-
C on servative108 chist bourgeoisie and bour-
Carolan (O’C arolan), Torlogh geoisified nobility; head of
(1670-1738)—Irish iolk singer, S a r d in ia n g o v ern m en t
author of many folk songs.— (1852-59 and 1860-61) and of
383 a ll- I t a lia n governm ent
Carte, Thomas (1686-1754)— (1861).—449
E nglish h istorian . —3 42 , Celestius (mid-4th-early 5th
375-76, 378-79 cent.)—Icelandic monk and
Casey, John—Irish Fenian, sen missionary.—293
tenced to five years penal C h a m b e r l a i n ,, J o s e p h
servitude in 1866.-518-19 (1 836-1914)—British states
Castlehaven. James Touche t, man, Liberal, then Unionist
Earl of (1617-1684)—English Liberal, member of British
Royalist, supporter of Charles cabinet over a number of
I; Commander-in-Chief of years, supporter of active
insurgent army of Irish Confe colonial policy, opposed
deration.,—354, 378 Home Rule for Ireland.—465
626 NAME INDEX
Champion, Henry Hyde (1859- Churchill, Randolph Henry
1928)—British socialist, mem Spencer , Lord
ber of Social-Democratic Fe (1849-1895)—British states
deration up to 1887, editor man, a Conservative leader,
and publisher of the newspaper Secretary of State for India
Labour Elector; emigrated to (1885-86), advocate of colo
Australia in the 1890s.—473 nial expansion, opponent of
Charette de la Contrie, Francois Home Rule for Ireland.—466
de (1763-1796)—a leader of Clairfay t, Charles (Clerfay t),
the royalist revolt in Vendee (1733-1798)—Austrian field
during French Revolution; marshal, Commander-in-Chief
executed.—207 of the Austrian army in 1794
Charlemagne (c. 742-814)—King and 1795 during the war
of Franks (768-800), Emperor against the French Repub-
(800-814).—295 lic.—207
Charlemont, James Caulfield, Clan morris—Irish Lord, Member
Earl (1728-1799)—Irish aristo of Parliament (1800).—226
crat, Commander-in-Chief of Clanricarde—see Burgh, Ulick de
the Irish Volunteers; opposed Clanricarde, Ulick John de
Anglo-Irish Union,-*-174, 179, B u r g h , M a r q u is o f
185, 189, 192-94, 205, 236, (1802-1874)—British diplomat
238, 241 and statesman, Whig, Ambas
Charlemount, Toby Caulfield, sador to St. Petersburg
Baron (d. 1642)—English ari (1838-41).—77
stocrat, killed during Irish Clare—see Fitzgibbon, John
uprising.—347-48 Clare, Richard (Strongbow), Earl
Charles the Bald (823-877) of Pembroke ( d.
—Ki n g of F rance 1176)—Anglo-Norman feudal
(840-877).—295 ist, owned lands in South
Charles I (1600-1649)—King of Wales; one of chief organisers
England (1625-1649), execut of conquest of Ireland and of
ed during English bourgeois English colonies in south
revolution of "17th century.— western part of island.—313
137, 138, 234, 342, 346, Clare, Thomas (d. 1287)—Earl of
349-55, 363, 375-77, 444 Gloucester.—315
Charles II (1630-1685)-K ing of Clarence, George, Duke of
England (1660-85).-138, 363, (1449-1478)—brother of King
380 Edward IV .-323
Charles III (1716-1788)-K ing of Clarence, Lionel o f Antwerp,
Spain-1 7 3 , 235 Duke of (1338-1368)-son of
Chichester, Arthur, Lord of Edward III, Lord Lieutenant
B elfast (1563-1625)—Lord of Ireland.—320
D e p u t y o f I r e la n d Clarendon, George William Fre
(1604-14 ).-3 3 8 , 375 d erick Villiers, Earl of
Churchill, George Charles Spen (1800-1870)—British states
cer, Duke of Marlborough man, Whig and later Liberal;
(1844-1892)—British aristo Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
crat, elder brother of Ran (1847-52); organised suppres
dolph Churchill.—466 sion of Irish national libera-
NAME INDEX 627
tion movement in 1848; Fo Anglo-Irish Union.—218
reign Secretary (1853-58, Coote/Charles (d. 1642)—Gover
1865-66 and 1868-70).-92 nor of Dublin, participated in
Clau dianus, Claudius (4th suppressing Irish uprising.—
cent.)—Roman poet of Greek 349
origin.—293 Coote, Charles, the Younger (d.
Clinton, Henry Pelham Fiennes 1661)—commander in Parlia
Pelham, Duke of Newcastle mentary Army in Ireland and
(1811-1864)—British states organiser fif suppression of
man, Peelite, Chief Secretary Irish uprising in 1641-52;
for Ireland (1846), Secretary su p p orted R estoration.—
for War and Colonies 354-55
(1852-54).—79 Core (5th cent.)—King of Mun
C o b b e t t , W illi am ster, according to a legend
(1762-1835)—English radical from Irish chronicles, partici
politician and publicist; pub pated in compiling Senchus
lished Cobbett’s Weekly Poli Mor, a collection of ancient
t i c a l R e g i s t e r fr o m laws.—287
1802.-167, 212, 231, 388 C o r m a c M e C u I in an
Co b d e n, Richard (836-908)—bishop and King of
(1804-1865)—English manu Cashel (901-908).-307
facturer, bourgeois politician, Cor mac Ulfadha (3rd cent.)—
one of leaders of Free Traders, King of Ireland.—292, 306
M .P.-64 Cornwallis, Charles, Marquis
Cogan, Milo de (d. 1182)— (17 38-1805)—Governor-Gene
Anglo-Norman feudalist, parti ral of India, Viceroy of Ireland
cipated in conquest of Ireland, (1 798-1801).—172, 222-25,
ruler of Dublin.—313 229, 236, 249
Colcraft—English executioner, Costello, Augustin—Irish Fenian,
who hanged Irish Fenians officer in American army;
Allen, Larkin and O’Brien, went to Ireland in 1867 to
sentenced by an English court, take part in uprising but was
in Manchester, October 23, arrested and sentenced to 12
1867.-155 years penal servitude.—385,
Columba (c. 521-597)—Irish 505
Christian missionary in Scot Courcy, John de (d. 1219)—
land.—294 Anglo-Norman feudalist, Lord
Conary I (2nd cent.)—King of D e p u t y o f I r e la n d
Ireland.—306 (1185-89).—313
Con co bar—King of Ireland Co u rn e t, Frederic-Etienne
(818-833).—307 (1839-1885) - French revolu
C o n o 11 y , T h o m a s tionary, Blanquist, member of
(1738-1803)—member of the Paris Commune and General
Irish Parliament.—187, 192, C ouncil of International
202, 245 (1871-72).—526
Cooke, Edward (1755-1820)- C o w e n , Joseph
English politician, member of (1831-1900)—British politi
the Irish government (1778- cian and journalist, radical,
1800); supported the adhered to Chartists, became
628 NAME INDEX
M.P. in 1874.-447 tion.—329
Cowper, Francis Thomas de Cunninghame Graham, Robert
Grey, Lord (1834-1905)- Bontine (1852-1936)—Scot
British statesman, Liberal, tish writer of aristocratic ori
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland gin; in the 1880s-90s partici
(1880-82).—450 pated in socialist movement,
Cowper-Temple, William Francis M.P.—533
(1 811-1888)—British states Curran, John Philpot
man, M.P., held portfolio in a (1 7 50-1 817)—Irish lawyer,
number of Liberal cabinets; bourgeois radical, member of
Palmerston’s stepson.—450 the Irish Parliament; defended
C rem er, W illiam Randall leaders of United Irishmen
( 1 8 2 8 - 1 9 0 8 )—p rom inent revolutionary society at state
figure in British trade union trials.—171, 194, 205,208-18,
movement, leader of Amalga 231-32, 242-47, 398
mated Society of Carpenters Custine, Adam Philippe, comte
and Joiners, member of Gene de (1740-1793)-^French gene-
ral Council of International ral.—211
and its General Secretary
(1864-66), subsequently bour
g eo is p a c ifist, Liberal D
M .P.-154, 468, 483
Cr o m w e II, Henry Daire (5th cent.)—a ruler of
(1628-1674)—son of Oliver Ulster; according to tradition,
Cromwell, general in English one of compilers of Senchus
Parliamentary Army; in 1650 Mor, a collection of ancient
participated in punitive expe laws.—287
dition to Ireland; in 1654 Dairy m p Ie, John
commander of army in Ire (1726-1810)—Scottish lawyer
land; Lord Deputy of Ireland and historian.—63
(1658-59).—138, 363, 380 Danielson, Nikolai Frantsevich
C r o m w e l l , Oliver (literary pseudonym Nikolai-
(1599-1658)—leader of bour on) (1844-1918)—Russian eco
geoisie and bourgeoisified no nomist, an ideologist of Na-
bility during English bourgeois rodism of the 1880s-90s;
revolution of 17th century; translated into Russian Marx’s
became Commander-in-Chief Capital, Vols. I, II and III
and Lord Lieutenant of Ire (Vol. I, in collaboration with
land in 1649, named Lord G. A. Lopatin).—469, 472
Protector of England, Scot- Darby—High Sheriff of King’s
la n d and Ireland in C o u n ty in I r e la n d
1653.-133, 136-38, 150, 157, (1800).—226
227, 347, 350, 369-70, 375, Darcy, John (d. 1347)—Lord
378, 383, 387, 389, 395, 398, J u s tic e o f I r e la n d
401,443 (1332-47).-i319
Cr omw e l l , Thomas Dathy (d. 427)—last pagan King
(1485-1540)—Vicar-General of of Ireland.—306
King Henry VIII, one of Davies, John (1569-1626)—Engl
leaders of Anglican Reforma ish statesman and lawyer; held
NAME INDEX 629
high posts in English colonial ral Council of International
administration in Ireland, (1866-67), Corresponding Se-
wrote a number of works oh c r e ta r y fo r H o lla n d
Ireland.—289, 316, 322, 325, (1867).—129
331, 333, 357-61, 375, 393, Dervorgilla—wife of Tiernan
398, 469 O’Ruark, chief of Breffny in
Davis, Jefferson East Connaught.—310
(1808-1889)—American plan Desmond, Gerald Fitzgerald,
ter and slave-owner, one of Earl of (tf. 1583)—big Anglo-
organisers of rebellion of sla- Irish feudalist, leader of rebel
ve-owners in South; President lion against English rule in
o f C on fed erate States south of Ireland,—332-34, 374
(1861-65).—164 Desmond, James Fitzgerald, Earl
D a vis, Thom as O sborne of (d. 1558)—big Anglo-Irish
(1814-1845)—Irish revolutio feudalist, representative of
nary poet and politician, a Desmond branch of Geraldi-
Young Ireland leader.—175, nes.—326-27
211, 214, 398 Desmond, Sugan—see Fitz-Tho-
Davitt, Michael (1846-1906)— mas, James
Irish revolutionary democrat; Desmond, Thomas (1426-1468)—
one of organisers (1879) and Anglo-Irish feudalist, Lord
leaders of Land League, Home Deputy of Ireland (1467-68).—
R u le a d v o c a te ; M.P. 322-23
(1895-99); participated in Dickson—British officer, demo
British working-class move crat, one of leaders of Reform
ment.—454-55, 470 League in the 1860s.—154
Deane, Robert—member of the D i c k s o n , Wi l l i am
Irish Parliament (1745-1804)—Irish bishop.—
(1779-80).-178 224
Deasy, Michael—dm Irish Fenian Dietrich, Franz Eduard Chris
leader.—155 to p h (1810-1883)—German
D e f o e , D a n i e l (c . philologist, compiler of an
1660-1731)—English journalist anthology of ancient Scandi
and novelist.--2 34 navian literature.—308
Delahaye, Pierre Louis (b. Dillon, John (1851-1927)—parti
1820)—French worker, mem cipant in Irish national libera
ber of International from tion movement, one of leaders
1864, Communard, member of Land League.—450
of General Council of Interna Diodorus Siculus (c. 80-29
tional (1871-72).—524, 526 B.C.)—Greek historian, author
Derby, Edward George Geoffrey of Bibliothecae historicae.—
Smith Stanley, made an Earl 290
in 1851 (1799-1869)-British Dionysius the Areopagite (1st
statesman, Tory and subse cent.)—first Christian bishop
quently Conservative leader; of Athens, member of Athe
Prime Minister (1852, 1858-59 nian Areopagus.—295
and 1866-68).—69, 78, 79, 85, Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Bea-
97, 98, 155, 259, 445,510 c o n s f i e ld from 1 87 6
Derkinderen—member of Gene (1804-1881)—British states-
630 NAME INDEX
man and writer; a Tory leader; counter-revolutionary camp.—
leader of Conservative Party in 209,211
second half of 19th century; Dungal (d. c. 827)—Irish scholar
Prime Minister (1868 and and poet.—295
1874-80).—162, 259, 467, 510 D u p o n t , E u g e n e (c .
Donogh (d. 944)—King of Ire 1 8 3 1 -1 8 8 1 )—a leader of
land (919-944),-307 French and international
Downing, M fCar thy—Irish politi working-class movement, par
cian, Liberal M.P.—513-15 ticipant in June 1848 uprising
Drake, John—Mayor of Dublin, in Paris; member of General
beginning of 15th century.— Council of International (No
321 vember 1864-72), Correspond
D r e n n a n , Wi l l i am ing Secretary for France
(1754-1820)—Irish poet, a (1865-71) and member of
leader of the United Irishmen B ritish Federal Council
society in Dublin.—209 (187 2-7 3); emigrated to
Dubthach (5th cent.)—Irish U.S.A. in 1874; associate and
court poet and lawyer; accord friend of Marx and Engels.—
ing to tradition, one of compi 129,486,524
lers of Senchus Mor, a collec
tion of ancient laws.—287
Dufferin, Frederick Temple E
Hamilton-Temple Blackwood,
Marquis of (1826-1902)- E ccarius, Johann G eorg
British Liberal statesman, ( 1 81 8 - 1 8 8 9 )—p rom in en t
owner of large estates in figure in German and interna
Ireland .-123-24, 132, 149, tional working-class move
511, 516-17 ment, member of Communist
Duffy, Edward (1840-1868)—a League, member (1864-72)
leader of Fenian movement; and G eneral Secretary
sentenced to 15 years penal (1867-71) of General Council
servitude in 1867, died in of International, Correspond
prison.—500 ing Secretary for America
Duffy, James (1809-1871)—Irish (1870-72); joined reformist
publisher.—389, 398, 416 wing in International in spring
D u h r in g , E u g e n K a r l 1872.-129, 389, 392, 395-96,
(1833-1921)—German eclectic 485, 495, 525-26
philosopher and vulgar econo E d g eco m b e , R ich ard (d.
mist, representative of petty - 1489)—English feudalist, inti
bourgeois socialism.—431 mate of Henry VII, member of
D um as, Alexandre (senior) Privy Council.—324
( 1 8 0 3- 1 8 7 0 ) - F rench Edgeworth, Richard Lovell
writer.—506 (1744-1817)—British writer,
Dumourier, Charles Frangois owner of an estate in Ireland
(1739-1823)—French general, and member of the Irish
Girondist, commander of the Parliament (1798-1800); op
Northern revolutionary army p o se d the A nglo-Irish
of the French Republic Union.—228
(1792-93); deserted to the Edward I (1239-1307)—King of
NAME INDEX 631
England (1272-1307) -315-16, E rdm ann, Johann Eduard

341,361 (1805-1892)—German philo
Edward II (1284-1327)-K ing sopher, Right Hegelian.—295
of England (1307-27).-234, Erigena, Johannes Scotus (c.
317,319 810-c. 877)—philosopher, Irish
Edward III (1312-1377)-King by origin.—295
o f E n g l a n d E ssex, R o b e rt D evereux
(1327-77).—318-19, 438 (1566-1601)—English aristo
Edward IV (1442-1483)-K ing crat, Lord Lieutenant of Ire
of England (1461-83).-77, land (1599-1600), favourite of
322-23 Queen Elizabeth I, subsequen
Edward V (1470-1483)—King of tly organised a plot against
England (1483).-323 her.—336, 345-46
Edward VI (1537-1553)-K ing
of England (1547-53).-331,
347,372 F
Egfried (d. 684)—King of Nort
humbrians from 670 to Falkland, Henry (d. 1633)—Lord
684.-306 D e p u t y o f I r e la n d
Eglinton, Archibald William (1622-29).-343
M o n tg o m e rie , Earl o f Fane, John, Earl of Westmore
(1 812-1 861)—British Tory land (1759-1841)—Lord Lieu-
statesman, Lord Lieutenant of t e n a n t o f I r e la n d
Ireland (1852, 1858-59).-97, (1790-95).—187, 194, 197,
98, 100 206, 208, 211, 245
E i n h a r d (Eginhard) (c . Feidlim—see O’Connor, Feidlim
770-840)—historian of Franks, Feidlim (d. 846)—King of Mun
biographer of Charles the ster and King of Ireland.—307
Great.—293 Ferdinand II (1810-1859)—King
Elizabeth I (1533-1603)—Queen of Naples (1830-59), nicknam
o f England and Ireland ed King Bomba for his shelling
(1558-1603).—133, 137-38, of Messina in 1848.—259, 423,
150, 157, 219, 248, 332-38, 487, 505
343, 362, 368, 373-74, 378, Fergus (5th cent.)—Irish poet;
383 according to tradition, one of
Ella (d. 867)—King of Northum compilers of Senchus Morf a
brians (c. 862-867).—297 collection of ancient laws.—
E ly —Irish aristocrat, M.P. 287
(1800).—226 F erguson, Patrick
Emmet, Thomas (1764-1827)— (1744-1780)—English officer,
Irish lawyer, from 1795 Secre killed in the war against
tary of the United Irishmen England’s American colo
society.—218, 248 nies.—172
Ensor, George (1769-1843)— F i t t o n, E d w a r d
Irish journalist, opposed the (1527-1579)—Lord President
Anglo-Irish Union, criticised of Connaught from 1569 to
the English ruling classes’ 1572.-333
colonialist policy.—221, 227, Fitz-Adelm, William de Burgh (c.
230-33, 388 1 1 5 7 -1 1 9 8 ) —Anglo-Norman
632 NAME INDEX
feudalist, intimate of King Deputy (1455-59, 1461-62)
Henry II, Lord Deputy of a n d L o rd L ieu ten an t
Ireland.—314 (1468-75) of Ireland.-323-24
F itzg e ra ld , Edward Fitzgerald, Thomas, Earl of
(1763-1798)—Irish bourgeois Kildare (1513-1536)—son of
revolutionary, an organiser of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of
United Irishmen society, head Kildare; raised revolt against
ed preparation for 1798 rebel English.—182, 327-28, 361
lion.—136, 141, 218, 248 Fitzgibbon—see Fitzgerald, John
Fitzgerald, alias Fitz-Thomas, Oge
Gerald, Earl of Kildare (d. Fitzgibbon, Gerald (1793-1882)—
1513)—eminent member of Irish lawyer and bourgeois
Anglo-Irish clan of Geraldines, publicist.—445
Lord Deputy (1478-92) and Fitzgibbon, John, Earl of Clare
Lord Lieutenant (1496-1513) (1749-1802)—Lord Chancellor
of Ireland.—323-25, 328 of Ireland (1789), member of
Fitzgerald, Gerald, Earl of Kilda the Irish Parliament, support
re (1487-1534)—Lord Deputy ed the Anglo-Irish Union.-^
of Ireland (1513-20, 1524-26 181, 184, 192, 195, 203, 205,
and, 153 2-34) .—3 26-27 214, 224-25, 238, 244, 246
Fitzgerald, Gerald, Earl of Kilda Fitzherberti Alleyne, Baron St.
re (1525-1585)—member of H elens (1753-1839)-Chief
one of main branches of Secretary of Buckingham’s
Anglo-Irish feudal clan of government in Ireland (from
Geraldines, survived during 1787), member of the Irish
reprisals of Henry VIII’s go Parliament A 201, 244
vernment against Earls of Fitz-Maurice, James Fitzgerald
Kildare, fought for restoration (d. 1579)^-member of Anglo-
of his title and property.—329, Irish feudal clan of Geraldines
331 (branch of Desmonds), took
F i t z g e r a l d , John D avid part in anti-English rebel
(1816-1889)—Irish lawyer and lion.—333
Liberal politician, M.P., held F i t z p a t r i c k , Richard
high legal posts in English (1747-1813)—English general,
administration in Ireland.—85, Whig, M.P., Chief Secretary
86 , 520 for Ireland (1782), War Secre
Fitzgerald, John Oge (d. tary (1783, 1806-07).—186
1569)—member of Anglo-Irish F itz-S y m ons, W alter (d.
clan of Geraldines (branch of 1511)—Archbishop of Dublin,
Desmonds), known as the Lord Deputy of Ireland
White K n igh ts330 (1482-1503).—324
F i t z g era ld , M aurice (c. Fitz-Thomas, James Fitzgerald
1194-1257)—Lord Justice of (d. 1608)—member of Anglo-
Ireland (1232-45).-314 Irish feudal clan of Desmonds
Fitzgerald, Raymond (d. c. in Southern Ireland, had title
1182)—constable of Lein of Earl of Desmond.—337
ster.—310 Fitz-Thomas, Maurice, Earl of
Fitzgerald, Thomas, Earl of Desmond (d. 1356)—Lord
Kildare (d. 1478)—Lord J u s t i c e o f I r e la n d
NAME INDEX 633
(1355-56).—318-19 Irish Union.—225, 230, 385
Fitzwilliam, William Wentworth F o ster, John Leslie (c.
(1 7 4 8 -1 8 3 3 )-Whig leader, 1 7 80-1 842)—Irish lawyer,
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Tory.—385
(1795).—176, 206, 213-14, F o u r i e r , Charles
217,221, 246 (1772-1837)—French utopian
F ie e t w o o d , Charles (d. socialist.—291
1692)—general in Parliamenta F o x , C h (L.r I e s J a m e s
ry Army during English bour (1749-1806)—a Whig leader,
geois revolution of 17th cen Foreign Secretary (1782,
tury, Commander-in-Chief of 1783, 1 8 0 6 ).-1 83-85, 187-89,
English army in Ireland (from 199-201, 222, 238-40
1652), Lord Deputy of Ireland Fox, Henry Richard Vassail,
(1654-57).—138 Baron Holland
Flood, Henry (1732-1791)-Irish (1773-1840)—Whig, opponent
statesman; moved the Renun of the Anglo-Irish Union,
ciation Act adopted in member of Grenville’s Cabinet
178 3.-18 6, 188-92, 194, (1806-07).—230
199-201, 238-41 Fox, Luke—Irish lawyer; sup
Flourens, Gustave p orted the Anglo-Irish
(1838-1871)—French revolu Union.—224, 249
tionary and naturalist, Blan- Fox, Peter (Peter Fox Andre) (d.
quist, member of Paris Com 1869)—participant in British
mune, brutally assassinated by democratic and working-class
Versailles in April 1871V—441 movement, journalist, member
Forbes, George, Earl of Granard (1864-69) and General Secre
(1760-1837)—general, member' tary (September-November
of the House of Lords; oppos 1866) of General Council of
ed the Anglo-Irish Union.— International, Corresponding
196-97, 245 Secretary for Am erica
F o rster, W illiam Edward (1866-67).—154, 157, 482
(1818-1886)—British factory- Francis I (1494-1547)—King of
owner and Liberal politician, France (1515-47).-327
Chief Secretary for Ireland Frankel, Leo (1844-1896)—pro
(1880-82); pursued a policy of minent figure in Hungarian
ruthlessly suppressing national and international working-
liberation movement.—435-36, class movement, jeweller by
450 profession, member of Paris
Fortescue-Parkinson, Chichester Commune and of General
Samuel (1823-1898)—British C ouncil of International
Liberal statesman, Chief Secre (1871-72), a founder of Ge
tary for Ireland (1865-66 and neral Workers* Party of
1868-70).—163 Hungary, associate and friend
Foster, John, Baron Oriel of Marx and Engels.^524,
(1 740-1 828)—Irish lawyer, 526
Speaker of the Irish House of Fridolin (6 th cent.)—Irish
Commons from 1785, member Christian missionary among
of the united Parliament (from Allemanni of Upper Rhine.—
1801); opposed the Anglo- 294
634 NAME INDEX
G G la d sto n e, William Ewart
(1 809-1898)—British states
Gallus (c. 550-c. 645)—Irish man, Tory and subsequently
Christian missionary.—294 Peelite; leader of Liberal Party
Gardiner, William Neville, Lord in latter half of 19th century;
Mountjoy (1748-1806)—Engl Prime Minister (1868-74,
ish officer, aide-de-camp of 1 8 8 0 - 85, 1886,
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1892-94).—130, 160, 162-64,
(1793), member of the Irish 166-68, 387, 390, 392-93,
Parliament from 1799.—195 401-03, 409, 421-24, 427,
Garibaldi, Giuseppe 436, 440, 442, 446-53
(1807-i 88 2)—Italian revolu Glamorgan—see Somerset
tionary, democrat, leader of G o r d o n , Jam es B en tley
national liberation movement (1 7 50-1819)—English bour
in Italy.—256, 403, 486 geois historian, author of a
G ath o rn e-H a rdy, Gathome work on history of Ireland.—J
(1 814-1906)—British states 324-25, 328, 330-32, 334
man, Conservative, Home Sec- Graham, James Robert George
retary (1 8 6 7 -6 8 ).-1 2 8 , (1 792-1861)—British states
155-56 man, first Whig and then
Gennadius (5th cent.)—Gallic Peelite, held portfolio in a
writer.—293 number of cabinets.—82
George I (1660-1727)—King of Grattan, Henry (1746-1820)—
Great Britain and Ireland Irish politician, lawyer; from
(1714-27).—170, 181, 185-88, 1775 to 1800 leader of mode
190, 235, 237-40 rate Liberal opposition to
George II (1683-1760)-K ing of British Government in the
Great Britain and Ireland Irish Parliament; from 1805
(1727-60).—158 member of the British Parlia-
George III (1738-1820)-King of ment.—178, 183-92, 194-95,
Great Britain and Ireland 200, 204, 211, 214, 217,
(1760-1820).-65, 89, 139, 221-22, 235, 238-40, 241,
169-70, 179-81, 183, 185, 244,247, 398
190-92, 201, 213, 224-26, Graves, Charles (1812-1899)—
229, 238-40, 244 Irish scholar, became bishop
George IV (1762-1830)—Prince of Limerick in 1866.—286
Regent of Great Britain and G r e e n , J o h n R i c h a r d
Ireland (1811-20) and King (1 837-1883)—English histo
( 1 8 2 0 - 3 0 ) .- 8 9 , 2 0 1 -0 2 , rian, author of History o f the
244-45 English People in four volu
Gilroy-Holland, George—Secre mes.—437
tary of Liverpool Section of Gregory XIII (1502-1585)—Pope
First International.—528 (1572-85).—137
Giraldus Cambrensis (Sylvester G regory, W illiam H enry
Gerald de Barry) (1146- (1817-1892)—Irish politician,
1220 )—English writer, took M.P., close to Liberals.—108
part in 1185 expedition to Ire Grenville, George Nugent, Earl
land, author of works on Ire- Temple, Marquis of Bucking
land.—288, 296, 302, 359,401 ham (1753-1813)—member of
NAME INDEX 635
the English Privy Council, (from May 1871); headed
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland reformist wing of British Fede
(1782-83 and 1787-90).-189, ral Council from beginning of
194, 201-02, 228, 240, 244-45 1872.-390, 418,525
G ren ville, William, Baron Hales, William—member of Ge
(1759-1834)—Prime Minister neral Council of First Interna-
of Great B r ita in tional.—524, 526-32
(1806-07).—189, 240 Hall, Edward (c. 1498-1547)—
Greville-Nugent, Reginald—Irish English historian and lawyer,
Liberal.—520 supporter of absolute monar
G r e y , C h a r l e s , E arl chy.—324
(1764-1845)—a Whig leader, Hallam, Henry (1777-1859)—
Prime Minister of Great Bri English historian.—355, 358,
tain (1830-34); opposed the 362
Anglo-Irish Union.—230 Halliday, Thomas (b. 1835)—a
Grey, George (1799-1882)- British trade union leader,
British statesman, Whig; Home Secretary of Joint Miners*
Secretary (1846-52, 1855-58 Association.—427
and 1861-66).—477, 479, Hancock, U. Nelson—Irish law
482-83 yer, with O’Mahony published
Grey, Leonard (d. 1541)—Lord two volumes of Senchus Mor,
D e p u t y o f I r e la n d a collection of ancient laws.—
(1535-40).—328-29, 362 286
Griffith, Richard Hanmer, Meredith
(1752-1820)—member of the (1543-1604)—Englis h clergy
Irish Parliament man and historian, author of
(1783-90).—198, 242 The Chronicle o f Ireland.—289
Grimm, Jacob (1785-1863)— Harald I Harfagr (c. 850-c.
German philologist.—291, 301 9 3 3 ) —K ing o f Norway
Grouchy, Emmanuel, Marquis de (872-930).—296
(1766-1847)—French marshal H a r c o u r t , S im on, Earl
and peer, participated in the (1714-1777)—Lord Lieutenant
Napoleonic wars.—216, 247 of Ireland (17 72-7 7).—17 8,
Guizot, Frangois Pierre Guil 197
laume (1787-1874)—French Ha r d i e , J a m e s Keir
bourgeois historian and states ( 1 8 5 6 - 1 9 1 5 )—p rom in en t
man; from 1840 to February figure in British working-class
1848 revolution was virtually movement, reformer, organiser
head of conservative govern and leader of Scottish Labour
ment.—62 Party (from 1888) and Inde
pendent Labour Party (from
1 8 9 3 ); M.P. (18 9 2 -9 5 ,
H 1900-05, 1906-15).—473-74
Hardy —see Ga thome-Hardy
Hales, John (b. 1839)—partic H ardy, Jean (1763-1802)-
ipant in British working-class French general.—249
movement, member of Gene H a r n e y , G eorge Julian
ral Council of International (1 81 7 -1 8 9 7 )—p rom in en t
(1866-72) and its Secretary figure in British working-class
636 NAME INDEX
movement, a leader of revolu H en ry V (1387-1422)-K ing of
tionary wing of Chartism; was England (1413-22).—321, 366,
friendly with Marx and En 438
gels.—392 H e n r y V I (1421-1471)-K ing of
H a r ris , George—participant in England (1422-71).-321, 323
British working-class move H e n r y V II (1457-1509)-K ing of
ment, member of Chartist England (1485-15 0 9 ).-l 69,
National Reform League, 235, 323-25, 341, 361
member (1869-72) and Fi H e n r y V III (1491-1547)-K ing
nance Secretary (1870-71) of of England (1509-47).^326,
General Council of Interna 330-31, 343, 361, 367, 372,
tional.—390, 395, 524 378
H a r ris , W a lter (1686-1761)— H e r m a n , A l f r e d - participant in
Irish historian, author of seve Belgian working-class move
ral Works on the history of ment, member of General
Ireland.—234 Council of International and
H a s tin g s , F r a n c is R a w d o n , Mar Corresponding Secretary for
quis of Hastings, Earl of Moira Belgium (1871-72).-524
(1754-1826)—English officer, Heron, D e n is C a u lfie ld
member of the Irish Parlia (1824-1881)—Irish lawyer and
ment from 1780.—205 economist, M.P. (1870).—521
H e g e l, G e o rg W ilhelm F r ie d r ic h H e rv e y , F r e d e r ic k , Earl of
(1770-1831)—German classical Bristol (1730-1803)—bishop
philosopher, objective ideal of Derry, member of the Irish
ist.—295 Parliament, commanded a vo
H e l y - H u t c h i n s o n, John lunteer regiment in London
(1 7 24-1 794)—Secretary of derry (1782), took an active
State in Ireland from part in the volunteer congress
1777ift 183-84, 223, 238 (1783)1^182, 192, 241
H e ly - H u tc h in s o n , J o h n , Earl of H e rz en , A l e x a n d e r I v a n o v ic h
Donoughmore (1757-1832)— (1812-1870)—Russian revolu
Irish general, member of the tionary democrat, materialist
Irish Parliament, supported philosopher, publicist and
the Anglo-Irish Union.—223 w riter; le ft Russia in
Hennessy, John Pope 1847.-403
(1834-1891)—Irish politician, H o b a r t ,' R o b e r t, Lord Hobart,
Conservative M.P., proposed Earl of Buckinghamshire
several reforms in Ireland in (1760-1816)—English officer,
the early 1860s.—149, 158, Chief Secretary of the Lord
477 Lieutenant of Ireland (1784-
H e n r y I (1068-1135)—King of 93), member of the Irish
England (1100-35).-288 Parliament (1787-93).—194,
H e n r y I I (1133-1189)—King of 197,206, 245
England (1154-89).-137, 310, H oche, Laz are Louis
314, 344, 359, 437 (1768-1797)—French general,
H e n r y I I I (1207-1272)-K ing of in 1796 commanded an expe
England (1216-72W 3 14 ditionary corps that was to
H e n r y I V (1367-1413)-K ing of land in Ireland.—207, 216,
England (1399-1413).-321 247
637
Ho del, Max (1857-1878)-ap- I
prentice from Leipzig; made
an attempt on life of German Ireton, Henry (1611-1651)—ge
Em peror Wilhelm I in neral in Parliamentary Army,
1878.-454 participated in punitive expe
Holinshed, Raphael (d. c. dition to Ireland (1649-50),
1580)—author of Chronicles succeeded Cromwell as Com-
o f England, Scotland and mander-in-Chief and Lord
Ireland.—37 4 D e p u t y f o f I r e la n d
Holland—see Fox, Henry Ri (1650-51).—138
chard I s i d o r e o f S e v i l l e (c.
Hood, Gunner—Irish Fenian, 570-636)—Spanish bishop and
sentenced to four years penal writer.—293
servitude by a military tri Ivar (d. 873)—Norse King of
bunal in 1866.—497 Dublin (872-873).—307
Horace, Quintus Horatius Flac-
cus (65-8 B.C.)—Roman
poet.—126
H ouchard, Jean N icolas
J
(1 740-1793)—French gene- J a c k s o n , Wi l l i a m (c .
ral.—206 173 7-1 7 95)—Irish Catholic
Howard, Frederick, Earl of Car clergyman, member of the
lisle (1748-1825)—Lord Lieu United Irishmen society .—213,
tenant of Ireland (1780-82).— 215
213 J a mes—alderman and, from
Howard, Thomas 1790, Mayor of Dublin; com
(1473-15 54)—Lord Lieuten manded the troops that quel
ant of Ireland (1520-21).— led the Defenders’ uprising
326 (1795).—205, 246
Howison—Irish alderman.—205, James I (1566-1625)—King of
246 Great Britain
Hurliman—member of General (1603-25).—137-38, 338, 340,
C ouncil of International 348, 362, 368, 373-76, 383,
(1871-72) representing Lon 393
don Swiss Society.— James II (1633-1701)-K ing of
524 Great Britain (1685-88).—136,
H u x l e y , Thom as H enry 138, 363-64, 369
(1825-1895)—English natural James V (1512-1542)-K ing of
ist, closest associate of Charles Scotland (1513-42).-329
Darwin and populariser of his J arrow, F. S. —participant in
teaching.—290 British trade union movement,
H yn dm an, H enry Mayers member of General Council of
(1842-1921)—English socialist, International (1866-68 and
reformist, organiser (1881) 1872).—524, 526-27
and leader of Democratic Jayet, Joseph—member of Gene
Federation, on the basis of ral Council of International
which Social Democratic Fe (1866-67).—488
deration was founded in Jebb, Joshua (1793-1863)—
1884.-450, 473 Chief Inspector of convict
638 NAME INDEX
prisons in England.—479 Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juve
Jerome, St. (.Eusebius Hiero nalis) (b. in 60s-d. after
nymus) (c. 340-420)—theolo 127)—Roman satirical poet.—
gian, born in Dalmatia; trans 403
lated Bible into Latin.—293
Johannard, Jules
(1 8 4 3 -1 8 88 ) —prom inent K
figure in French working-class
movement; member of Gene K a n e , R o b e r t J o h n
ral Council of International (1 809-1890)—Irish scholar,
(1868-69, 1871-72), member professor of chemistry and
of Paris Commune, adhered to physics, also dealt with prob
Blanquists.—524 lems of Irish economy.—266,
John Lackland (c. 1167-1216)— 279
King of England (1199- Kautsky, Karl (1854-1938)—a
1216).—289, 313,437 leader and theoretician of
J o h n s t o n e , J a m e s (d. Germ an Social-Democratic
1798)—Scottish collector and Party and Second Internatio
publisher of ancient Scandina nal; subsequently a Centrist; in
vian literature.—297 1914 betrayed Marxism and
J o n e s , E r n e s t C harles revolutionary working-class
(1819-1869)—a leader of revo movement.—449
lutionary Chartism, proleta Kay-Schuttleworth, James Phi
rian poet and publicist, friend lip s (1 8 0 4 -1 8 7 7 )—English
of Marx and Engels.—153 physician, bourgeois public
Jour dan, Jean Baptiste, comte figure.—49
(1762-1833)—French marshal, Keen, Charles—participant in
army commander during the British working-class move
wars waged by the French ment, member of General and
Republic and the Napoleon British Councils of Interna
empire, Minister for Foreign tional (1872).—524
Affairs during the July mo Kelly, Thomas (b. c. 1831)—an
narchy.—207 Irish Fenian leader.—155
J u k e s , Joseph Beete Kelly - Wischnewetzky, Florence
(1 811-1 8 69)—English geo (1859-1932)—American social
logist.—264-66 ist, translated into English
J u n g , Hermann Engels’ book The Condition o f
(1 830-1901)—prominent fi the Working-Class in Eng
gure in Swiss and international land..—467
w orking-class movement, Kennedy (10th cent.)—King of
member of General Council of Munster.—307
International, Corresponding Kenneth MacAlpin (d. 860)-^-
Secretary for Switzerland (No founder of Scottish royal
vember 1864-72) and Trea dynasty who united Scots and
surer of General Council Piets under bis rule in middle
(1871-72); following Hague of 9th century.—294
Congress, joined reformist K e n y o n , L l o y d , L ord
wing of International*^-129, (1732-1802)—English lawyer,
157, 161, 485, 524, 526 Master of the Rolls, M.P.—229
NAME INDEX 639
Keogh, John (1740-1817)—Irish (1802-1894)—leader of natio
merchant, active participant in nal liberation movement in
the struggle for Catholic eman Hungary, head of revolutio
cipation, member of the Unit n a r y g o v e r n m e n t in
ed Irishmen society.—175, 1848-49.-64
208,211 K ugelm an n , Ludwig
K eogh , W illiam Nicholas (1830-1902)—German physi
(1817-1878)—Irish lawyer and cian, member of First Inter
politician, a leader of Irish national; fg*iend of Marx and
group in Parliament; repeated Engels.—153, 155, 160, 393
ly held high posts in English
administration in Ireland.—85,
86 L
Keratry, Emile, comte de
(1832-1905)—French reactio Lacy, Hugh de (d. c. 1242)—
nary politician, Prefect of Anglo-Norman feudalist, parti
Upper Garonne Department in cipated in conquest of Ire
1871.-441 land.—314
K ick ham , Charles Joseph Lacy, Walter de (d. 1241)--
(1 826-1882)—Irish Fenian, A nglo-N orm an feudalist,
participant in national libera eldest son and heir of Hugh de
tion movement of the 1840s, Lacy.—314
an editor of the newspaper Laeghaire (d. 458)—King of
Irish People (1865); sentenced Ireland (428-458).-287
to fourteen years penal servi Lafargue, Charles-Etienne (De
tude in 1865, released in cember 1868-May 1872)—son
1869.-256,505,521-22 of Paul and Laura Lafargue.—
Kildare—set Fitzgerald 441
Kilian (d. 697)—Irish Christian Lafargue , Laura
missionary in Eastern Fran (1845-1911)—Karl Marx’s se
conia, first bishop of Wurz cond daughter; in 1868 mar
burg.—294 ried Paul Lafargue; prominent
Kimbaoth (3rd cent. B.C.)—ruler figure in French working-class
of Ulster mentioned in chro movement.—404, 441
nicles.—284, 306 Lafargue, Paul (1842-1911)—
K n o x , A lexander Andrew active in French and interna
(1818-1891)—English journa tional working-class move
list and magistrate, member of ment, member of General
commission which reported to Council of International, Cor
Parliament in 1867 on treat responding Secretary for Spain
ment of political prisoners in (1866-69), one of founders of
British prisons.—386, 499, Workers’ Party of France;
507, 510, 519 disciple and comrade-in-arms
K o h l , J o h a n n Georg of Marx and Engels.—129,
(1 808-1878)—German geo 404, 441
grapher, author of several Lake, Gerard (1744-1808)-
works on the geography of English general, Member of
European countries.—357 Parliam ent in England
K o ssu th , L ajos (Ludwig) (1790-1802); commanded the
640 NAME INDEX
troops that quelled the Irish Law, Harriet (1832-1897)—pro
uprising of 1798.-217; 223, minent figure in atheist move
247 ment in Britain; member of
Lambert, John (1619-1683)— General Council of Interna
general in Parliamentary tional (1867-72)^-524
Army, Lord Deputy of Ireland L a w r e n c e , R ich a rd (d.
in 1652.-138 1 682)—Parliamentary Army
L a n g r i s h e ,’ H e r c u l e s colonel during the 17th-cen
(1731-1811)—member of the tury revolution; took pari in
Irish Parliament.—226 Cromwell’s expedition to Ire
Lanigan, John (1758-1828)— land, wrote pamphlets on
Irish bishop, supported the Ireland.—233
Anglo-Irish Union, wrote se Le dru-Rollin, Alexandre-Au
veral works on ecclesiastical g u ste (1807-1874)—French
history.-^227, 229 publicist and politician, a
Lansdowne, Henry Petty Fitz- petty-bourgeois democratic
m a u r i c e , M arquis of leader; emigrated to England
(17 80-1863)—British states in 1849.-167
man, Whig; President of Privy L e Ia n d , Thomas
Council (1830-41, 1846-52), (1722-17 85)—English histo-
minister without portfolio rian.—344, 373-75, 377, 379
(1852-63).—79 Le Moussu, Benjamin (pseudo
L arcom , Thom as Aiskew nym Constant)—outstanding
(1801-1879)—government of figure in French working-class
ficial in Ireland, then major- m ovem en t, Communard,
general; appointed permanent member of General Council of
Irish Under-Secretary in International and Correspond
1853.-286 ing Secretary for French
Larkin, Michael (d. 1867)—Irish s e c t io n s in A m erica
Fenian sentenced to death by (1871-72).—525-26
English court.S|l28, 155-56, Leslie, Thomas Edward Cliffe (c.
489 1 827-1 882)—English bour
L a u r i e r , Clement geois economist.—132, 148
(1832-1878)—French lawyer L e s s n e r , Friedrich
and politician, Republican and (1 8 2 5 -1 9 1 0 )—o u tstan d in g
s u b s e quently monarchist.— figure in German and interna
520 tional working-class move
Lavelle, Patrick^- Irish clergy ment, member of Communist
man, sympathised with Fe League, member of General
nians; author of the book The Council (November 1864-72)
Irish Landlord since the Revo and British Federal Council of
lution.—516 International (1872-74); com
Lavergne, Louis-Gabriel-Leonce rade-in-arms and friend of
G u i l h a u d d e Marx and Engels.—423, 486,
(1 809-1880)—French bour 524, 526
geois economist, author of a L e v y , J o s e p h Moses
number of works on agricul (1812-1888)—one of founders
tu r a l e c o n o m ics .— 1 26, and publisher of Daily Te
274-75, 356, 389 legraph.—504
NAME INDEX 641
L ie b k n e c h t, Natalia Louis XIV (1638-1715)-K ing of
(1835-1909)—wife of Wilhelm France (1643-1715).-363;
Liebknecht.—471 371
L i e b k n e c h t , Wi l h e l m Louis-Philippe (1773-1850)—
(1 8 2 6 -1 9 0 0 )—ou tstan d in g Duke of Orleans, King of
figure in German and interna France (1830-48).-46
tional working-class move L u b y , T h o m a s Cl arke
ment, member of Communist (1821-1901)—Irish revolutio
League, member of First Inter nary, FeiHan; contributor to
national, one of founders and the newspaper Irish People; in
leaders of German Social- 1865 sentenced to 20 years
Democratic Party; associate penal servitude, in 1871 releas
and friend of Marx and En- ed and emigrated to U.S.A.—
gels.—454-55, 465, 468, 533 399
Lingard, John (1771-1851)— Lucas, Charles (1713-17 71)—
English historian, author of A Irish physician and journalist,
History o f Ireland in eight author of patriotic pam
volumes.—379, 381 phlets.—169
L izzy—see Burns, Lydia L u c raf t , Benjamin
L o ch n er, G eorg (b. c. (1809-1897)—a British trade
1824)—prominent in German union leader, member of Ge
w orking-class movement, neral Council of International
member of Communist League (1864-71), opposed Interna
and then of General Council tional’s solidarity with Paris
of International (November Commune.—390, 392, 488-
1864-72); associate and friend 89
of Marx and Engels.—524 Luttrell, Henry, Earl of Car-
Lodar—Norse ruler of Orkney hampton (1743-1821)—Engl
Islands, participated in Battle ish general, member of the
of Clontarf (1014).-299 Irish Parliament, from 1796
Longfield—member of the Irish Commander-in-Chief in Ire-
Parliament (1787).—203 land.—220, 248
L o n g u e t , Charles L y n c h , John (c. 1599-c.
(1839-1903)—active in French 1 6 7 3 )—Irish clergyman,
w orking-class movement, author and translator of a
Proudhonist, member of Gene number of works on history of
ral Council of International Ireland.—290
(1866-67, 1871-72), Corres Lynch, John (1832-1866)—a lea
ponding Secretary for Belgium der of Fenian movement;
(1866), member of Paris Com sentenced in January 1866 to
mune.—440, 447, 524 10 years hard labour; died in
Longuet, Jenny—set Marx, Jen prison the same year.—500,
ny 518-20
L o r e n z o , A n s eIm o Lyons, Robert Spencer Dyer
(1 8 4 1 -1 91 5 )—active in (1826-1886)—Irish physician,
Spanish working-class move Liberal, member of commis
ment, member of Spanish sion of inquiry (1870) into
Federal Council (1870-72), condition of Irish political
adhered to Bakuninists.—527 prisoners.—498
21-226
642 NAME INDEX
M member of General Council of
International and Correspond
Macaulay, Thomas Babington ing Secretary for Ireland
(18 00-1859)—English bour (1871-72); emigrated in 1872
geois historian and politician, to U.S.A. where he participat
Whig, M .P.-304, 369, 377 ed in American working-class
McCann—member of the United movement.—414-15, 423, 524,
Irishmen society, took part in 526-29
preparing the 1798 uprising.— M ’Dowal, Duncan—ruler of Gal
248 loway, end of 13th and
MacCarthy, Florence (c. 1562-c. beginning of 14th century.—
1640)—Irish feudalist, was per 317
secuted by English authori McGeoghegan, Jacques (James)
ties.—337 (1702-1762)—French abbot of
M a c C a r t h y , Justin Irish' origin, author of History
(1830-1912)—Irish writer and o f Ireland.—274, 364
politician, Liberal M.P. (1879- M a c h i a v e 1 1 i , Ni c c o l o
1900), Vice-Chairman of (1469-1527)—Italian politi
Irish Home Rule Party in cian, historian and writer, an
House of Commons; opposed ideologist of Italian bour
P arn ell’s lead ership in geoisie of initial period of
1890.-470 capitalist relations.—500
M 'C orm ick —Irish politician, M c M a h o n , H u g h (c .
secretary of the Catholic Com- 1 606-1644)—Irish feudalist,
m it t e e in the early participated in 1641 upris
1790s.—211 ing*t-347, 349-50
M cC racken, H enry John McMorrough, Art (d. 1417)—
(1767-1798)—a founder of the head of Irish clan from
United Irishmen society in County Cavan; for 50 years
Belfast, leader of the Antrim led resistance movement of
uprising.—175 natives of Leinster and South
MacDonald, Alexander ern Ulster against English.—
(1821-1881)—a British trade 321
union leader, Secretary of M ’Morrough, Donald (14th
N ational Association of cent.)—head of Irish clan from
Miners, M.P. from 1874; ad County Cavan, descendant of
hered to Liberal Party.—427 ancient kings of Leinster; led
M ’D onnel—Irish typographer; uprising of Irish clans against
printed the Hibernian Journal English in 1328.—318
at the end of the 18th M cM urc had, D erm o t (c.
century .—212 1110-1171)—King of Leinster
M fD onnell—prison doctor in from 1126 to 1 1 7 1 -3 1 0
Dublin dismissed because of M c N e v i n , Wi l l i am
his protest against cruel treat (1763-1841)—Irish physician,
ment of Fenian prisoners^- member of the United Irish
164, 259, 261, 509-10 men society.—218, 248
McDonnell, Joseph Patrick (c. Ma c p h e r s o n , James
1845-1906)—active in Irish (1736-1796)—Scottish poet.—
w orking-class movement, 292,383
NAME INDEX 643
Maelseachlainn (Mael Sechnaill International (1871-72).—417,
II) (949-1022)-K ing of Ire 524,526
la n d ( 9 8 0 - 1 0 0 2 and Martin, John (1812-1875)—Irish
1014-22).i-300, 307-08 politician, participant in natio
Maguane—government spy in the nal liberation movement, Ho
United Irishmen society.—217 norary Secretary of Home
Maguire—Irish feudalist, parti R u le L e a g u e , M .P .
cipant in 1641 uprising.—347 (1871-75).—154, 520
Maguire, Thomas—Irish sailor, Martin}: William (b. c. 1 832)-
arrested in 1867 in Manchester Irish Fenian; sentenced by a
on a charge of attempting to M a n c h e s te r co u rt in
organise escape of Fenian 1867.—154
prisoners and sentenced to M a r x , E l e a n o r (Tussy)
death; sentence was rescinded (1 8 5 5 -1 8 9 8 ) —y o u n g e s t
for lack of evidence.—128 daughter of Karl Marx, promi
Mahon (d. 976)—King of Mun nent figure in British and
ster from 964 to 976.—307 international working-class
Malachias (c. 1094-1148)—Irish movement, wife of Edward
archbishop.—288, 359 Aveling.—386, 388, 404, 440,
Malachy—see Maelseachlainn 470-71, 533-34
Malmesbury, James Howard Har Marx, Jenny, nee von Westp-
ris, Earl of (1807-1889)- halen (1814-1881)—wife of
British statesman, Tory but Karl Marx.—448
subsequently a prominent Marx, Jenny (1844-1883)—
leader o f Conservative Marx’s eldest daughter, jour
Party.—79 nalist, active in international
M althus, 'T h om as Robert working-class movement, mar
(1766-1834)—English clergy ried Charles Longuet in
man, economist, ideologist of 1872.-402-06, 409, 440-41,
landed nobility who had 447-48
adopted bourgeois ways and M ary Tudor (1516-1558)—
methods, author of reactio Q u e e n o f E n g la n d
nary theory of popula (1553-58).—329* 331, 347,
tion.—116 363,372
Manners, Charles, Duke of M assey, William Nathaniel
Rutland (1754-178 7)-Lord (1 809-1881)—English histo
Lieutenant of Ireland rian.—364
(1784-87).—194, 198, 203, M a u r e r , G eorg Ludwig
242-43 (1790-1872)—German bour
Maolmordha (d. 1014)—King of geois historian, studied social
Leinster (999-1014).-298-300 system of ancient and medie
Maolmua (c. 930-978)—King of val Germany.—431
Desmond.—307 Maurice, Zevy—member of Ge
Marly—bishop of Waterford.— neral Council of International
224 (1 8 6 6 -7 2 ), Corresponding
Martin, Constant—French revo Secretary for Hungary
lutionary, Blanquist, partici (1870-71)^524
pant in Paris Commune, mem Maxwell—Attorney-General of
ber of General Council of Ireland (1796).-216, 247
21 *
644 NAME INDEX
Mayo—set Naas, Richard South- national; supported Marx and
well Bourke, Earl of Mayo Engels.—406
Mayo, Henry—active in British Milner, George—participant in
w orking-class movement, British working-class move
member of General Council ment, Irishman by nationality,
(1871-72) and British Federal member of Chartist National
Council (1871-72) of Interna Reform League and of General
tional, whose reformist wing C ouncil of International
he joined-5 2 4 , 526, 528 (1868-72).—391-92, 396, 524,
Maz z in i, Giuseppe 526
(1805-1872)—Italian revolu Mitchel, John (1815-1875)-
tionary, bourgeois democrat, a noted figure in Irish national
leader of national liberation liberation movement, headed
movement in Italy.—64 revolutionary-democratic wing
M eagher, Thomas Francis of Young Ireland society;
(1 823-1867)—participant in deported to colonies in 1848
Irish national liberation move for his part in preparing for
ment, one of founders of Irish insurrection in Ireland; in
Confederation (1847); arrest 1853 fled from exile and
ed in 1848 for taking part in emigrated to U.S.A. where he
preparing uprising and senten sided with Southerners during
ced to hard labour for life; Civil War.—403^
escaped to America in 1852; Molyneux, William
led Irish volunteer brigade on (1 65 6-1698)—Irish scholar,
the side of Northerners during studied philosophy, mathe
Civil War (1861-65).-142, matics and astronomy, author
149, 151, 158 of an opposition pamphlet.—
Measor—British official, Deputy 139,169
Governor of Chatham Pri Monroe, Robert (d. 1680)—
son.—480 Scottish general, led Scottish
Mela, Pomponius (1st cent.)— Protestants of Ulster fighting
Roman geographer, author of on side of Parliament against
De situ orbis in three vo Irish rebels.—354, 356
lumes.—276-77 M o n s e II, William
Melbourne, William Lamb, Vis (1 8 1 2 -1 8 94)—Irish Liberal
count of (17 79-1848)-British politician, one of leaders of
statesman, Whig, Home Secre Irish faction in Parlia
tary (1830-34), Prime Minister ment.—85
(1834 and 1835-41).-82, 84, Moore, Charles (1730-1822)—
90 Anglo-Irish politician, judge,
Methuen, John (1650-1706)— field marshal and M.P.; sup
English diplomat.—181 p orted the Anglo-Irish
M e y e r , Si g f r i d ( C. Union.—230
1840-1872)—active in German M o o r e , G e o r g e H en ry
and American working-class (1811-1870)—Irish politician,
movement, socialist, member one of leaders of tenant-right
of First International; in 1866 movement, M.P. (1847-57,
emigrated to U.S.A., took part 1868-70); defended imprison
in organising sections of Inter ed Irish Fenians.—163, 165,
NAME INDEX 645
258, 305, 497, 505, 507-09, 392, 395-96, 524, 526, 528-29
513 Mouirkertach (d. 943)—King of
Moore, Thomas (1779-1852)- a small Irish kingdom in Ulster;
Irish poet, author of History won several important victories
o f Ireland in four volumes.— over Norsemen.—307
316,360 Mouirkertach (d. 1119)—King of
Mo ~e , T h om as (M oru s) Ireland (1090-1114).-309
(1478-1535)—English politi M o u n t garret, Richard
cian and humanist writer, (1578-11551)—participant in
early representative of utopian Irish uprising of 1641.—351
communism, author of Uto M ountjoy—set Blount, Charles
pia.—63 Mount-Maurice, Herwey de—
M o r e a u , I e an V i c t o r Anglo-Norman feudalist, par
(1 763-1813)—French gene- ticipated in invasion of Ireland
ral.—207 in 1169 and in wars of
M o r g a n , L e w i s He n r y conquest.—310
( 1 8 1 8 - 1 8 8 1 ) —A m erican Mulcahy, Denis Dowling (b.
e t hnographer, archaeologist 1840)—Irish journalist and
and historian of primitive physician, a leader of Fenian
society, spontaneous mate movement; assistant editor of
rialist.—459 the newspaper Irish People
Morgan, William—participant in (1863-65); sentenced to 10
British working-class move years penal servitude in 1865,
ment, member of General pardoned in 1871.—256
Council of International (Oc M u n tz, G eorge Frederick
tober 1864-68)-487 (1794-1857)—English factory
Mor l e y, Joh n , V iscou n t owner and politician, bour
(1 838-1 923)—English pub geois radical, M.P.—85
licist, historian, Liberal, Secre Murphy (called O'Leary)—Irish
tary for Ireland (1886 and Fenian, arrested in 1864 for
1892-95).—466 agitation among soldiers, sen
M orley, Samuel tenced to ten years hard
(1 809-1 886)—British indu labour.—257, 497
strialist and Liberal politician, Murphy, John Nicholas—Irish
M.P. (1865, 1868-85).—388 publicist, author of a book on
Morris, John—'Lord Justice of I r e la n d p u b lish e d in
Ireland (1341-42).-3l9-20 1870.-118, 372-78, 380-82
M o ry s o n , Fy nes M u rph y, W illiam M artin
(1566-1630)—English travel (1 844-1921)—Irish railway
ler, author of An Itinerary..., contractor and businessman,
part of which describes Ire- owner of the newspaper Irish-
land.—289 I n d e p e n d e n t , M .P .
M o ttersh ea d , Thomas (c. (1885-92).—415
1825-1884)—member of Gene M urray, Charles—prominent
ral Council of International figure in British working-class
(1869-72) and Corresponding movement, member of Chart
Secretary for Denmark ist National Reform League,
(1871-72), joined reformist member of General Council
wing of International.—167, (1870-72) and British Federal
646 NAME INDEX
Council (1872-73) of Intema- N e w e n h a m , Edward
tional.—423, 524, 526, 531 (1 732-1814)—participant in
Murray, Patrick Joseph—gover the volunteer movement in the
nor of a Dublin prison^l64, early 1780s, member of the
259, 509-10 Irish Parliament (17 69-9 7);
Murray, William, Lord Mansfield supported the Anglo-Irish
(1705-1793)—Chief Justice of Union ;p: 20 5
the King’s Bench.—190, 240 Ne w ma n, Fra n cis William
(1805-1897)—English philo
N logist and publicist, bourgeois
radicaLft73, 74
Naas, Richard Southwell Bour- Newport, John (1756-1843)—
k e , E a r l o f M ay o participant in the volun
(1*822-1872)—British states teer movement in the early
m an, Conservative, Chief 1780s, Member of Parliament
Secretary for Ireland (1852, in England (1803-32); sup
1858-59, 1866-68).—97, 98, ported Catholic emancipa
164, 259, 509 tion.—231
Napier , Joseph Nial o f the Nine Hostages (d.
(1 804-1 8 8 2 ) - British Tory 405)—King of Ireland.—306
statesman,* was in Lord Der N ich olas I (1 7 9 6 -1 8 5 5 )-
by’s government in 1852.—78, E m p e r o r o f R u ssia
79 (1825-55).—512
N a p o l e o n I B o n aparte Nobiling, Karl Eduard
(1 7 69-1 821 )||Emperor of (1848-1878)—German anar
F r a n c e (1 8 0 4 -1 4 and chist who made an attempt
1815).—207, 464 on life of William I in 1878.—
Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon 454
B o n a pa rte) (1808-1873)— N o r r i s , John (c .
nephew of Napoleon I, Presi 1 5 4 7 -1 5 9 7 )—Commander-in-
dent of Second Republic Chief of English army in
(1848-51), Emperor of France Ireland.—335
(1852-70).—88, 95, 96, 130, North , Frederick
163, 449 (1732-1792)-T ory, Chancel
Neilson, Samuel (1761-1803)— lor of the Exchequer, Prime
an organiser of the United Minister of Great Britain
Irishmen society, founder of (17 70 -8 2 ).-l 78-80, 183-89,
the newspaper Northern Star 199, 236-37, 240, 370
(Dublin, 1792).—175, 208, N o t k e r , L a b e o (c.
217 952-1 0 2 2 )—German monk
Nennius ( 8th cent.)—Welsh chro who taught at monastic school
nicler, author of Historia Bri- of St. Gall, Switzerland.—
tonum.—294 291
Nesta—daughter of Rhys ap Nugent, Richard, Baron Delvin
Tewdwr, King of South (d. c. 1538)—Lord Deputy of
Wales.—288 Ireland.—327
Newell—government spy in Nugentt Richard, Baron Delvin
the United Irishmen society ^ (1583-1642)—big feudalist in
217 Northern Ireland.—339
NAME INDEX 647
O liberation movement.—43, 45,

53, 55-57, 61, 82-85, 88-92,
O ates, Titus (1648-1705)— 134, 136, 143, 428, 445, 451,
English Protestant clergy 454
man.—363 O'Connell, John (1810-1858)-
O'Brien, Donald (d. 1194)—King Irish politician, Liberal, son of
of Munster from 1168 to Daniel O’Connell.—55, 56, 59
1194.-310 O'Connell, fAaurice (d. 1853)—
O'Brien, James (literary pseu- Irish politician, Liberal, son of
donym Bronterre) Daniel O’Connell.—55
( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 6 4 )—prom inent O'Connell, Morgan
figure in Chartist movement, (1804-1885)—Irish politician,
author of several social reform opposed repeal of the Anglo-
projects, founder of National Irish Union of 1801, son of
Reform League (1849).—390 Daniel O’Connell.—55, 97-98
O'Brien, Lucius (d. 1795)—mem O'Connor, Arthur
ber of the Irish Parliament, (1763-1852)—active in Irish
member of the Privy Council national liberation movement,
from 1787, member of the one of leaders of United
Chancellor Court.—181 Irishmen; arrested on eve of
O'Brien, Michael (d. 1867)— 1798 uprising and exiled to
Irish Fenian, executed by France in 1803.—218, 248,
sentence of an English 285
court.—128, 155, 156, 489 O ' C o n n o r , B r i a n (c .
O ' B r i e n , M urrough (d. 1490-1560)—Leinster chief
1551)—representative of Irish tain, Lord of Offaley.—
clan aristocracy, received title 327-28, 363
of Earl of Thomond from O ' C o n n o r , Carrach (d.
English Crown.—330 1201)—King of Connaught
O'Brien, Turlough from 1189 to 1201.-314
(1009-1086)—King of Munster O ' C o n n o r , Ca t hal (c.
from 1055 to 1086.-309 1150-1224)-King of Con
O 'B rie n , W illiam S m ith naught from 1201 to
( 1 8 0 3 - 1 8 6 4 )—p rom in en t 1224.-314
figure in Irish national libera O ’Conor, Charles
tion movement, headed Right (1764-1828)—Irish priest and
wing of Young Ireland society; collector of antiquities, trans
arrested and sentenced to lator and editor of Irish
death in 1848 after failure of chronicles.—284
attempted revolt; sentence O'Connor, Feargus Edward
commuted to life deportation; (1 7 94-1855)—a leader of
amnestied in 1856.—92 Chartist movement, editor of
O 'C Ie r y , Michael the newspaper Northern Star;
(1575-1643)*-Irish monk and headed petty-bourgeois wing
chronicler.—2 84 of Chartism after 1848 revolu
O'ConnellDaniel tion.—56-60, 285, 419
(1775-1847)—Irish lawyer and O ' C o n n o r , F eidlim (d.
bourgeois politician, leader of 1265)—King of Connaught
Right, liberal wing of national from 1228 to 1265.-314
648 NAME INDEX
O ' C o n n o r , Feidlim O'Donnell, Hugh MacManus,
(1294-1316)—King of Con Lord of Tyrconnel (second
naught from 1315 to half of 16 th cent.)—North
1316.-317 Irish chieftain, father of Irish
O'Connor, Man m oy—son of insurgent leader Hugh O’Don-
King of all Ireland Roderic n ell.-335, 373
O’Connor, King of Connaught O'Donnell, Hugh Roe (Red
(end of 12 th cent.).—313 Hugh), Lord of Tyrconnel (c.
O 9C o n o r , M a t t h e w 1571-1602)—one of leaders of
(1 7 7 3-1 844)rr?Irish histo anti-English insurrection.—
rian.—329, 338, 342, 344, 335, 338-39, 373
346-48, 350, 353, 356, 376, O'Donnell, Manus, Lord of
380 Tyrconnel (d. 1564)—North
O ' C o n n o r , R o d eric (c. Irish chieftain.—331
1116-1198)—King of Con O'Donnell, Rory (1575-
naught from 1156, King of 1608)—North Irish chief
Ireland (1166-82).-310-13 tain, brother of Hugh
O ' C o n n o r , R o d eric (d. O’Donnell, made Earl of
1315)—pretender to throne of T y rc o n n e l by English
Connaught.—317 Crown.—339, 368
O ' C o n n o r , T or del v ac O ’Donovan, John
(1088-1156)—King of Con (1809-1861)—Irish philologist
naught from 1106, King of all and historian.—284-86, 290
Ireland (1120-56).-309 O'Donovan Rossa—wife of O’Do
O ’C u r r y , Eugene novan Rossa; organised rais
(1796-1862)—Irish historian, ing of funds in 1856-66 for
studied ancient manuscripts.— families of Irish political pri
286 soners.—405, 498
Odger, George (1812-1877)— O'Donovan Rossa, Jeremiah
participant in British trade (1831-1915)—a leader of Fe
union movement, member nian movement, published the
1864-71) and Chairman newspaper Irish People in
1864-67) of General Council 1863-65; arrested and senten
of International, opposed soli ced to life imprisonment in
darity of International with 1865; amnestied in 1870 and
Paris Commune.—160, L68, emigrated to U.S.A.—165,
392, 395, 399, 402-03, 484 256, 258, 388, 395, 403,
O'Dogherty, C a h ir 404-06, 409, 415, 440, 452,
(1587-1608)—Irish feudalist, 496, 498-99, 503-07, 510,
leader of 1608 uprising.—340, 518-19, 521
375 O'Dwyer, Philip—Irish nobleman
O'Donnell—see Mac Donnell from Munster, a leader in
O'Donnell—contributor to the 1641 uprising.—348
newspapers Irishman and Irish O'Kelly, James (1845-1916)-*
People.—415 Irish politician and journalist,
O'Donnelly Calvagh, Lord of participant in Home Rule
Tyrconnel (d. 1566)—North movement, elected M.P. in
Irish chieftain, son of Manus 1880.-450
O’Donnell.—332 Olaf o f Dublin—Norse King of
NAME INDEX 649
Dublin (853-872).—307 O'Neill, John (1740-1798)-
Olaf, Golfreyson o f Dublin (d. member of the Irish Parlia
941)—Norse King of Dublin.— ment, Governor of the County
307 of Antrim; killed during the
O *L eary —see Murphy Irish uprising of 1798.—181,
Ollivier , Emile 202,204
(1825-1913)—French politi 0 9N eill, Matthew—member of
cian, moderate bourgeois Re ancient Irish feudal clan, son
publican, Bonapartist from the of Conn fBacach O’Neill,
late 1860s, head of govern named Baron of Dungannon
m e n t (J a n u a ry -A u g u st by English King, father of
1870).—405 Hugh O’Neill who headed
O 9L o c h I i n , D o m n a I insurrection against English.—
(1048-1121)—King of Ireland 330,332
(1090-1121).-309 O 'N eill, O wen R oe (c.
O 9L o ch lin , M urtogh (d. 1590-1649)—prominent parti
1166)—King of Tyrone and cipant in 1641-52 Irish upris
chief of Ulster, King of all ing, commander of Irish Con
Ireland (1156-66).-31 9 federates.—350, 354-55
0 9M ahony, Thaddeus—Irish phi O ' N e i l l , P h e l i m (c .
lologist; jointly with Hancock 1604-1653)—Irish nobleman,
he published two volumes of participant in 1641 uprising.—
Senchus Mor, a collection of 347, 349, 351, 369
ancient laws.—286 0 9Neill, Shane, Earl of Tyrone
O yMoore, Roger—Irish feudalist, (c. 1530-1567)—leader of
participant in 1641 uprising.— rebellion against English.—
347-48, 350 331-33, 335, 362
0 9M ore, Guilpatrick—chieftain Orde, Thomas, Baron Bolton
of the big Irish clan, owner of (1746-1807)—English lawyer,
the County of Leix; prior to member of the Irish Parlia
1542 fought against English ment (1784-90), member of
domination.—363 the Privy Council of Ireland
0 1Neill, Brian, Baron of Dungan and its Chief Secretary
non, Earl of Tyrone (d. (1784-87).—195-96, 199-201,
1562)—descendant of ancient 242-44
Irish feudal clan.—332 Oriel—see Foster, John
0 9Neill, Conn Bacach (c. 1484-c. Ormonde—sec Butler, Edmond
1559)—descendant of ancient Ormonde ,. James
Irish feudal clan in Northern (1420-1461)—Lord Deputy of
Ireland, made Earl of Tyrone Ireland (1453-55).-323
in 1542.-330, 331, 372 Ormonde, James Butler, Earl of
0 9Neill, Hugh (d. 1230)—big (1 61 0-1688)—Irish royalist
North Irish chieftain, descen Protestant, Commander-in-
dant of ancient family.—314 Chief of King’s army during
0 9N eill, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone 1641 uprising, Lord Lieute
(1540-1616)—head of influen nant of Ireland during Resto
tial clan in Ulster, leader of r a tio n .- 3 5 0 -5 5 , 375-76,
insurrection against English.— 378-79
335-39, 341, 368, 373 Ormonde, John Butler, Earl of
650 NAME INDEX
(d. 1478)—big feudalist, de Foreign Secretary (1830-34,
scendant of English con 1835-41 and 1846-51), Home
querors of Ireland, supported Secretary (1852-55) and Prime
House of Lancaster in Wars of M inister (1 8 5 5 -5 8 and
Roses, subsequently went over 1859-65).—63, 80, 81, 85-86,
to the side of King Edward IV 88, 108, 127, 135, 393, 450,
(House of York) M323 517
Ormonde, Thomas Butler, Earl Paparo, John—papal legate at
of (15th cent.)—big feudalist, Holy Synod in Ireland in
brother of Lord Lieutenant of 1152.-309
Ireland James Ormonde, sup Parks, William,—'4 88
porter of House of Lancaster P arnell, C harles S tew art
in Wars of Roses.—323 (1846-1891)—Irish bourgeois
Ormonde, Thomas Butler, Earl politician, participant in natio
of (1532-1614)—grandson of nal liberation movement,
Lord Justice of Ireland Piers elected M.P. in 1875, Home
Butler, member of influential Rule Party leader from 1877,
Anglo-Irish feudal clan.—329 joined a bloc with Irish ra
Orr, William (1766-1797)—Irish dicals, supported Land League
farmer, member of the United (1879).—442, 447, 450, 465,
Irishmen society, executed for 467, 470, 473
his participation in the move Pamell, John (1744-1801)—Irish
ment.—217, 247 lawyer, Protestant, deputy to
O ’Ruark, Tieman (d. 1172)— the Irish Parliament from
chief of Breffny in East 1761, Chancellor of the
Connaughtf-j- 310 Exchequer from 1799; op
O ’Shea, Henry1—Irish public fi p o se d the A nglo-Irish
gure, defender of imprisoned Union.—225, 230
Fenians in 1869.—166,390 Parsons, Lawrence, Earl of Rosse
O ’S u l l i v a n , Dani el (1758-1841)—member of the
(1560-1618)—Irish feudalist, Irish Parliament.—216, 225
took part in the anti-English P a r s o n s , Wi l l i a m (c .
uprising led by Tyrone and 1570-1650)—Lord Justice of
Tyrconnel.—338 Ireland (1640-48), inspired
Outlaw, Roger (d. 1340)—Lord policy of Ireland’s colonial
Justice of Ireland (1328-32 subjugation—347. 376, 378,
and 1340) .-3 1 8 443
P a r s o n s , W i l l i a m , Earl
(1800-1867)—English astrono
P mer, in 1867 published a
pamphlet on relations between
P a kin gton , John Somerset Irish landowners and te
(1 7 99-1 880)—British Tory nants.—389
statesman, later joined Conser Patrick or Patricius (c. 373-c.
vative Party.—479-80 463)—preached Christianity in
Palmerston, Henry John Temple, Ireland, founded and became
Viscount (1784-1865)—British first bishop of Catholic
statesman, initially Tory, a Church in Ireland.—287,
Whig leader from 1830 on; 293-94, 306, 515
NAME INDEX 651
Patterson, William—Irish physic Petty, William (1623-1687)-
ian, author of a book about English economist and statis
climate of Ireland.—280 tician, founder of classical
Peel, Robert (1788-1850)- bourgeois political economy in
British statesman, leader of England.-232, 379, 385, 392
moderate Tories (Peelites), PfUnder, Karl (1818-1876)—par
Home Secretary (1822-27 and ticipant in German and inter
1828-30) and Prime Minister national working-class move
(1834-35 and 1841-46); with ment, membetf of Communist
support of Liberals repealed League and General Council of
Corn Laws in 1846.—44, 82, International (1864-67 and
90-92,100,273, 445, 464 1870-72); associate and friend
Pelagius the Heretic (c. 360-c. of Marx and Engels.—524
420)—British theologist, con Phelan, William (1789-1830)—
demned as a heretic for his Irish historian.—364
teaching on man’s free will.— Philip II (1527-1598)-K ing of
293 Spain (1595-98), husband of
Pelham, Thomas, Earl of Chi Mary Tudor.—373
chester (1756-1826)—member Pichegru, Charles
of the Irish Parliament, Whig; (1 761-1804)—French gene-
Chief Secretary of Camden, ral.—207
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Pigott, Richard (1828-1889)—
(1795-97); opposed Catholic Irish bourgeois publicist, pub
emancipation.—214, 217, 247 lisher of the newspaper Irish
Pembroke, William Marshal, Earl man (1865-79); went over to
of (d. 1219)—Regent of Eng the side of English Govern
land during Henry Ill's in ment in the 1880s.*—159,
fancy.—314 396-99,405,415, 497
Percy, Henry, Earl of Northum Pitt, William, the Younger
b erland (1342-1408)—big (1 759-1806)—British states
English feudalist.—438 man, a Tory leader, Prime
Percy, Henry (called Hotspur) Minister (1783-1801 and
(1364-1403)—English feudal 1804-06).-184, 194, 199,
ist, son of Henry Percy, Earl 202, 207, 213-14, 219-27,
of Northumberland; partici 229-30, 242, 249-50, 365,
pant in barons’ revolts against 370-71,398, 445
English Crown.*-438 Pliny (Gains Plinius Secundus)
P e r r o t , B e n j am in -P ierre (23-79 A.D.)—Roman natural
(1791-1865)—French general, scientist, author of Historiae
took part in suppressing June Naturalis in 37 volumes.—291
1848 uprising.—62 Plunket, Oliver (1629-1681)—
Perrot, John (c . Irish archbishop.—363
1527-1592)—Lord President Plunket, Thomas Span (d.
of Munster (1570-73), Lord 1866)—bishop in Ireland from
D e p u t y o f I r e la n d 1839.-230
(1584-88).—333-36,'3 73 Plunket, William Conyngham
Petrie, George (1789-1866)— (1764-1854)—Irish lawyer,
Irish archaeologist.—281, Lord Chancellor of Ireland in
285-86, 400 1 830.-225, 230
652 NAME INDEX
Poer, Arnold—English baron, Liberal.—379, 389, 392, 400,
owner of Waterford in first 416, 444
half of J4th century ^ 3 1 8 Preston, Thomas
Poerioy Carlo (1803-1867)—Ita (1585-1655)—commander in
lian liberal politician, impri Irish Confederate Army during
soned in 1849-59 for his 1641-62 uprising.—351, 353
participation in national move Ptolemy (Ptolemaeus, Claudius)
ment; Vice-President of Parlia ( 2nd cent.)—Greek mathema
ment (1861-67).-259 tician, astronomer and geo
Pollock, George D.—English mili grapher, founder of teaching
tary physician, member of on geocentric world system.—
commission which reported to 291
Parliament in 1867 on treat
ment of political prisoners in
English prisons.—386, 499, R
5 07 ,5 10 ,51 9
Ponsonby, George Radcliffe, Thomas%Earl of Sus
V(1755-1817)—Irish lawyer, sex (1 526-1583)—became
member of the Irish Parlia Lord Deputy of Ireland in
ment from 1776, Lord Chan 1556.-373
cellor of Ireland.—184, 216, R a l e i g h , Wa l t e r (c .
238, 247 1552-1618)—English military
Portland, William Henry Caven figure and navigator; took part
dish Ben tinek, Duke of in quelling the uprising in
(1738-1809)—English states Ireland.—362
man, Whig leader, Lord Lieu Ranelagh, Lord Jories, Viscount
tenant of Ireland 1782-83, of—Lord President of Con
Prime Minister of Great naught.—348
Britain (1783, 1807-09).- Raymond Le Gros—see Fitzge
183-89,238-40 rald, Raymond
Potter, George (1832-1893)—a Rea, John (1822-1881)—Irish
reformist leader of British politician, member of Young
trade unions, founder and Ireland society.—99
publisher of the newspaper Regnard, Albert Andrian (b.
Bee-Hive.—ISO, 390, 468 1836)—French Radical pub
Poynings, Edward licist and historian, participant
(1459-1521)—Lord Deputy of in Paris Commune; returned to
Ireland (1494-96).-l 69-70, France after 1880 amnesty.—
182, 235, 237, 325, 353-54, 443-45
361 Reilly, Henry—sheriff of the
Pratt, John Jeffreys, Marquis of County of Dublin.—195, 243
Camden (17 59-1840)-Lord Reynolds, Thomas
L ieu ten an t o f Ireland (1771-1832)—member of the
(1795-99), English Secretary United Irishmen society who
for War (1804-05); advocated betrayed the plan for the
O rangeism .—206, 214-17, uprising to the government,
220-21 later an English official.—218
Prendergast, John Patrick Rhys ap Tewdwr (d. 1093)—
(1808-1893)—Irish historian, K ing of South Wales
NAME INDEX 653
(1078-93).—288 (1871-72).—524
Ricardo, David (1772-1823)- Rochefort. V ictor-H en ri
English economist, outstand (1831-1913)—French publicist
ing representative of classical and politician, Left Repub
bourgeois political eco lican, monarchist from end of
nomy.—65, 67, 73, 385 the 1880s.—403-04, 440,
Richard, Duke of York 518
(1411-1466)—Lord Lieutenant Roden, Robert Jocelyn, Earl of
of Ireland (1449-60).-322 (1788-18^0)—English aristo
Richard II (1367-1400)-K ing of crat, Conservative.—78
England (1377-99).-320, 321, R ogers—English officer who
438 served in Ireland (1799).—226,
Richard III (1452-1485)-K ing 228
of England (1483-85).-323 Roscoe—English lawyer, legal ad
Richelieu, Armand Jean du Pies- viser of big trade unions,—527
sis, due de (1585-1642)-Car- Rossa (5th cent.)—according to
dinal, Chief Minister of Louis tradition, one of compilers of
XIII.—368 Senchus Mor, a collection of
Rinuccini, Giovanni Battista ancient laws.—287
(1592-1653)—papal nuncio in Rossa—see O’Donovan Rossa
Ireland.—354 Rosse—see Parsons, William
Roach, Jo hn—participant in Rowan, Archibald Hamilton
British working-class move (1751-1834)—Irish polititian,
ment, member of General English officer, secretary of
Council of International the United Irishmen society in
(1 8 7 1 -7 2 ), Corresponding D ublin.-205, 209-10
Secretary of British Federal Riihl, J. —German worker, mem
Council (1872), adhered to its ber of General Council of
reformist wing.—524, 526, International (1870-72).—524,
528 526
Roberts, William R.—a leader of Rushworth, John
Fenian movement in U.S.A., (1612-1690)- English histo
American officer, one of or rian and statesman.—369
ganisers of Fenian invasion of Russell, John (1792-1878)—
Canada, end of May British statesman, Whig leader,
1866.-157 Prime Minister (1846-52 and
R o b e s p ie r r e , M axim ilien 1865-66), Foreign Secretary
(1758-1794)—prominent fi ( 1 8 5 2 - 5 3 and
gure in French bourgeois revo 1 8 5 9 -6 5 ).- 8 9 - 9 2 , 1 08 ,
lution at end of 18th century, 477-78, 482
Jacobin leader.—488 Russell, Thomas (1767-1803)—
Rochambeau, Jean Baptiste, Irish officer, a founder of the
comte de (1725-1807)— United Irishmen society in
French marshal.—172 Belfast, executed for his par
Rochat, Charles (b. 1844)— ticipation in the movement.—
active in French working-class 175
m ovem ent, Corresponding R utty, John (1698-1775)—Irish
Secretary of General Council physician and meteoro
of International for Holland logist.—278-79
654 NAME INDEX
S movement in America; author
of works on history of British
Sadleir, John (1814-1856)—Irish and American working-class
banker and politician, a leader movement.—471
of Irish faction in Parliament, Schwartz, Martin (d. 1487)—
member of government in leader of German mercenaries
1853.^88 in Ireland.—324
S adler, M ichael Thomas Scotty John, Lord Clonmel
(1780-1835)—English econo (1 7 39-1798)—Irish lawyer,
mist and politician, bourgeois member of the Irish Parlia
philanthropist, opponent of ment, Attorney-General of Ire-
Malthusianism, close to Tory land.—184, 230, 238
Party.—116 S c o t t , Sir Walter
Sadlery Thomas—member of ( 1 7 7 1 -1 8 3 2 ) L- S c o t t is h
General Council of Interna writer.—459
tional (1871-72).—524 Scotus Marianus (d. 1086)—Irish
S ain tle ger, A n th on y—Lord monk and chronicler.—309
Deputy of Ireland (1540-48, Senior, Nassau William (17 90-
1 5 5 0 - 51 and 1864)—English vulgar econom
1553-56)^330-31 ist, apologist of capitalism^
S a in tleg er, W illiam (d. 125, 386, 413
1642)—Lord President of Serraillier, Auguste (b. 1840)—
Munster.—348 active in French and interna
St. Leonards—see Sugden, Ed tional working-class move
ward Burtenshaw ment, member of General
S a m p s o n , William C ouncil of International
(1764-1836)—member of the (1869-72), Corresponding
United Irishmen society, was Secretary for Belgium (1870)
arrested and deported to and France (1871-72), mem
France for taking part in the ber of Paris Commune, mem
1798 uprising.—218, 248 ber of British Federal Council
Saurin, William (1757-1839)— (1873-74); associate and
Irish lawyer, member of the friend of Marx.—524, 526
Irish Parliament. Attorney- Shaen, W.—English lawyer, legal
General of Ireland; opposed adviser of big trade unions.—
the Anglo-Irish Union.—225, 527
230 S h a k e s p e a r e , Wi l l i a m
Saxo Grammaticus (mid-12th- (1 5 6 4 - 1 6 1 6 )^ iE n g lis h
b e g in n in g o f 1 3 th writer.—517
c en t.) —Danish chronicler, Shannon—Irish Lord (late 18th-
author of Gesta Danorum early 19th century).—226
(Historia Danica).—301 Shaw, Robert (d. 1869)—parti
Scarampi, Pietro Francesco— cipant in British trade union
Pope’s legate in Ireland during movement, member o f Gene
1641-52 uprising.—352 ral Council of International
S c h liite r , H erm ann (d. 1864-69) and its Treasurer
1 9 1 9 ) —German Social-De- 1 8 6 7 -6 8 ), C orresponding
mocrat, emigrated to U.S.A. in Secretary for Am erica
1889, took part in socialist (1867-69).—129
NAME INDEX 655
Sheaves, Henry (1753-1798)— geois historian, economist and
Irish lawyer, member of the publicist, Liberal, apologist of
United Irishmen society, a English colonial policy in
leader of the 1798 uprising, Ireland; moved to U.S.A. in
executed.—218, 248 1 8 6 8 , to Canada in
Sheares9 John (1766-1798)— 1 871.-277, 283, 301, 304,
Irish lawyer, member of the 339, 356-72, 389, 393
United Irishmen society, a Smith, Thomas (1513-1577)—
leader of the 1798 uprising, English professor of civil
executed.—218, 248 law.—362 **
Shee, William (1804-1868)—Irish S n o r r i S t u r l u s o n (c .
lawyer, Liberal politician, 1178-1241)—Icelandic skald
M .P.-85, 87 and chronicler.—296
Sidmouth, Henry Addington, Solinus (Gaius Julius Solinus)
V isco u n t (1 7 6 7 -1 8 4 4 ) — ( f i r s t h a lf o f 3rd
English Prime Minister and cent.)—Roman writer.—292
Chancellor of the Exchequer Somerset, Edward, Earl of Gla
(1801-04), Home Secretary morgan (1601-1667)—English
(1812-21).—230 royalist statesman.—354, 355
Sidney, Henry (1529-1586)- S o r g e , F riedrich A d o lf
Lord Deputy of Ireland in (1828-1906)—a leader of Ame
second half of 16th century — rican and international work
373 ing-class movement, organiser
Sigtrygg1(d. 1042)—Norse King o f American sections of Inter
of Dublin.—298, 300, 307-08 national, General Secretary of
Sigurd L au drisson (11th General Council (1872-74);
c e n t.)—ruler of Orkney comrade-in-arms and friend of
Islands.—298-300 Marx and Engels.—414, 416,
Simnel, < Lambert (c. 1487-c. 467-68, 470, 473
1525)—pretender to English S ou ham , J o s e p h , C ount
throne, posed as nephew of (1 760-1837)—French gene-
King Richard III.—323-24 ral.—207
Singer, Paul (1844-1911)—pro S p e n c e r , He r b e r t
minent figure in German (18 20-1903)—English bour
working-class movement, one geois positivist philosopher
of leaders of Social-Democra- and sociologist.—74
tic Party of Germany.—533 S pen cer, John Poyntz,1Laxl
Sismondiy Jean Charles Simonde (1835-1910)—British Liberal
de (1773-1842)—Swiss eco statesman, Viceroy of Ireland
nomist, petty-bourgeois critic (1868-74 and 1882-85).-517
of capitalism, prominent rep S p e n s e r , E d m u n d (c«
resentative of economic 1552-1599)—English poet, pri
romanticism.—65, 67 vate secretary to Lord Deputy
S k e ffin g to n , W illiam (d. of Ireland (1580-82), author
1535)—Lord Deputy of Ire of the treatise A View o f the
l a n d ( 1 5 2 9 - 3 2 and State o f Ireland.—289, 361-62,
1534-35).—327 378
Smith, Goldwin Stackpoole9 William—Irish of-
(1 823-1910)—British bour f i c e r , L ib e r a l M .P .
656 NAME INDEX
(1860-80).—498 paper Weekly News, defended
Stanley—see Derby, Edward Fenians.—159
George Geoffrey Smith S u lli v a n , Edward
Stanley, Lord Edward Henry, (1 822-1885)—Irish lawyer,
Earl of Derby from 1869 conducted trial of Fenians in
(1 826-1 893)—British Tory 1865; Attorney-General for
statesman, Conservative in the Ireland (1868-70), Master of
1860s-70s, subsequently Libe the Rolls and Lord Chancellor
ral; son of Edward Derby.—69 of Ireland (1883r85).-165
S ta n ley , Sir Thomas (c. Sussex—see Radcliffe, Thomas
1406-1459)—Lord Lieutenant Sutherland, Harriet Elizabeth
of Ireland (1431-37).-322 G eorgina Leveson-Gower,
Stephens, James (1825-1901)— Duchess o£ (1806-1868)—big
Irish petty-bourgeois revolu Scottish landowner, adhered
tionary, leader of Fenian orga to Whig Party.—63
nisation; emigrated to America Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)—
in 1866.-157 English satirist, Irish by ori-
Stepney, William Frederick gin.—76, 169,364
Co well (1820-1872)- British Swinton, John (1830-1901)—
socialist, member (1866-72) American journalist and pub
and Treasurer (1868-70) of lisher, close to socialist cir
General Council of Interna cles.—442
tional, member of British S y m o n s , G eorge Jam es
Federal Council (1872).—524 (1838-1900)—English meteo
Steuart, James Francis Edward rologist.—282
(1688-1766)—son of James II
Steuart.—364
Stieler, A dolf (1775-1836)- T
German cartographer.—269
Stofflet, Jean (1751-1796)-an Talandier, Pierre Theodore Al
organiser of the royalist mu fred (1822-1890)—French pet
tiny in Van dee during the ty-bourgeois democrat, journa
French Revolution, execut- list, member of General Coun-
ed.—207 c il o f I n t e r n a t io n a l
Strabo (c. 63 B.C.-c. 20 (1864).—4 0 3 ,4 0 6 ,4 0 9
A.D.)—Greek geographer and Talbot, John (c. 1388-1453)-
historian.—290 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.—
Strafford—see Wentworth, Tho 321
mas Ta n d y , J a m e s Napper
Strongbow—see Clare, Richard (1740-1803)—a founder of the
Stuarts—dynasty of kings who United Irishmen society.—179,
ruled Scotland from 1371 and 2 0 5 ,2 1 0 ,2 3 6 ,2 4 6
E n g la n d ( 1 6 0 3 - 4 9 , Taylor, Alfred—British worker,
1660-1714)-138 member of General Council of
Sugden, Edward Burtenshaw, International (1871-72) and
B a ro n S t. L e o n a r d s B ritish Federal Council
(1781-1875)—British lawyer (1872).—524
and Tory statesman.—78 Terbert, Michael—Irish Fenian,
Sullivan—owner of the news sentenced to seven years penal
NAME INDEX 657
servitude in 1866; died in Ireland (1467).-322-23
prison in 1870.-258-61 T o d d , J a m es H en thorn
Therry, Rodger (1800-1874)— (1 805-1869)—Irish scholar,
English lawyer and colonial philologist.—286
official, served in New South Todd, Jones—took part in the
Wales (Australia) from 1829 Irish national liberation move
to 1859.-480 ment in the late 18th cen
T h o m , A l e x a n d e r (1801- tury .—21 1
1879)—Irish publish erj- Tone, Petered. 1805)—father of
281 Theobald Wolfe Tone.—175
Thomond, Conor O'Brien, Earl T o n e , T h e o b a l d Wolfe
of (c. 1534-1581)—Irish chief (1763-1798)—prominent Irish
tain, organised conspiracy bourgeois revolutionary de
against English governor of mocrat, founder and leader of
Connaught.—333 the United Irishmen, an orga
Thomond, Donough O'Brien, niser of 1798 uprising.—136,
Earl of (d. 1553)—Irish chief 141, 175, 195, 209, 211, 213,
tain, took part in feudal 215-17, 247, 249, 389
dissent.—331 Townshend, George, Marquis of
Thorgils (d. c. 844)—Norse Vik- (1724-1807)—Lord Lieutenant
ing.—296-97,307 of Ireland (17 67-72).-191,
T h o r n e , W illiam Jam es 206
(1857-1946)—participant in Townshend, William—member of
British working-class move General Council of Interna
ment, member of Social De tional (1869-72), participant
mocratic Federation, Secre in British socialist movement
tary of National Union of in the 1880s.- 524, 526
Gasworkers and General La- Trench, William Stewart
b o u r e r s , M .P . fr o m (1808-1872)—Irish official,
1906.-471,533-34 managed estates of English
Thurloe, John (1616-1668)- landowners, author of a book
British Secretary of State on Ireland.—386
during Cromwell’s protecto T r o y , J o h n Thomas
rate.—379 (1739-1823)-Catholic bishop
T i c h b u r n e , H e n r y (c. of Dublin; supported the
1581-1667)—English governor Anglo-Irish Union.—227
of Drogheda during 1641 Turgesius—see Thorgils
uprising.—350 Turlough—see O'Brien, Turlough
Tierney , George Tussy—see Marx, Eleanor
(1761-1830)—Member of Par-
lia m e n t in E n g la n d
(1796-1830), member of the U
Privy Council; opposed the
Anglo-Irish Union.—230 Ufford, Ralph (d. 1346)—Lord
Tigernach, O'Brien, Earl of (d. J u s t i c e o f I r e la n d
1088)—Irish abbot and chro (1343-46).—320
nicler.—284, 309 Ufford, Robert (d. 1298)—Lord
Tiptoft, John, Earl of Worcester, J u s t i c e o f I r e la n d
(d. 1470)—Lord Lieutenant of (1276-81).—315
658 NAME INDEX
Underwood, Thomas Nelson— and Political.—271-7 3, 276,
Irish public figure, defender of 278,280-82, 292, 362, 389,
imprisoned Fenians.—504 392
Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini) Wa k I e y , Thomas
(1 568-1 6 44) —Pope from (17 95-1 862)—English phy
1623.-368 sician and politician, bourgeois
Radical.—55
Walsh, David—member of the
V Irish Parliament (1782).—186
Wal sh, J ohn Benn
Vaillant, Edouard (1 7 9 8 -1 881)-British Tory
(1840-1915)—French socialist, politician, M.P|j|jl08
Blanquist, member of Paris W a r b e c k, Perkin
Commune and of General (14 7 4 -1 4 9 9 )—pretender to
C ouncil of International English throne, posed as son
(1871-72).—524, 526 of Edward IV.—324-25
Victoria (1819-1901)—Queen of Washington, George
Great Britain and Ireland (1732-1799)—first President
(1837-1901).—108, 474, 504 of the U.S.A. (1789-97).—172
Viereck, Louis (1851-1921)—a W aterlow , Sydney Hudley
leader of Right wing of So (1822-1906)—British Liberal
cial-Democratic Party of Ger politician.—402
many, emigrated to U.S.A. in W atson-W entworth, Charles,
1896 and left socialist move M arquis o f Rockingham
ment.—467 (1730-1782)—Member of Par
Virgilius (d. 785)—Irish missio liament in England, Whig,
nary, bishop of Salzburg.—294 Chancellor in the Coalition
Vogt, August (c. 1830-c. G overnm ent (1782).—183,
1883)—participant in German 1 89 ,238,240
and American working-class Weldon, James (d. 1795)—Irish
movement, socialist, member soldier, member of a secret
of Communist League and of organisation of Defenders in
First International; emigrated Dublin.—215
to U.S.A. in 1867, where was Wellington, Arthur Wellesley,
an organiser of sections of Duke of (1769-1852)—British
International Working Men’s general and statesman, Tory,
Association; supporter of Prime Minister (1828-30).-80
Marx and Engels .-^‘4 06 Wentworth, Thomas, Earl of
Strafford (1593-1641)—British
statesman,, inspirer of policy
W of absolutism, Lord Deputy of
Ireland (1632-40)^343-45,
Waddington, //.—British Home 349, 363, 376-77
Office official.—483 Weston, John—participant in
Wakefield, Edwar d British working-class move
(1 7 74-1854)—English bour ment, follower of Owen, mem
geois statistician and agro ber of General Council of
nomist, author of the book An International (1864-72), an
Account o f Ireland, Statistical organiser of Land and Labour
NAME INDEX 659
League.—129, 154, 156, 390, Polish national uprising of
392, 485, 488, 495, 5 24 ,5 26 1863-64, general of Paris Com
W h i t e s i d e , James mune, member of General
(1 804-1876)—Irish lawyer, Council of International, Cor
Tory M.P., Attorney-General responding Secretary for Po
for Ireland (1858-59 and land (1871-72).-524
1866).—97
Wilkinson—owner of St. Geor
ge’s Hall. London.—527
William I (William the Con- r y
queror) (1027-1087)—King Yarrow, F ./.—British worker,
of England (1066-1087).® cabinet-maker; trade-unionist,
367 member of General Council of
William III—see William III o f International (1866-68 and
Orange 1872).—524, 526
William III o f Orange (1650- Y e l v e r t o n , Barry
1702)—Stadtholder of Nether (17 3 6-1 805)—Irish lawyer,
lands (1672-1702), King of from 1774 member of the
England (1689-1702).-136, Irish Parliament, Attorney -
138-39,150,381,383 General of Ireland.—192
William IV (1765-1837)-K ing York—see Richard, Duke of
of Great Britain and Ireland York
(1830-37).—82, 233 York, duke of—see James II
Wilson, James (1805-1860)— York, Frederick Augustus, Duke
British economist and poli of (1763-1827)—second son of
tician, Free Trader, founder the English King George III,
and editor of Economist, Fi f i e l d m a r s h a l fr o m
nancial Secretary to Treasury 1 7 9 5.-20 6,2 13
in 1853-58^—73 Young, Arthur (1741-1820)—
W i l t o n , A r t h u r Grey English agronomist and bour
(1536-1593)—Lord Deputy of geois economist.--269-71,
Ireland (1580-82).-334 273, 277,392
Wogan, John( d. 1321)—Lord Y o u n g , George
J u s t i c e o f I r e la n d (1731-1812)—member of Par
(1295-1312).—316 liament in England, Vice-Trea-
W o I s e y , T h o m a s (c . surer of Ireland (1782).—189,
1475-1530)—English prelate 240
and statesman.—326, 361
Wood w ard , Richard Z
(1726-1794)—English bishop;
wrote books and pamphlets Z a b i c k i , A n t o n i (c .
defending the rights of the 1810-1871)—prominent figure
Irish poor and the Irish in Polish national liberation
Church 204 movement, member of Ge
Worcester—see Tiptoft neral Council of International
Wr o b l e w s k i , Wa I e r y (1 8 6 6 -7 1 ), Corresponding
(1836-1908)—Polish revolutio S e c r e ta r y for Poland
nary democrat, a leader of (1866-71).—129
SUBJECT INDEX
A 205, 209, 211, 246

Catholic Emancipation—80, 85,
Agrarian history of Ireland—444 134, 141, 171, 189, 195, 208,
Agrarian revolution in Ire 211, 246, 451,
la n d - 86, 109-18, 120-21, social significance of—176-77
125-26, 143-46, 149, 151-52, —concessions to the movement
157-58, 282 for Catholic Emancipation (at
Agricultural competition—434 the close of the 18th
—effect for small peasants—434 cent.)—212, 235,239
Agricultural labourers in Ire- —Catholic Emancipation Bill
land—49-50, 66 , 73, 118-22, rejected at the close of the
3 9 8 ,4 1 0 ,4 1 3 , 442,471 18th c en t.-216
Agriculture in Ireland—49, —Penal Codes against Catho-
109-15, 151-52 lics—140, 170, 171, 176-77,
Ancient Order of Foresters—165 204, 212
Anglo-Irish Parliament—1 39-41, See also Catholic Committee,
150, 341, 343-44, 346, 372 Whig Club
Chartists
—and Irish question—45,
B 59-60, 397
Christianity in Ireland—293-94
Battle of Clontarf—298-301, 308 Clans in Ireland 342 357, 451,
Boycott—451 457-58
Brehon Laws—340, 392 Clearing of estates in Ire
land-63, 66 , 81, 94, 98, 133,
145, 152, 154, 158, 384,413,
C 447, 453
Communal ownership of land-
Castle Chamber—377 63, 393, 398, 458-59
Catholic clergy in Ireland—45, Community in Ireland—431-32
86 , 134, 136, 151, 156, 225, Commutation Bill of 1838—51
227-28, 249, 350, 520 Conventions of 18th cent.—1782
Catholic Committee—174, 195, -18 1-8 2,2 37
SUBJECT INDEX 661
-1 7 8 3 -1 7 4 , 192-94 —in 16th-17th cent.—137-39,
-1 7 9 3 -1 7 6 ,2 1 1 150, 338-39, 346, 352,
Corn-acre system—132, 146 353-55, 372, 382
Corn Laws—91, 143, 151 —instigation of strife between
-repeal o f-1 0 5 , 133, 144 Irish Protestants and Catho-
Court of High Commission—377 lics-211, 213-14
Court of Wards—376 —proclamation of Protestan
Crimes in Ireland—102-04 tism Irish state religion—235
Crim inal Justice Act of —trade legislation for Ire
1855-135 land-169-70, 177
Cromwellian colonisation of Irel- —laws against bards and strol
a n d -1 37-38, 150, 347-48, ling singers—360
363, 378-79, 387, 395, 398, —in 18th-19th cent.—139-49,
443-44 157-58, 180, 202, 204,
2 1 2 -1 3 , 216-17, 220-22,
223-24, 413, 444-45
D English Established Church—51,
90, 160
Domestic industry—118 English landed system—442-43
English Penal Code for Ireland-
496
E English Reformation in Ire
land—378
Economy of Ireland—115-16 English wars of conquest—94,
Emigration—54, 64-68, 76, 86, 137-38,263-64,310-31
94, 105, 109, 117, 123-26, English working-class movement
131, 144-45, 147, 171, 254, —and Irish question—153-55,
364, 384, 430, 453, 492 158, 160, 169, 254-55, 262,
E ncum bered E states Act 387, 394-95, 397, 402-04,
(1849)—77-79, 86, 87, 144, 406-09, 417-20, 424, 426, 460
158, 413
Encumbered Estates Commis
sion—72
Engels’s work on the book
“History of Ireland”—388-89, Famine of 1846-47—54, 86, 94,
392-93, 400-01, 405, 414-16 105, 117-18, 133, 143-44,
England 151, 157, 273, 277,430
—metropolis of landlordism Farmers—66, 117-18, 127, 131,
and European capitalism—252- 176-77, 235, 410, 433-34,
5 3 ,4 0 4 ,4 0 8 442-43
English bourgeois writings on Fenian amnesty movement—
Irish history—304, 386, 388, 162-66, 187, 388, 404-06,
400,416 409, 423-25, 440, 477-83,
English bourgeoisie—254 488, 496-514
—policy in Ireland—406-07 F enians, Fenianism—128-29,
English colonial policy—53, 71, 136, 149, 155-57, 163, 399,
96, 98, 99, 123, 133, 136, 452
141, 153, 165, 169, 259-60, —Clerkenwell terrorist a ct-
283,306,394-95,451 159, 515
662 SUBJECT INDEX
—rebellion of—167, 428 (before 12th cent.)—283-302,
-trials of-128-30, 153-56 306-10
France —after 12 th cent.—71, 86,
''—attempts to invade Ireland 93-95, 133-34, 137-52, 400,
(the 1780s)-173, 216, 223, 437-39
247, 249 —confiscation of land by Eng
—General Hoche’s expedition lish conquerors—169, 233-34,
to Ireland—216, 247 358,362-63,368-70
Freeholders—140, 205, 226, 413 —in 16th cent.—219, 248
Free Traders—73, 74 —in 18th cent.—169, 172,
187-88, 243
—peasant movement against
G the tithe-195, 202, 204,
Gens in Ireland—456-59 243-44
Gladstone’s Land Bills —movement for free trade-
- o f 1870-260-61, 401-02, 172, 177, 179,235-36
511-12 —Irish judges—180, 206,
- o f 1881-447, 450, 453 224-25, 237
Ground rent—73, 127, 132, 469 —Irish Church—359
—and English language-li
365-66
H —and the French Revolu
tion -198, 202,244
Home Rule, Home Rulers—428, —and war of American colo
4 48,451,467-68, 473 nies for independence—171
—700 years of struggle for
independence—3 6 5
I Irish aristocracy (nobility)—
174-76,189,211
International in Ireland—415, Irish bourgeoisie—202, 397-98,
417-21, 523, 526-31 451-54
International Working Men’s As Irish Coercion Bills
sociation -in 1836-89
—attitude to Irish question- -P eel’s Bill-91
153, 166-68, 253, 255, 408 -in 1848-55-57
—debate on Irish question in - in 1870-262, 510-11, 517
1867-156-57,485-89 - in 1881-446-47,450
—debate on Irish question in —Irish Arms Bill of 1886—466
1869-161,390-93,396-98 Irish Confederation (1847)—61
—debate on Irish question in Irish deputies in Parliament
1872-418-19,526-31 (Irish Brigade)—55-57, 69, 79,
—and movement for amnesty 82-88, 131-32
o f Irish prisoners—255, 404, Irish I n d u s t r y ||ll 8, 139,
505 141-42, 151-52, 158, 170,
Ireland 177
—English colony—51-53, 93, Irish insuri cctions
96, 133, 387, 418-20, 461- —of cians in 1315-18—234,
62 317-18
Va^before English conquest —of clans led by Shane O’Neill
SUBJECT INDEX 663
(1559-67)—332 K
—rising in South Ireland led by
Desmond (1569-83)—333-34 Kilkenny Statute (1366)—366,
—rebellion led by Tyrone and 438
Tyrconnel (1594-1603)—335- L
38,373
—uprising led by Cahir
O’Dogherty—340 Land and Labour League—253,
-revolt in 1641-52-138, 234, 490,494
346-56, 379, 443-44 Land League (Irish National
revolt in 1688-91—138 Land League)^-435, 447, 451,
—rebellion in 1798—136, 141, 453
167 Landlord and Tenant Bill—
—insurrection in 1848—86 77-79, 87
—Fenian rebellion of t867— Landlordism, landlords—63, 70,
428 72-75, 78, 94-95, 105, 121-22,
Irish Jacobins—210, 213 133, 160, 253-54, 306, 384,
Irish Land Question—442-43 406, 410, 433-34, 442-43,
Irish literature—303 4 4 9 ,4 6 8 ,4 9 2 ,5 1 0 ,5 1 6
—folklore—383-84 —absentee lords—139, 145,
Irish nation—304, 386-87, 170,172, 178-79, 360. 363-64
396-97,419 —incomes—111, 114, 121
Irish Parliament—137, 169-70, Land question in Ireland as form
174, 177-78, 180, 182-86, of social question—407
1 8 8 -8 9 , 200-02, 205-08, Leasing Powers Bill—69-70,
210-12, 214-16, 225, 227-28, 77-79
235-43, 249, 316, 320, Lichfield-House Contract—83,
331-32, 341, 343, 345-46, 8 4 ,9 0 ,1 4 3
362, 364, 372, 377 Long Parliament
Irish peasants—49, 50, 174, 410, —Irish policy—130, 346, 444
451,458
Irish question—1S0-52, 160, M
164, 169, 251, 394, 397-98,
416, 442-43, 449-50 Medieval English colony in Ire
—international significance— land (Pale)—137, 313, 321,
408-09 341, 350-51, 373, 387,400
—importance for England—
252-55, 447
Irish Tenancy Rights Bill—127 N
Irish tricolour—468 National rejuvenation in Ireland
Irish working class—44, 118, 402
—Irish workers in England- at the end of 18th cent.-rl58,
254, 407, 417, 419, 424-25, 398
522-23 National schools in Ireland—
445-46
Natural conditions of Ire
J land—263-83, 356
N o r se in va sion s—29 6-9 8 ,
Jury—496 306-08, 360, 400
664 SUBJECT INDEX
O 246, 386, 451
Orangeism—9 7-101 “Right Boys” (society)—203,
243
Roman Catholic Relief Bill—140
P S
Pale, th e-137, 360-61 Secret societies in Ireland—99
Peasants and peasant question— Senchus M or-287-88, 405
463-64 Society of Defenders—99, 215
Peasants’ movements and revolts Society of Peel-o’-Day boys—99
in Ireland—306, 451, 515 Statute of George 1—170, 185,
Phoenix Club—99 1 8 6 ,2 3 5 ,2 3 7 ,2 3 9
Police terrorism in Ireland—421, Statute of George IIlPll90
435,523
Political amnesty in Ireland- T
162, 253, 255, 385,409
Population of Ireland—51-52, Tenants’ Improvement Compen
68 , 105-06, 109-10, 115-17,
142, 290-93, 301-02 sation Bill—77-79, 87
^-increase in 1831-46—143 Tenants in Ireland—49, 69-75,
—decrease—115, 131, 146-47, 1 74 ,4 1 0 ,4 1 3 ,4 6 9
384, 492 Terrorist acts—52
Potato blight of 1845-46—105, -in 1880s—453
143, 151,430 “Threshers”, the—231
Poynings’s Act—169-70, 182, Trade-170, 177, 386
237, 325, 353-54 Treaty of Limerick (1691)
Proletarian revolution in Eng —breach of—363
land Treaty of Methuen (1703)—181
—prerequisites—252-53, 407-
OS U
R Ulster-237, 247, 340, 369,
375 ,3 93 ,44 3
Relationship of landlord and Union of Gasworkers and Ge
tenant in Ireland—49-51, neral Labourers—470, 533
69-71, 77, 87, 127, 142, 151, Union of 1 801-43, 135, 141,
413, 431, 433-34, 442, 151, 158, 170, 174, 183,
447-48, 451, 453, 458, 516 192, 224-30, 232, 249-50,
R elative surplus-population— 370, 394, 398, 451, 454
117,121-23,132 United Irishmen (society)
Remonstrance of Trim—353 —foundation of—175-76, 194,
Repealers’ movement—53, 58, 208, 242, 247
143, —character of movement and
—O’Connell’s policy—58, 59, its aims—208, 209, 213, 214,
82-83, 91-92, 134, 397, 428, 217-21, 246
451,454 —uprising of 1798—218-20,
Ribbonism, Ribbonists—99-100, 248-49
SUBJECT INDEX 665
—The Northern Star as its organ W
-2 0 8 , 210
Usurers—413 Wages—148, 410
Wars of Roses—360-61
Whig C lub-175. 195, 205, 209,
211, 246
V Whigs—73, 82-83, 89-92, 403,
447
Volunteers (character of move r
m en t, its aims)—172-81,
184-85, 189-95, 209, 212-13, Y
235-36
See also Conventions Yeomen—176
Progress Publishers put out recently
MARX K., ENGELS F. The Socialist Revolution
(Collection)
This book contains a selection of articles by Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels as well as individual
chapters from their books, in which they examine
the problems involved in a socialist revolution. The
inevitability of the transition from the capitalist
socio-economic formation to a communist one,
the conditions and specific features of socialist
revolution as compared to bourgeois-democratic
ones, the role of the working class in the socialist
revolution, and the necessity for a dictatorship
of the proletariat are the main problems on which
the book throws light. The collection also includes
most interesting extracts from Marx’s and Engels’
correspondence which illuminate various aspects
of a socialist revolution.
The volume is provided with a foreword and
has notes, name and subject indexes.
r
ENGELS F. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of
Classical German Philosophy
In. this work published in 1888 Engels gives a
profound exposition of the main points of dialec
tical and historical materialism and formulates
the basic philosophic question of the relation of
thinking to being, of what is primary, spirit or
matter.
While examining the problem of the cognisabili-
ty of the world Engels emphasises a close connec
tion linking human thinking and cognition with
practice. He notes Feuerbach^s contribution to
the development of materialism and the critic
ism of idealism, but at the same time reveals the
limited character of his contemplative material
ism and his idealist interpretation of social develop
ment.
The book is annotated and has a name index.
Progress Publishers will soon publish
MARX K., ENGELS F. On the United States
o f America (Collection)
The collection includes articles, letters and
extracts from books by Marx and Engels written
from 1846 to 1895 and dealing with major events
in the history of the USA during that period.
A considerable number of the articles and
letters deal with the Civil War of 1861-1865
and provide a profound scientific analysis of
its problems and historical significance.
Many articles consider problems of the US
workers’ movement.
The book is annotated and has a foreword and
name and subject indexes.
f
ENGELS F. Anti-Diihring
In this book Engels criticises the idealist views
of the German Professor Duhring and sets forth
the fundamental principles of Marxist philosophy,
political economy and scientific socialism.
Chapter X of Part 2 (“From the Critical Hist
ory”) was written by Marx.
The book is annotated.

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MARX

First printing 1971

Foreword . . g ................................................. ............................ ................... 17

From [THE BLUE BOOKS—PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES OF

MARX TO ENGELS. December 14, 1867 ....................................... 159

MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLF SORGE. November 29, 1871 414

There are many reasons why the publication in one

the name given by the Umted Irishmen to their own paper in

The bourgeoisie, backed by a confused and fearful Labour

capitalist accumulation in Ireland has been very little

This is the first endeavour to make a comprehensive col­

most pertinent statements on the subject at hand and

“Britain owes her ‘brilliant’ economic development and

groups, infuriated Marx and Engels. In one of his sketches,

on the analytical method of historical materialism. Regret­

results of his investigations o f Irish history in his book, The

tion, and the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688—was for Ireland

to carry dissent into the Irish national camp, playing on

in other works of the founders of Marxism. Recurrent crop

16th- and 17th-century colonial expansion. Thus, in 1641-52

English police brutality against Irish revolutionaries. Their

the ruinous effects on the workers of the chauvinist ideology

The works included in this collection are arranged chro­

originally English, the edition here reproduced. The collec­

LETTERS FROM LONDON 1

is suddenly thrown into our civilisation. Hunger drives him to

mocracy—just as Louis Philippe in his day talked about

Published in Schweizerischer K. Marx and F. Engels,

THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING-CLASS

From the chapter THE GREAT TOWNS

Let us investigate some of the slums in their order.

when he hears that in each of these pens, containing at most

From the chapter THE AGRICULTURAL PROLETARIAT

If England illustrates the results of the system of farming

Ireland 75,000 agricultural proletarians more than in the

sub-sub-tenants, in turn, so that often ten middlemen come

“They are restless, yet indolent, clever and indiscreet, stormy,

P ublished in the book: Printed according

From [THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND-

In the meantime starving Ireland is writhing in the most

Published in the newspaper K. Marx and F. Engels,

* Headings set in square brackets have been provided by the Insti­

[THE COERCION BILL FOR IRELAND

The Irish Coercion Bill13 came into force last Wednes­

that the Coercion Bill should also be accompanied by

probably go on a tour of Ireland to revive the agitation for

Published in the newspaper K. Marx and F. Engels

FEARGUS O’CONNOR AND THE IRISH PEOPLE17

The first issue of The Northern Star1 8 for 1848 contains

He shows in its true light the conduct of John O’Connell,

As a result the victory of the English democrats, and hence

Published in Deutsche-Briisseler- K. Marx and F. Engels,

From [THE SPEECH ON THE POLISH QUESTION,

The Cracow revolution has given a glorious example to

Published in the collection K. Marx and F, Engels,

From COLOGNE IN DANGER2 4

Cologne, June 10. The lovely holiday of Whitsuntide had

Published in the K. Marx and F. Engels,

From ELECTIONS—FINANCIAL CLOUDS* i

This is the first endeavour to make a comprehensive col

on the analytical method of historical materialism. Regret

The works included in this collection are arranged chro

originally English, the edition here reproduced. The collec

* Headings set in square brackets have been provided by the Insti

The Irish Coercion Bill13 came into force last Wednes

“Nine-tenths,” remarks the Office, “of the emigrants from Liver

Let us now look at his exertions for Catholic Emancipa

Being himself one of the great Irish proprietors, he want

“When I was Chief Secretary of Ireland, a murder was commit

into criminal legislation, has created more crimes than for

This time it is the ladies from New Orleans, yellow beau