The so-called Book of Minister is a comparatively modern compilation of Irish materials, partly of the nature of Keating's History of Ireland, but more similar in character to the genealogical treatises edited by John O'Donovan for the Irish Archaeological Society about a century ago. It has long been popularly known by this name, and has often been used by pedigree-hunters; but no study of its structure and contents was possible until the manuscripts containing it had been examined and described. The present edition was undertaken by Prof. Tadhg Ó Donnchadha (i.e. Torna) nearly a decade ago.

Though Belfast's present position as a great centre of trade was won for her chiefly by the manufacture of linen and the building of ships, the foundation of her prosperity, contrary to popular belief, is to be traced to the cotton industry, which had its rise about the year 1790 and flourished till about 1830, when the linen industry which had then been gathering force in Ireland profited from a slump in the cotton industry and ousted it from its preeminence. The manufacture of cotton was begun in Leinster and Munster as early as 1750, and, before 1782, was developed in the counties of Cork, Carlow, Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Waterford. The Linen Board, strangely enough, encouraged the cotton industry by the payment of bounties that were intended solely for mixed fabrics, that is cloth made of linen warp and cotton weft. As the manufacturers used the money for the purchase of spinning jennies and carding machines, the Linen Board was, in fact, subsidising the cotton manufacture.

St. Patrick, in his account of that famous vision by which he was called back to Ireland (Confessio 23), mentions people qui erant iuxta siluam Focluti quae est prope mare occidentale. By Tírechán and the author of the Tripartite Life this locality has been identified with the ‘ wood of Fochloth (Fochlad) ’ in Connacht, a place-name commonly believed to survive in modern Foghill (Fochoill) near Killala, Tirawley, co. Mayo. This view has been taken for an established tradition until recent times. Newport White and Bury were the first to find difficulties in reconciling the silua Focluti of St. Patrick's vision with the tradition placing his Irish captivity near Slemish in the northeast. Many attempts to solve the problem have since been made.

The spread of Irish Christian influence on the continent of Europe has attracted surprisingly few Irish students. John Lanigan touched on many of its aspects with critical discernment in his Ecclesiastical history of Ireland; Fr. John Ryan devoted some of his earliest attention to it; William Reeves was alive to the importance of the subject; but, if we omit laudatory and worthless summaries by untrained enthusiasts, almost every other contribution of value was made by non-Irish writers.

The publication of the Irish pipe roll of the fourteenth year of King John calls for more than the brief notice that would normally be given to a stray historical document of similar length published unobtrusively as a supplement to an archaeological journal, for this slender volume is the most important single contribution to the history of Norman Ireland that has come to light for many a long day, and one that has been worth the great labour and care that the editors have spent upon it. Our first thought is to compare this Irish roll with the English and Norman pipe rolls of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, without which our knowledge of the history of England and Normandy would be sadly defective.

Irish transportation to the English colonies during the interregnum has often been represented as an indictment of English policy. John Lynch, the Irish historian, who was driven into exile during the protectorate, writing shortly after the restoration, deplored that Irishmen had been torn from the arms of their wives and children by ‘civic vultures’, transported, and sold as slaves in the West Indies. Among more recent writers, though Bagwell and Gardiner point out that the transported Irish became, not slaves, but indentured servants, Prendergast criticizes the ‘English slave-dealers’ and asserts that ‘Ireland must have exhibited scenes in every part like the slave hunts in Africa’.

It is seldom possible to date accurately the beginning or end of population movements. It is doubtful whether the migration of Irish harvesters to Great Britain was very extensive before the end of the eighteenth century. At the close of the century, however, conditions were such as to render the migration desirable to the English farmers, and a necessity to the Irish peasant. By 1827 so desperate was the situation of the latter that a witness could declare before a parliamentary committee on emigration, that ‘ every decrease in the number coming to England each year would add to the probability of starvation in Ireland ’. The year 1838 has been taken as the closing date of this study since it saw the introduction of the first remedial effort (the Irish poor law act).

The year 1842 was one of preparation for the revival of the movement for repeal of the act of union. O'Connell had been elected lord mayor of Dublin in November 1841, and he allowed the Repeal Association to mark time during his tenure of office. The year was not regarded as wasted, however, as his conduct as mayor tended to increase his popularity, and ensured that he would be able to commence his campaign in the following year with a more solid backing of public opinion. It was during this year also that Davis, Duffy and Dillon first came together and made their plans for launching a new nationalist newspaper. They were all members of the Repeal Association, but only one of them (Duffy) had any extensive experience of journalism. The Nation newspaper first began to appear in October 1842.

For long there has been accepted as genuine a charter, purporting to be issued by Henry III, which follows the text of his first reissue of the Great Charter in favour of his English subjects but which has been to some extent modified to adapt it to Irish conditions. This document, to which the title Magna Carta Hiberniae has been applied, has received an official cachet by its inclusion, with no mark of suspicion, in the first volume of the Early statutes of Ireland, edited by H. F. Berry. In undertaking a careful enquiry into the transmission of the text and its historical background, Dr. Dudley Edwards has performed a valuable service and, as a result, the authenticity of the supposed charter is, at least, very much open to question. He might, indeed, have gone further than he has done and have stated as a positive conclusion his tentative conjecture ‘ that Magna Carta Hiberniae is an adaptation of Henry's first charter, compiled in Ireland ’.

For the purpose of the extensive transfer of land to which the commonwealth government was committed, Benjamin Worsley, shortly after the date of his appointment in 1652 as surveyor general in Ireland, began to make a rough estimate of the land available. The slowness and inaccuracy of this survey caused a clamour among the soldiers and the adventurers. Large arrears of pay were due to the former, while many of the latter had, as early as 1642, advanced considerable sums of money for the purposes of the war in Ireland. Both classes wanted their estates with as little delay as possible. William Petty, then recently appointed as physician general to the forces in Ireland, became the severest critic of Worsley's proceedings. The upshot of the agitation was that the plan of survey was modified and Petty appointed on 11 December 1654 to map the forfeited lands set apart for the soldiers in 22 counties.

Writers of Irish history who treat in any detail of O'Doherty's rebellion, take, almost without exception, the view that the charge of complicity therein preferred by the authorities against Sir Niall Garbh O'Donnell was well-founded. D'Alton states that Niall Garbh was in collusion with O'Doherty; Bagwell that he was a fellow-conspirator. Lord Ernest Hamilton arrives at the conclusion that no doubts can remain of his guilt. Meehan asserts that Niall Garbh advised O'Doherty to march on Derry and massacre the English settlers in the market-square; and Dunlop writes that the attorney general had little difficulty in accumulating proof of his correspondence with O'Doherty. Let the matter be examined.

The history of eighteenth-century Ireland prior to the Volunteer movement is remarkably uneventful, but two episodes ruffled its political calm. They were the Wood's halfpence dispute of 1723–5, and the conflict between the Irish administration and parliament, 1753–6.

It was the extent and vehemence of the opposition experienced by the administration in 1723–5 that led to the evolution of the undertakers—powerful members of parliament who undertook to conduct government business through the house of commons in return for a share in the disposal of patronage.

Louis Gougaud was born in 1877 at Malestroit, Morbihan, and, to his death, was faithfully attached to Brittany, exploring its ecclesiastical history, and regularly contributing to the Chronique d'histoire, de géographie et de littérature de la Bretagne. Educated at St. Vincent's College, he entered the university of Rennes as a student of law. From these early studies dates his interest in legal problems as displayed in his work on the history of matrimonial law. At the same time, he was attracted to artistic problems: his earliest publications (1900–6) appeared in literary periodicals.