Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry

r to blacken the honour of the statesmen, the wisdom of the legislators, or the valour of the soldiers who achieved it.

One of the favourite texts of these apostles of misrule was the Irish Government in King JAMES’S time. “There’s a specimen,” they said, “of what an Irish Government would be–unruly, rash, rapacious, and bloody.” But the King, Lords, and Commons of 1689, when looked at honestly, present a sight to make us proud and hopeful for Ireland. Attached as they were to their King, their first act was for Ireland. They declared that the English Parliament had not, and never had, any right to legislate for Ireland, and that none, save the King and Parliament of Ireland, could make laws to bind Ireland.

In 1698, just nine years after, while the acts of this great Senate were fresh, Molyneux published his _case of Ireland_, that case which Swift argued, and Lucas urged, and Flood and Grattan, at the head of 70,000 Volunteers, carried, and England ratified against her will. Thus, then, the i