Daily American organ. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1856, 1855-10-17

To tho Editor Of the Apssrican Orga.
DEAN SIH The earliest periods of Irish history
are fearfully ds6gured by the sanguinsr brutality
which has ever. through all ages, and under all
circumstances been the prominent feature Of the
character of the largest proportion Of its Celtic
peopleI - No man, says Sir John Davis, the his
toras, could enjoy his life, wife, lands, or goods
| in safety, il mightier man than himsef had an
appetite for them, and the weak had no remedy
| against the stronger s+ Indeed, every
Irish historian, however partial TO his native land,
admits that, previous to the arrival of Strongbow,
Ireland waslan aceldama-a field of blood re
| Pope Alexander III, In 1l72, in his bull con-
firming the grant, by Pope Adrian Nv, Of the lord
ship of Ireland to Henry H. says it Is .to the end
that the filthy practices Of that land may be sbol
ished and the barbarous nation which is called by
the Christian name, may, through your [Henry'sl
clemency, attain to some decency Of manners !"
But the guilty "barbarous nation" obstinatey per-
sisted In its "flthy practices - the bloody
hand" still maintained its murderous and desolat-
ing rule Divided into great number Of in
dependent septs or clans, semi-civlized and war
like, obeyng and ruled by their peculiar chieftains
of the same halfbarbarous and sanguinary type;
furious and mortal enemies through their intestine
fneds Of most ancient origin, sept warning upon
sept and frequently sections Of the same sept war
ring upon other sections--now headed by father
against son, son against father, and now by kind
red of every degree Of consequently, one against
the other In furious and deadly contest for the
craftsmanship of the septt Ireland fatally contin-
ned truly fearful aceldama displaying in horrible
detail all the barbarous and sangunary features Of
the early Indian wars Of North Americar-massacre
and rapine amid plumber and confagrationi Her
O'Donnells and O'Neills, her MacCartys and Ma
guires, her Desnonds and Buffers, are 80 many
King Phillips" and Powhatans, so many Brandts
and Pontiacsl
Thus ireland, through the intestine feuds Of its
native chiefs, ever maintained its sangunary char
acter from and previous to its invasion by the Eng
sh, in the reign of Henry II, to the reign of Hem
ryVIII, when, near the middle Of the sixteenth
fury, the revolt Of the latter monarch from the
power Of Rome in stimulating the progress Of the
Reformation through his dominions, furnished
new cause Of violence and massacre to the g. wild
Irish" who had now become most abject slaves of
Romish bigotry. Their hatred Of one another and
of the English, intense and deadly AZ it was, was
exceeded, and nearly supplanted by their intenser
hatred of Professionalism! Nevertheless, the old
feuds of the native chiefs continued. E4 .
Sir Henry Sydney, Lord Deputy of ireland, has
transmitted an awful picture of the horrors and
desoation of ireland in the sixteenth century, in
the description of his expedition in 1857 into
Munster, to put an end, as far as lay in his pow
er, to the disorders by which that province was
desolated," produced by foray Of the Desmond
into the territory of the Earl Of Ormond and other
of his personal enemies, Sir Henry had been in
the North prosecuting similar expedition against
the ONeill, Who with his allies, had made terri
BILE Eruption into the territories of the cheftains
Of Ulster-murdering, plundering, burning The
O'Donne had made like Eruption into the coun-
try of ONeill perpetrating the same atrocities
Sir Henry had not entirely succeeded in sup
pressing the terrible marandng in the North, when
he was called to the South by the massacres and
plunderings Of the Desmond in Munster After
describing the utter desolation and waste of most
of the districts through which he passed, speaking
Of his progress through Desmond and Thomond,
he says:
"For SO much as saw Of it, having travelled
from Youghall to Cork from Cork to Kinsale, and
from thence TO the uttermost bounds of It towards
Limerick, like as never was in more pleasant
country in all my life, so never saw O more waste
and desolate land no, not in the confines of other
countries where actual war hath continually been
kept by the greatest princes of Christendom and
there heard / such lamentable cries and doleful
complaints made by that small remain Of poor peo-
pie which yet are left, who hardly escaping the
fury Of the sword and fire of their outrageous neigh
bors or the famine with the same, which their ex-
torcious lords have driven them unto, either by
taking their goods from Them or by spending the
same by their extort taking of coyne and livery,
make demonstration of the miserable estate Of
that country. Besides this, such horrible and la
mentable spectacles there are to behold, as the
burning of villages, the ruin of churches, the vast
ing of such as have been good towns and castles,
yea, the view of the bones and SOULS of the dead
subjects, who, partly by murder, partly by famine,
havs died in the fields, as in troth hardly any
Christian with dry eyes could behold. Not long
before my arrival there, It was credibly reported
that principal servant of the Earl of Desmond,
after that he had urntsundry villages and destroy
ed great piece Of a country, there were certain
poor women sought TO have been reserved; but
too late, yet soon after the horrible fact com
mitted their children were felt and to stir
in the bodies Of their dead mothers. And yet did
the same earl lodge and banquet In the house of
the same murderer his servant after the fact COM
mitted Surely there was never people that lived
In more misery than they do, nor, as it should
seem, of worse minds. For matrimony amongst
them Is no more regarded in effect than conjunc-
ton between unreasonable beasts. Perjury, rob
berry, and murder, counted allowable. Finally, /
cannot find that they make any conscience of sin,
and, doubtless, doubt whether they christen their
children or no, for neither find place where it
should be done, nor any person able TO instruct
them in the rules Of Christian or, If they were
taught, see no grace In them to follow Il and
when they die, cannot see that they make any
account Of the world to comet
These were familiar scenes throughout Ireland
during the sixteenth century, and through all the
regns from the earliest periods to Charles Ieven
the gentle reign of Bloody Queen Mary" the
Catholic The reign of Charles was destined to
horrible celebrity, not merely in the sanguinary
civil wars which his tyranny excited, nor In his
personal sufferngs and felonious DEATH but in one
of the most diabolical and appalling massacres
which ever blackened the foulest pages Of human
hstory--the Wholesale butchery Of the Protestants
of Ireland in l641; can event" says Hume, "mem-
orable In the annals Of human kind, and worthy
to be held in perpetual detestation and abhor-
rencel" The conspiracy which led to this inhuman
transaction, projected by one Roger More, compre-
hended all the heads Of the native Irish and the
period of its execution was fixed in October One
of its first and principal projects was the surprise
and seizure Of Dublin and its castle, the latter Of
which contained large quantity Of arms and am
muniton Moro Malone and Macuire were nj.