The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1888-04-05
welsh Conquest Of ireland.
BY CHARLES DE KAY.

In Wales minstrelsy appears to
| have been coeval with the nation, but
that it needed reforming is seen in
Caradoc's history when it treats OF
| Gryffith ap Conan, Of North Wales,
who was one of the greatest princes
Of the time just preceding that when
Wales oyerfnwed into Ireland
| Griffith was Irish on his mothers SIDE
He reformed the great disorders of
the Welsh minstrels, which were
then grown to abuse. Of these there
| were three sorts in Wales The first
were called Beirdd, who composed
| several songs and odes of various
| measures, wherein the poets skill was
| not only required, but also natural
| endowment or a vein which the
Latins term furor poeticus. These
likewise kept the records of all
gentlemen's arms and pedigrees, and
| were principally esteemed among all
the degrees of Welsh poets. The
| next were such as played upon
| musical instruments, chiefly the harp
and the crowd; which music Gryffith
ap Conan first brought over into
Wales, who, being born in Ireland
| descended by his mothers side OF
Irish parents, brought with him from
thence several skilful musicians, who
invented almost all the instruments
that were afterwards played upon in
Wales. The last sort were called
| Atcaneid, whose business it was to
sing to the instruments played upon
| bv another" Here is an admission
in regard to music and musical tools
the pride of the Welsh, made, not by
one, but by several successive Welsh
editors of Caradoc's history! Two of
these three classes of literary men in
Wales were mentioned by Edmund
Spenser in the quotation given above.
Gryfith ap Conan died in 1875; four
| centuries later Spenser finds much the
same system extant in Ireland, whence
the Welsh took it again at the revival
of the minstrel's art by Gryfhth ap
Conan.
But to return to Edmund Spenser
and the Ireland Of Queen Elizabeth.
Four centuries had, indeed, made over
great number Of Norman w elsh
and Flemish-Welsh families into
ardent Irishmen, but it was not these
with whom the poet, representing the
feared and detested new swarm of
land-grabbers, came in contact. His
sources of information must have
been such families of Norman W Welsh
descent as held themselves superior
not only to the "meere Irishe,' but
to later-coming "Saxons," whom they
consider to have no right Of conquest
to the soil. By their Welsh and
Irish blood they were hereditary
enemies Of Englishmen; through
their Norman admixture they felt all
the pride Of the conquerors at Hast
ing. The Welsh element would ac-
count for Spenser's derivations of
words from the Old British. He
seems to have looked at everything
through Welsh eyes, though his ad-
vice as to the paciication of Ireland
would have won the approval Of Will
liam the Conqueror Doubtless his
sketch Of the way to garrison Ireland
only repeated the policy of the Nor
mans when dealing with England,
which proved in the long run SO very
successful. He pointed out the Irish
juries made mo more scruple to pass
agaynst an Englishman and the
Queene, though it be to strayne theyr
othes, then to drinke mike unstrayn-
ed" "a simile very appropriate to
Ireland, famed more for cattle than
any other product-and advocated
a thorough colonization of Ireland
with settlers from Great Britain.
Spenser also limited parallel between
Ireland in his day and England under
the Saxon Heptarchy, and considered
that the common people of Ireland
should be divorced from their leaders
by dividing them into shires, hundreds,
wapentakes, and tithes, which would
encourage the individual to feel him
self Independent of his chief except
in war time. Although he did not
xpress himself in our terms, Spenser
was well aware Of the clan system and
its disadvantages, he wanted the folk
basis applied to Ireland. He touched
on this when Iren@us says to
Eudovus:
"All the Irish almost boast them
selves to be gentellmen, noe less then
the Welsh: for yf he can derive him
selfe from the heade of septe, as
most of them can land they are expert
by their Bardes), then he holdeth
himselfe a gentellman, and thereupon
scorneth eftsoones woorke. or use any
handye labour, which he sayeth is the
life of peasaunte or churle; but
hencefoorth becometh either an horse
boy, or a stokaghe to some Kearne,
enuring himself to his weapon and to
his gentell trade of stealing"
Here we find one root of the aristo-
cratic disease among the Irish, which
seems to be dying slowly out under
the pressure of the democratic neces-