201,

13,

-Antrim for Down

when for where

countries for counties

-faving for fowing

Down for Antrim

268, in the notes below, in Appendix XXI, read 12 for 3,

362, line 2, read a confpiracy

368,

411,

431,

33,

country for county

13, daughters for daughter

27, put a Full Stop at Oulart

451, the note alludes to father Roche, the general, and not to Neal 486, line 1, read New for Old Rofs

539,

31, - remained for remain.

MEMOIRS

OF THE DIFFERENT

REBELLIONS IN IRELAND, &c.

INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE.

THE antiquaries of the last century contended, that the Chriftian religion was introduced into Ireland, by Roman miffionaries, in the beginning of the fifth century; but a learned writer clearly proves, that it was eftablished there at a much earlier period, and by miffionaries of the Greek church.

*

It is most certain, that the Irish clergy had no connection with, and did not fubmit to, the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, till the year 1152, when pope Eugenius fent, by cardinal Paparon, four palls to the archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, Cafhel, and Tuam, when the Romish ritual was fubftituted in the place of the Greek, which was previously used in the Irish church; an undoubted proof that it was perfectly independent of the pope till that period.

Our excellent primate Ufher proves this in a most unquestionable manner, in a learned treatife on the religion of the antient Irifh, well worth the perufal of the natives of Ireland. Archbishop † Anfelm, in VOL. I. his

B

Ledwich's Antiquities of Ireland, p. 358, et feq.

+ Anfelm, Epift. 1..3. ep. 142, 147. Ufher, Epift. Hib. p. 95. Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, complained of this practice above twenty years before. Usher, sup. p. 73

his letters to Muriardach an Irish king, complained that bishops were confecrated by bifhops alone, and often by one bifhop only, contrary to a canon of the Nicene council, which required two bifhops, at least, to attend the confecration of one; but the Irish clergy were totally ignorant of the councils of the church, and derived their knowledge of Christianity, for near eight hundred years, from no other fource but the bible, the grand charter of Chriftians. Athanafius allowed the confecration of Siderius, bifhop of Palobifca; and the church of Alexandria that of Evagrius, though performed but by one bishop. As to celibacy, we know, from Ware, that the four archbishops of Armagh who preceded Celfus, and Celfus himself, who died in 1129, were married; and, not until popery was established at Cafhel in 1172, was marriage interdicted.

In the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, a season of midnight ignorance in Europe, the Roman pontiff, who was regarded with fuperftitious reverence, claimed and gradually acquired a fuperiority, not only of fpiritual, but of temporal power, over all the potentates of Europe, who confidered his fanction as neceffary to expiate the guilt of any crime, how heinous foever, or to promote the fuccefs of any adventure.

For this reafon, Henry II. folicited pope Adrian for a bull to give him the investiture of Ireland; and, in confideration of it, agreed to grant him a tax of one penny on each house in it, called Peter Pence.

When Phocas murdered his liege fovereign Mauritius, emperor of Conftantinople, in the year 602, he obtained the pope's benediction, and by this varnished over the turpitude of that foul action; and Pepin, having depofed king Chilperic, and feized the throne of France in the year 751, prevailed on pope Zachary to abfolve the French from their allegiance to their lawful prince, whom he fhaved, and confined in a monaftery, "Tantum religio potuit fuadere malorum."

In like manner, when Ethelred, king of the Northumbrians, was affaffinated in the year 796, Eardulph, who ufurped his throne, was anointed, and went through fome pompous ceremonies at his coronation, to hallow his ufurpation with the odour of fanctity.

Rebellion, ufurpation, and murder, are crimes that require extraordinary measures to palliate them in the eyes of the people, and to procure fome veneration for the perfons who have been guilty of them.

Adrian, in his bull, empowered Henry II. " to propagate in Ireland the righteous plantation of faith, and the branch most acceptable to God;" which meant no more, than that he fhould fubject that kingdom to the dominion of the pope, which it is remarkable was the last country in Europe that fubmitted to the ambitious and rapacious defigns of his

Holiness.

At this day the Roman catholicks deprecate the grant of Ireland to a foreign and not a native prince. Mc. Geoghegan, in his hiftory of Ireland, tom. I. p. 440, exclaims thus against it: "A decree pronounced against Ireland, by which the rights of nations, and the moft facred laws are violated, under the fpecious pretext of religion, and the reformation of manners! Could one fufpect the vicar of Christ of such grofs injuftice? Could one believe him capable of iffuing a bull, by which an entire nation was overturned?" If the aboriginal Irish lament the fettlement of the English in Ireland, all its loyal inhabitants have to deplore, that they introduced popery into it, as it has been a conftant fource of difaffection, and has produced unutterable calamities in it.

Unde tanto in eis libentius plantationem fidelem, et germen gratum Deo inferimus. Usher, fup. p. 109.

"Un arret prononcé contre l'Irelande, par lequel le droit des gens, et les loix les plus facrées font violées, fous le fpecieux pretexte de religion & de reformation des mœurs. Peut on foupçonner le vicaire de Jefus Chrift d'une injuftice fi criante? Peut on le croire coupable d'avoir dicté une bulle qui a bouleversé toute uns nation Mc. Geoghegan was a Roman Catholick.

It is not the object nor the wifh of the writer of the following pages to difparage Ireland, or its inhabitants; the former, in point of foil and climate, the latter, in their intellectual and corporeal powers, being defervedly efteemed among the finest works of the creation; but to evince the truth of the maxim, that an imperium in imperio, or two feparate fovereign powers, civil and ecclefiaftical, cannot co-exist in the fame ftate, without perpetual collifion, producing difcord and rebellion; and that the only remedy for the calamities attendant on fuch a state is, either the extinction of one power, or the milder procedure of incorporating it with the other. The latter mode has been adopted in Ireland: abstrac reasoning muft approve, and experience will demonftrate, the meafure to be founded in the trueft wif dom.

Few of the writers on the Union of Ireland with England have calmly difcuffed the fubject on the grounds here ftated; if they had, those who opposed it would have received conviction, and those who fupported it, would have found invincible arguments in its favour, from the instances now adduced.

As this great political queftion is finally fettled, Why, it may be afked, bring it again before the publick? The answer is, that the publick mind isfar as yet from being reconciled to it; that a plain ftatement of facts, in an authenticated historical de-, tail of the various rebellions, and particularly of the occurrences of the laft which afflicted this kingdom, and defolated a confiderable portion of it, muft bring conviction to the most uninformed, of the inftability of their fafety or happiness, while both are fubject to the workings of bigotry, or the flagitious defigns of the rebel and the plunderer. A mariner, who has been fhipwrecked on a funken rock, does not accurately deferibe its longitude and latitude for others to run on it, but carefully to avoid it; fo the writer, in recounting the former and the late rebellion, does not wish to revive party diftinctions and animofities,