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The fashion of writing down and reading off pieces, instead of reciting them from memory, only began to be general
after the arrival of the Normans. The poet Spenser remarked of the ‘songs of the Irish bards, “I have caused diverse of
them to be translated unto me, that I might understand them; and surely they savoured of sweete witt and goo
invention, but skilled not of the goodly ornaments of poetrye.” I
Between the 6th and 9th centuries Ireland became distinguished for its Christian learning. “ At this time,” writes.
Dr. Samuel Johnson, “ Irelandwas the School of the West, the quiet habitation of sanctity and literature.” It supplied
professors for the establishment of the universities of Oxford, Paris, Pavia, Cologne, and elsewhere. The school of
Lismore in its palmy days is said to have had on its roll 4,000 students at one time, one of whom was Alfred, the first
Great Anglo-Saxon. During the life of St. Fin Barre, and his successor, St. Nessan, at the beginning of the 7th century,.
the monastery and school of Cork contained over 700 priests, monks and students. Archbishop Ussher and others state‘
that St. Brendan, who died 577, publicly read lectures on the liberal sciences at Ross-Ailither, now Rosscarbery.‘
Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, has left on record that students were transported in large numbers by ships to be
educated in Ireland. Few traces of these extensive teaching institutions of the Irish monks can now be found, as,‘ with.
the exception of the small stone churches, the surrounding buildings were probably constructed of wood,-wattles, or clay.
The Danish invasion of the 9th and 10th centuries, and the singular policy which obtained for centuries after the
Anglo-Norman invasion, were only too successful in annihilating many of the ancient memorials of the country.
It seems to have been the object to consign to oblivion every literary remains of the Old Irish. Happily, however,
Irish manuscripts are still preserved in Ireland and England, and in most of the State collections of Europe. Irish type
was introduced into Ireland in 1571, but little was produced for.over 200 years. Irish type was also employed at
Louvain by the laborious and learned Franciscans as early as 1603, and there are specimens of Irish typography
produced in Rome as early as 1679.
At the coming of the Normans, one hundred years after the conquest of England, the government of Ireland
was described as in a state of “political reprobation.” For ‘centuries after, even up to the last of the Stuart kings,
except in the towns, the power of the crown was little more than nominal, leaving the country the sport, of
internecine wars and rebellions. In Elizabeth’s reign Munster was almost depopulated by a great rebellion headed by
the Anglo-Norman Earl of Desmond. The poet Spenser, writing of this period, says, “ a most populous and beautiful
country was left void of man and beast.” 7
That Southern Ireland to-day enjoys butza. mediocre measure of prosperity is mainly due to the indifference and
neglectelocal and Imperial-of :lI‘ldl.1‘$t1:lfCl5.‘ and 'flJ5‘:‘ll,“:5?‘Ct"J3=6S; and to this may be attributed the excessive emigration.
During the season fully two, thousand young men arid-';vo'men, mostly from the western and southern agricultural
districts, leave Queenstownnveekly to supply the labour markets of American cities. In the Munster counties alone,
I out of a population of I,pr5,o7l5, the‘re.wlas a decrease for the‘Iast,decade (1891-1901), of 98,565,
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