In adversis etiam fida. то THE DESCENDANTS OF THE ANCIENT NATIVE IRISH, AND TO ALL WHO BEFRIEND THEM, THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. SCATTERED throughout several countries on the western shores of Europe, there are to be found various confessedly ancient tribes of our fellow-men, between which there still exists a marked affinity in point of language. They are generally supposed to be the earliest waves of that tide of population which proceeded westward in Europe, till stopped in their progress by the sea, and most of them occupy at this moment nearly the same ground which they did in the days of Cæsar. If the sources of some of those rivers with which we have been long acquainted, have hitherto baffled all the enterprise of our travellers, so has the origin of those primitive races, the research of the learned. Their dialects being the children of one common Parent, and this unquestionably a very ancient tongue, these various tribes of course, belong to a people correspondingly ancient ; but the neglect of their dialects has, in its measure, contributed to a discordance of sentiment with regard to the people, since, in the absence or deficiency of other data, languages may so far be regarded as the chronology of nations. But whatever may be the opinion formed as to their descent, the treatment of these distinct races is a question of far greater importance than that of their origin or antiquity; and it is certainly singular that every thing which has hitherto been done for them in the business of education or moral improvement has been the result not of any kind and considerate legislative interference or enactment, but of individual philanthropy and much entreaty. Prejudices of the narrowest order have been cherished for ages, particularly with regard to the language in which they have been born, and left far behind in the march of improvement, their present state has actually been ascribed, and even lately, to inaptitude for civilization, instead of its true and only cause,—the want of a vernacular literature, and of intelligent discourse with them in their own tongue. The language spoken in the vicinity of each of these tribes is of course that of the reigning power, and for ages most of them have been told that their only chance for elevation lay through that medium, though they did not understand it, nor do they understand it now. These remarks apply in all their force, not only to the Basque language spoken both in Spain and France, and of which there are at this moment several dialects, and the Bas Bretagne spoken by a large population in Brittany, Belle Isle, and on the banks of the Loire running in towards the centre of France, but they apply to four dialects of the same parent spoken within the United Kingdom, including at least four millions of British subjects. Individual benevolence and earnest pleading have at last achieved for Wales, and in part for the Highlands and the Isle of Man, what ought to have been effected in ages long before the present generation. Indeed Wales now stands pre-eminent among these Celtic tribes for the advantages which she enjoys; but in Ireland, where at least three millions converse in Irish daily, to say nothing at present respecting oral instruction, the business of education in the vernacular tongue is only just begun. It is not that there have been no resolutions passed by the legislature in former ages, after deliberate and frequent discussion, terminating uniformly in one opinion,-the necessity for employing the lan |