D'Alton, E: History of Ireland, From the Earliest Times to t

Excerpt from History of Ireland, From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Vol. 3: 1547 to 1649

The period covered by Volume II was for Ireland a period of storm and struggle and suffering. The strife of race had become intensified and embittered by a strife of religion, for England had definitely cut herself off from Rome, and had even become one of the great champions of Protestantism, while Ireland still clung to the Catholic faith. Religious toleration had then made little progress. Neither France nor Spain was willing to tolerate any religion but Catholicism, and, in consequence, history has to condemn the horrors of the Inquisition, and the banishment of the Huguenots. Nor would England allow her subjects to be anything but Protestants. Even the non-conforming Protestants laboured under disabilities; but the Catholics, above all, were trampled on and oppressed. Their attachment to Rome was held to be inconsistent with being loyal subjects; and for such dis loyalty no punishment was too severe. Without making allow ance for difference of racial temperament, the Englishmen of that time, as previously, thought that what was good for England was also good for Ireland. They regarded Irish customs as rude, the Irish language as a barbarous tongue, and the Irishman's religion - Catholicity - as superstition and idolatry. The people who clung to these deserved little mercy, and often got neither mercy nor justice; they were deemed unworthy of getting the status of English subjects, as they were unworthy to be left in possession of their lands. And hence the Plantation of Ulster, the attempted confiscations of Strafford, the savageries of Crom well, and the horrors of the penal laws.

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