THE

NATIVE IRISH,

AND THEIR DESCENDANTS.

to the Right Honouble
the Viscount Palmerston

CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON.

THE THIRD EDITION, IMPROVED.

It is very much to be remarked, that neglects from inconsiderateness, want of attention,
not looking about us to see what we have to do, are often attended with consequences
altogether as dreadful, as any active misbehaviour from the most extravagant passion.
BUTLER.

He that voluntarily continues ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance
produces; as to him that should extinguish the tapers of a light-house might justly be
imputed the calamities of shipwreck.-But to obscure, upon motives merely political, the
light of Revelation, is a practice reserved for the reformed.
JOHNSON.

Yet that population is endowed by nature with great mental vivacity, and a remarkable
aptitude for every species of intellectual labour.
THIERRY.

LONDON:

WILLIAM PICKERING; HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO.

DUBLIN: WM. CURRY & CO.

PREFACE

TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

ABOVE thirty years ago the Author, as Secretary to the Society for the support of Gaelic Schools in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, was induced to take a special interest in the native population beyond the Grampians. Shortly after this, a Guide or Manual for the Teachers was composed by him, and then, though not speaking their language, a first elementary book for the Scholars. Both were the effect of sympathy for their condition. The latter, or "the Guide to the reading of the Gaelic language,” having been submitted to the best Gaelic authority of the day, was approved, and then employed for instructing, both old and young, in the art of reading their mother tongue. This course, however, had already led to a rooted and a keener sympathy for another people, speaking, as he suspected, nearly the same language, but living on the other side of the Irish Channel. Through one half of Ireland he had travelled in the year 1809, but, like too many travellers, the condition of the aborigines scarcely if ever crossed his mind. To them in particular, a first visit was paid in 1814. He found a numerous population, possessed of genius and sensibility, constitutionally of great mental vivacity and warm affections, who, ever since the invention of printing itself, had been neglected as to all education in their native tongue. In 1815, a Memorial on their behalf was first issued, and not without effect. The history or historical sketches of this people, with regard to Literature, Education, and Oral Instruction, was printed in 1828, and soon sold off. A second and enlarged edition followed in 1830, which has