is not ended; and if the long story offers a so frequent record of
failure, it offers a continuous appeal to the highest motives and a
constant exhibition of a most pathetic patriotism linked with the
sternest courage.

Irish wars, throughout all time, have been only against one enemy,
the invader, and, ending so often in material disaster, they have
conferred always a moral gain. Their memory uplifts the Irish heart;
for no nation, no people, can reproach Ireland with having wronged
them.

When, at the dawn of the Christian era, we first hear of Ireland from
external sources, we learn of it as an island harboring free men,
whose indomitable love of freedom was hateful to the spirit of
imperial exploitation.

Agricola's advice to the empire-builders of his day was that Rome
should "war down and take possession of Ireland, so that freedom
might be put out of sight."

It was to meet this challenge of despotism that the Scotic clans of
Alba turned to their motherland for help, and the sea was "white with
the hurrying oars" of the men of Erin speeding to the call of their
Highland kinsmen, threatened with imperial servitude.

The first external record we possess thus makes it clear that when
the early Irish went forth to carry war abroad, it was not to impose
their yoke on other peoples, or to found an empire, but to battle
against the Empire of the World in the threatened cause they held so
dear at home.