Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II Early Events Of Great Importance Ireland invaded.—Folk-lore, legend, and authentic history.— Troubles at home.—Finn MacCool.—Saint Patrick, and other Saints and Missionaries.—Art and literature.—Classes of society.—The Brehon Law.—The Danish invasion.—Malacki and Brian.—Internal strife.—Roderick O'Connor, Supreme King. 1HE account of a conversation between two Irishmen in New York, seems to have a decided moral when applied to Ireland. The elder brother, who had been in America less than one year, when asked by the younger who had just arrived from the old sod, "Pat, how do you like this country of yours?" replied, "Well, this is a fine country, and it would be a lot better but for them foreigners!" Would it? Pat forgot that the foreigners had for many years been the mainstay of his adopted land, and that his old country had done much toward making the greatest democracy of the world what it is to-day. America is a land of foreigners, invaders, immigrants; and in this respect at least strongly resembles Ireland. Foreigners have made America what it is, a nation gathered from all nations in the world; and who dare controvert that, foreigners have made Ireland whatit is. We know something of the ancient people of America, some of whose descendants are very much in evidence even in our own time; but of the ancient people of Ireland, if there were any, before the days of invasion or immigration we know nothing. We do know, however, that, from earliest accounts, Ireland has been an attractive land to many nations, and that expedition after expedition has arrived at her shores set upon no better intent than to invade, to plunder, and to conquer. Some of those early invaders and their descendants no doubt survived the oppression and tyranny of those who came ...