Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/334

After Limerick disasters at Blenheim, Ramilles, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. Browne, an Irishman, was one of the ablest generals in the Austrian service; several of the Dillons attained high rank in the French army; Maguire, Lacy, Nugent, and O'Donnell were all prominent generals in the Austrian service, while the names of many Spanish generals attest the Irish nationality of their owners. It is in the military history of Europe that we get the true history of the Irish Catholic gentry, and that we see those brilliant figures and events which are so conspicuously lacking in the history of the Irish Catholics in their own country. The Catholic gentry who remained at home became impoverished and disheartened by religious persecution. The Catholics, as a body, suffered more from the Penal Laws than from anything else. The Penal Code educated the Irish into a hatred of England and the law, robbed them of their natural leaders, denied them education, position, and fame, and tried to deny them industrial pursuits and wealth. At the same time these Laws prevented amalgamation with the Protestants, and reduced the bulk of the Irish people to a depth of ignorance and poverty which has seldom been equalled. and probably never surpassed.

Two Acts in 1695 inaugurated the Penal 322