Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/56

 intimation. And when he had finished his righteous labours for the Lord God of Hosts the wildest dreamer in the world in his wildest of dreams would not have thought that his work could be undone. But a strange thing happened. Official documents indicate that his work was completely done. The Nation was first decimated—"nits will be lice" was the playful phrase of his soldiers as they caught babes on their pike-heads. Then it was swept west of the Shannon; and thoroughly swept, to judge by the procedure adopted. But within thirty years it is found back upon the land—O'Neills where O'Neill stateships had been, Maguires where Maguire stateships had been, and so forth. The Roll of the Parliament of 1689 as clearly indicates the countries from which the members came from the names they wore as those names would have indicated two centuries before. Historians have therefore thought that, in spite of the effectiveness of Cromwell's procedure, his work had not been very completely done. But what is more likely is that, with hopes raised by the Restoration, the people began steadily to stream back across the country to the places they knew, where their fathers had lived in free stateships, in order to be ready for any change that might come. There is no record of their journey. There is no place where such a journey could have been recorded. All that is sure is that, whereas Cromwell intended to sweep the Nation west of the Shannon, and adopted a procedure well-drafted to achieve his end, at the end of the century the Nation is found back upon its