Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/58

 others', stray into that neglected field. But at this moment, when the Nation lived on sorrel boiled up with blood let from cattle while the tillage of their land went to rents, a strange parenthesis in the history of Ireland occurred. The jailers themselves arose and demanded the liberty for which the ancient Nation had fought over whom they had been placed in guard. They demanded it with cannon, musket and pike; and with these persuasive arguments they won a great measure of that liberty They established a Sovereign Parliament under a Dual Monarchy, but with an utterly unworkable constitution. It was unworkable because they remembered the source from which they sprang; and would not, and indeed could not, carry victory to its logical conclusion. If they severed themselves from the source of their power, they were thrown into the arms of the Nation over whom they were in guard, and who formed the overwhelming majority of the population of the county. It was also unworkable in itself. In the Regency debate they asserted their right to appoint their own Regent; and that logically meant the right to appoint their own king; but, as FitzGibbon pointed out, the Seal was in the care of the English Chancellor, and that gave England the final word in all matters. It was an independence that needed force at every moment to make it of any avail; but it was independence, nevertheless, and therefore by the Act of Union England struck down her own jailers and abolished their little hour of liberty.

The parenthesis was concluded, and history was