The blend of Celt with Dane,
with Normans and English of the Pale, with English citizens of the
seaports and Cromwellian settlers, which constitutes Celtic Ireland,
so-called, is less Celtic both in speech and in blood than either Wales
or the Highlands. Religion alone has maintained a difference between a
predominantly Celtic and a predominantly Teutonic Ireland which would
otherwise have disappeared far more completely than the difference
between Celtic and Teutonic Scotland. Economically, the connection
between Ireland and Great Britain, always close, has become such that
to-day Ireland subsists almost wholly upon the English market. In these
respects, at least, there is no resemblance between the conditions of
Ireland and that of any of the Colonies.
On the other hand, politically, Ireland was for centuries treated as a
colony--"the first and nearest of the Colonies," as Mr. Childers puts
it. The difficulties and defects of early Colonial government were
intensified by the great conflict of the Reformation, which made Ireland
a centre of foreign intrigue, and by the long religious and
constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century, which fell with
terrible severity upon a population which had throughout espoused the
losing cause.
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