PREFACE. DURING the many years in which I have performed the duties of land agent over some of the largest and most important estates in Ireland, nothing has struck me more forcibly than the almost universal feeling amongst the people that the land belonged to them, and not to those who in common language are called the Proprietors of the Soil. I have traced these feelings throughout every phase and every grade of Irish Celtic life. Sometimes they are maintained with an eagerness amounting almost to fury; but the principle is always kept steadily-though sometimes very privately-in view, as one which under no circumstances should be lost sight of. It |