"Strabo says that they had a religious order amongst them who smoked, and which, according to Pomp. Mela and Solinus, they received through long tubes. To those acquainted with the superstitions which formerly prevailed in Ireland, and are to a certain extent still existing in the western portions of our country, it is known that the peasantry believe in the existence of our Danish assailants, and that those piratical invaders continue to reside in a pigmy form in our raths and forts. Many such legends linger and are rehearsed in the rural districts, where almost every diminutive article of antiquity is imagined to be of Elfin origin. So those tobacco pipes are designated Piopa Loughlanach, from the general supposition that they are the laid-aside property of a still existent tribe in Ireland; and being, like our old tea utensils, of small dimensions, our people suppose them to belong to the Loghery-man or Leprochaun

'That sottish elf,

Who quaffs with swollen lips the ruby wine.'

"In England, the use of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) is certainly of comparatively modern date, and was introduced from America in 1585, by Raleigh or Drake, who, during their stay in Virginia (on the autho rity of Harriott), and since their return home, were accustomed to smoke it after the fashion of the Indian, and found many rare and wonderful experiments of the virtue thereof.'

"This appreciating acknowledgment is, however, opposed to the prevailing opinions of many eminent members of our medical faculties, who consider the practice highly pernicious and poisonous, destructive to the digestive and mental organs, and productive of other most distressing diseases. An edict, too, has been issued by the Emperor Napoleon against smoking in schools or colleges. By this decree upwards of thirty pipe manufactories have been extinguished in Paris.

"With, however, a readiness to reproduce opinions indoctrinated with authority, I may mention that Oliver Goldsmith, in the year 1754, advocated the custom, and attributed the healthy and ruddy complexion of the Dutch to their continual smoking,' Holland having been then described as 'one huge pipe.'

"Vigorous measures against the consumption of tobacco (by smoking, snuffing, and chewing, now so disgustingly practised by the Yankees) were attempted to be enforced by James I., and the use of the noxious weed' prohibited. In addition to repeated proclamations and publications by the King against it, the fashion of smoking was then so much in the ascendant, that, in 1624, Pope Urban VIII. issued a bull of excommunication against those who smoked in churches.

"In support of the supposition that smoking was known in Ireland several centuries previous to the introduction of tobacco into England by the Virginian adventurers, I may appropriately insert the following remarks, which I believe to be from the pen of our distinguished countryman, Dr. George Petrie:

"The custom of smoking is of much greater antiquity in Ireland than the introduction of tobacco into Europe. Smoking pipes made of bronze are frequently found in our Irish tumuli, or sepulchral mounds of

the most remote antiquity, and similar pipes, made of baked clay, are discovered daily in all parts of our island. A curious instance of the bathos in sculpture, which also illustrates the antiquity of this custom, occurs on the monument of Donogh O'Brien, King of Thomond, who was killed in 1267, and interred in the Abbey of Corcumroe, in the county of Clare, of which his family were the founders. He is represented in the usual recumbent posture, with the short pipe or dhudeen of the Irish in his mouth.'

"In the Anthologia Hibernica' (1793-4), some interesting particulars are published on the subject of tobacco pipes dug up at Brannockstown in the latter year, when one of those pipes was found sticking between the teeth of a human skull. According to Keating, the Irish historiographer, a battle was fought here between the natives and the Ostmen. Those pipes,' he says, may have belonged to the latter.' An entrenchment filled with human bones was also discovered near the banks of the Liffey, amongst which were a number of pipes; under the bones lay several stone coffins formed of flag-stones or cists, without cement. In each coffin or cist was a skeleton. Even at this day, I have heard that it is no uncommon usage, in portions of the southern and western provinces of Ireland, to place the dhudeen and backy in the coffins of those who in their lifetime had been strongly addicted to smoking. This, no doubt, may be adduced as an instance of barbarous superstition, but at the same time it shows the warm-hearted and ardent love of the Irish peasant in thus sacrificing to the remembrance of his departed friends and old affections.

"Pipes similar to those under discussion are not unfrequently found in old grave-yards. Dr. Stewart, in his History of Armagh,' states that several of those pipes, with human skeletons, were in 1817 dug up in the site of the cemetery of the Templum Columbæ, within the precincts of the Primatial City, and which had been used as a place of interment till after the Reformation.

"The Museum of the Armagh Natural History Society contains several of those memorials, all of which had been collected in Ulster—a few fragmentary specimens have also been recently brought to light by labourers working at the rere of Mr. Peel's house in English-st., Armagh.

"Now, admitting the accuracy of Keating's assertion, that a battle had been fought between the Irish and the Esterlings, it does not follow that the stone coffins or tobacco pipes mentioned in his narrative had been placed there for interment over the slain; but it is most likely from the graves containing those tobacco pipes, that a comparatively modern cemetery had been mistaken for a battle-field of the tenth century.

"The Germans and other nations (we are told), who are the descendants of the Scythians, at a very early period practised smoking with wooden and earthen pipes. The eastern Scythæ, Tartars, and Turks used long tubes, bnt the Goths and western nations short ones, as still practised in Germany. The native Indians measure distances by pipes. The use of tobacco is unknown among the southern Arabs; and a writer in the Court Journal' states that in the East hemp (Hachshish) performs the functions of tobacco, and is smoked out of cow's horns, gourds, cocoa-nuts, and the like.""

The following papers were laid before the Members:

THE CLEARING OF KILKENNY, ANNO 1654.

BY JOHN P. PRENDERGAST, ESQ.

IN that great collection in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, known as the "Carte MSS.," but which might well be called the Ormond Papers, consisting as the greater part of it does of the correspondence of the great Duke of Ormond, King's Letters, and other State Documents that belonged to him, there is an address from certain inhabitants of Kilkenny, presented to him in the year 1661, highly illustrative of that most eventful period.

But

The Marquis (for he had not yet been made Duke of Ormond), was then in London, high in favour with the king, who had been just a year restored. His voice was most potential in the affairs of Ireland; and could the king have made him virtual ruler of that kingdom, he would probably have been content to do so. there was a power in possession of Ireland stronger than king or marquis, and that was the body of Cromwellian Officers and Soldiers who (with the Adventurers and Forty-nine Men), were planted in their allotments all over the country, under the provisions of the Republican Government. The lands of the ancient owners had been handed over to them in discharge of their arrears of pay. The yhad divided them, cast lots for them, and were about five years in possession; and had no notion of giving them back, at the order of any, to the former proprietors, no matter how innocent, or how high in favour the claimant might be. They would "have a knock for it first," according to their own expression.

Those ancient proprietors who had been banished to Connaught were now eagerly praying the king to be restored their estates; and many of them being allied in blood to the Marquis of Ormond, and to others in power, got King's Letters to put them in possession. But, besides the landed proprietors, the townspeople of the ancient towns of Ireland had been driven out of the towns and cities, and their houses given to strangers and to settlers from England; and they, too, became clamorous to be restored; but, not being of high alliance, found it more difficult to get their cries heard by the king.

The citizens of Kilkenny, however, thought themselves fortunate beyond others in having a patron and protector at court in the Marquis of Ormond, to whom, accordingly, they forwarded a petition to be presented to the King, accompanied by a touching letter to the Marquis himself, bearing some curious tokens of the hardships of the times. "Most Excellent Lord (they write), we presume out of our coverts and lurking places to present an address to His

Majestie of some of our manifold grievances: the same wee send by an express to some of our friends there. Wee know well that we being not able to prosecute the same, itt will dye unless your Excellency will be pleased to give life to itt by your countenance and favour." And elsewhere they regret that they are prevented from appearing before his Excellency, being "still in durance in our old prisons of miserie, povertie, and slaverie."

The address itself, which was presented, it is to be supposed, to the king, and is therefore not forthcoming, no doubt set forth the long-continued loyalty of the city of Kilkenny from its first foundation as an English city and fortress; how for five hundred years it was a bulwark against the Irish, until in the time of his Majesty's father all distinction of nations was happily done away by Act of Parliament, and the inhabitants of Ireland were declared to be one people; how in the time of the late usurped power they had espoused the cause of his Majesty's late royal father, and for so doing had been driven, with their wives and families, either to Connaught or elsewhere; and how, on his happy Restoration, when they had hoped to be partakers with his Majesty of the general joy, they found themselves still exiled, and forbidden under heavy penalties from approaching their ancient homes, or even from meeting to address their complaints to the throne.

For it is a curious circumstance, that the towns which were thus cleared of their ancient inhabitants were all of English foundation, and had been from the days of the first Conquest the great mainstay and bulwark of English power in Ireland; and the inhabitants of English descent. In this respect the case of the towns differs from that of the landed proprietors, who were divided into those of English descent and native Irish-the latter a large and powerful class in 1641.

It may be instructive, therefore, as introductory to this petition of the inhabitants of Kilkenny, to cast a backward glance on the origin of the towns of Ireland, and to consider how these that had borne the character of English fortresses until the period of 1641, came to be treated as Irish; and the inhabitants to be expelled from them, and an entire new settlement of English to be placed in them throughout the kingdom.

In many of the ancient walled towns of Ireland there is a suburb known as the Irish town. It lies, generally, just outside the principal gate. In modern days it is only known as a quarter inhabited by the poorest of the citizens. But the name serves to recall a period when two towns, occupied by different races, stood beside one another-the one a kind of fortress or military town, wherein dwelt the invaders, with their wives, families, and servants; the other an assemblage of cabins and booths, at the gate of the fortress, occupied by the native inhabitants, who supplied them with such

wares as eggs, milk, butter, and fish, or were employed by them as masons, carpenters, curriers, carters, and day labourers. One has only to turn their eyes to India to behold, at the present day, a state of things not very dissimilar,-where, at the gate of the English cantonments occupied by the English officers and their families, and the troops under their command, is the native town, or sometimes a bazaar in which the garrison deal for its provisions. That such was the relative position of the early occupants of these towns towards the Irish, we have abundant evidence. If we are to believe Giraldus Cambrensis, the towns on the coast and rivers were built by the Danes. According to him, the Irish never raised any towns. The Danes came as merchants, and were allowed by the chief men of Ireland to build towns at the chief ports for the convenience of their commerce, in consideration of the great benefit the Irish received by being supplied with foreign wares, which they were too indolent themselves to traverse the seas for. Three brothers, leaders among the Danes, called Amlav, Sitric, and Ivor, built the cities of Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick, respectively; and in process of time built other towns, which, by degrees, they fortified with walls and ditches. Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Cork, and Limerick, were Danish towns at the time of the Invasion of Ireland by the English; and it is natural to suppose that soon after their submis ion to the forces of Henry the Second they would obtain the privileges of Englishmen, being not only the same stock, but the Danish population of England forming a large and important section of the people of that kingdom. As the Danes were also foreigners, and invaders of Ireland, like the English, they would have a kind of common interest arising out of their common difference, which would prompt them to a union against the native race. Accordingly, we find from Sir John Davis, who cites from among the pleas of the crown in the reign of Edward the Second, that King Henry the Second granted a charter of denization to the Danes (Ostmen or Easterlings, as they were at that time called), of Waterford, according to which they were to enjoy the law of England, and to be tried and judged by that law, while none of the Irish, except those of the five royal bloods, were to have this privilege. That the Danish population enjoyed the same rights in