Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland

by P. W. Joyce, LL.D.

Introduction

Mr. John Mitchel justly remarks, in one of his historical works, that the greatest conquest England ever made was to gain the ear of the world. In the case of Ireland especially, she has for centuries possessed not only its soil, but the advantage of telling the story of its people from her own viewpoint, while preventing them from making themselves heard in their own behalf. Down almost to within the memory of living men, education, even in its most rudimentary form, was a felony in Ireland, on the correct principle that the most effective method of subjugating and despoiling a people is to keep them in enforced ignorance.