If Edward Bruce broke down where Robert succeeded, the causes of his failure may perhaps be worth considering even now by people who have set themselves the task in our times of establishing "an Irish nationality." Leaving out the Cromwellian English of Tipperary and the South, and the Scotch who have done for Ulster, what he aimed at for all Ireland, they have very much the same materials to deal with as those which he dismally failed to fashion.
Drogheda stands beautifully in a deep valley through which flows the Boyne Water, spanned by one of the finest viaducts in Europe.

Here, two years after the discovery of America, Poyning's Parliament enacted that all laws passed in Ireland must be subject to approval by the English Privy Council.

I wonder nobody has proposed a modification of this form of Home Rule for Ireland now.

Earl Grey's recent suggestion that Parliamentary government be suspended for ten years in Ireland, which I heard warmly applauded by some able lawyers and business men in Dublin, involves like this an elimination of the Westminster debates from the problem of government in Ireland.

As we passed Drogheda, Father Burke's magnificent presence and thrilling voice came back to me out of the mist of years, describing with an indignant pathos, never to be forgotten, the fearful scenes which followed the surrender of Sir Arthur Ashton's garrison, when "for the glory of God," and "to prevent the further effusion of blood," Oliver ordered all the officers to be knocked on the head, and every tenth man of the soldiers killed, and the rest shipped as slaves to the Barbadoes.