The records for the years not enumerated have perished, that is, for the first five or six years after the Restoration, and for the years just preceding and just following the fall of James II.

These volumes take one back to the condition of Southern Ireland immediately after English greed and intrigue had sapped the foundations of the peace which followed the submission of the great Earl of Tyrone, and brought about the flight to the Continent of that chieftain, and of his friend and ally, the Earl of Tyrconnell.
They give us no picture, unfortunately, of the closing years of Elizabeth's long struggle to establish the English power, or of the occupation of Kinsale by the Spanish in the name of the Pope.

But there is abundant evidence in them of the theological hatred which so embittered the conflict of races in Ireland during the seventeenth century.
It was a relief to turn from these to a solemn controversy waged in our own times between Cork and Limerick over a question of municipal precedence, in which Mr.M'Carthy did battle for the City of the Galley and the Towers[7] against the City of the Gateway and Cathedral dome.
The truth seems to be that King John gave charters to both cities, but to Cork twelve years earlier than to Limerick.

Speaking of this contest, by the way, with a loyalist of Cork to-night, I observed that it was almost as odd to find such a question hotly disputed between two Nationalist cities as to see the champions of Irish independence marching under the banner of the harp, which was invented for Ireland by Henry VIII.
"I don't know why you call Cork a Nationalist city," he replied, "for Parnell and Maurice Healy were returned for it by a clear minority of the voters.

If all the voters had gone to the polls, they would both have been beaten." A curious statement certainly, and worth looking into.