They were content with accommodation inferior to that which, in happier countries, was provided for domestic cattle.
Already the potato, a root which can be cultivated with scarcely any art, industry, or capital, and which cannot be long stored, had become the food of the common people.

[151] From a people so fed diligence and forethought were not to be expected.

Even within a few miles of Dublin, the traveller, on a soil the richest and most verdant in the world, saw with disgust the miserable burrows out of which squalid and half naked barbarians stared wildly at him as he passed.

[152] The aboriginal aristocracy retained in no common measure the pride of birth, but had lost the influence which is derived from wealth and power.

Their lands had been divided by Cromwell among his followers.
A portion, indeed, of the vast territory which he had confiscated had, after the restoration of the House of Stuart, been given back to the ancient proprietors.