NATURAL CONDITIONS 


The country whose history is to occupy us is situated in the 
north-western corner of Europe, an island of 1,530 German or 
32,500 English square miles. But between Ireland and the rest of 
Europe another island lies transversally, three times the size, which 
we for brevity’s sake usually refer to as England; it completely 
encloses Ireland from the north, east and south-east, only leaving 
it a clear view in the direction of Spain, Western France and 
America. 

The channel between the two islands, 50-70 English miles wide 
at the narrowest points in the south, 13 miles wide at one place in 
the north and 22 miles at another, enabled the Irish Scots in the 
north to emigrate to the neighbouring island and found the 
Kingdom of Scotland even before the 5th century. In the south it 
was too wide for the boats of the Irish and the Britons and even 
posed a serious obstacle to the Romans’ flat-bottomed coasting 
vessels. But when the Frisians, Angles and Saxons, and after them 
the Scandinavians, ventured out on to the high seas, out of 
sight of land, in their keeled vessels, this channel was no longer an 
obstacle. Ireland became the object of raids by the Scandinavians 
and easy prey for the English. As soon as the Normans had 
formed a strong, uniform government in England, the influence 
of the larger neighbouring island made itself felt—in those days 
this meant a war of conquest.’ 

Then, in the course of the war, there followed a period when 
England attained supremacy at sea, thus ruling out the possibility 
of successful foreign intervention. 

Once the whole of the larger island was finally united in a single 
state, it was then bound to attempt the complete assimilation of 
Ireland, too. 


148 Frederick Engels 


If this assimilation has succeeded, the whole process belongs to 
history. History is its judge, but it could never be reversed. If, 
however, assimilation has failed after seven hundred years of 
struggle; if instead all the intruders who swept in over Ireland in 
waves, one after the other, were assimilated by Ireland; if, even at 
present, the Irish are no more English, or “West Britons”, as they 
are called, than the Poles are West Russians after a mere century 
of oppression; if the struggle is still not at an end and there is no 
prospect of any end at all except through the extermination of the 
oppressed race—if all this is so, then all the geographical excuses 
in the world will not suffice to prove that England’s calling is to 
conquer Ireland. 


In order to understand the soil conditions of present-day 
Ireland, we must go back a long way, right back to the age when 
the so-called carboniferous system was formed.* 

The centre of Ireland, north and south of the line from Dublin 
to Galway, forms a wide plain at an average height of 100-300 feet 
above sea-level. This plain, the ground-plan—as it were—of all 
Ireland, comprises the massive layer of limestone, which forms the 
middle stratum of the carboniferous system (cARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONE) 
and immediately on top of which lie the coal-bearing strata (the 
COAL-MEASURES” proper) in England and elsewhere. 

In the south, as in the north, this plain is surrounded by a 
mountain chain which mainly follows the coastline and almost 
exclusively consists of older rock formations, which have broken 
through the limestone: granite, mica-schist, Cambrian, Cambro- 
Silurian, Upper Silurian, Devonian and the argillaceous schist and 
sandstone, rich in copper and lead, belonging to the bottom layer 
of the carboniferous system and containing,in addition, some gold, 
silver, tin, zinc, iron, cobalt, antimony glance, and manganese. 

Only in a few places is the limestone itself high enough to form 
mountains: in the centre of the plain, in Queen’s County,’ rising 
to 600 feet, and in the west, on the southern shore of Galway Bay, 
rising to just over 1,000 feet (Burren Hills). 

* Unless otherwise stated, the geological data given here are taken from: 
J. Beete Jukes, The Student’s Manual of Geology, New Edition, Edinburgh, 1862. 


Jukes was the local director of the geological survey of Ireland and is therefore the 
leading authority on this topic, which he treats in particular detail. 


@ The terms in small caps are given in English in the manuscript after their 
German equivalents.— Ed.