record of Marx’s speech on the question see this volume, p. 446). It was sent to 
the two Federal Committees by Jung, the Corresponding Secretary for 
Switzerland, and published in La Solidarité, No. 16, July 23 and Le Mirabeau, 

In English the resolution was first published in The General Council of the 
First International. 1868-1870, Moscow, 1966. p. 136 

The lock-out of the Geneva building workers was discussed by the General 
Council at its meetings on June 14 and 21, 1870. On June 21 Marx was 
instructed to draw up an address to the trade unions and sections of the 
International in Europe and the United States. The address was approved by 
the General Council on July 5 and published in leaflet form in English, 
German and French: “The Lock-out of the Building Trades at Geneva. The 
General Council of the International Working Men’s Association to the 
Working Men and Women of Europe and the United States”; “Die 
Aussperrung der Bauarbeiter in Genf. Der Generalrath der internationalen 
Arbeiterassoziation an die Arbeiter und Arbeiterinnen in Europa und den 
Vereinigten Staaten”; “La Gréve des corps de métiers en batiment a Geneve. 
Appel du Conseil général de l’Association internationale des Travailleurs aux 
travailleurs et travailleuses de l'Europe et des Etats-Unis”. The German text 
was also published in the newspapers Der Volksstaat, No. 56, July 13 and 
Volkswille, No. 25, July 16, 1870 and in the journal Der Vorbote, No. 7, July 
1870. In this volume the address is printed according to the English leaflet. 
checked with the German and French texts. p- 137 

The masters’ appeal was adopted on June 2, 1870, at a meeting of the 
Association of Building Trade Masters in the Canton of Geneva, and published 
as a poster. It placed the whole responsibility for the strike in Geneva on the 
International Association. The masters demanded that the authorities should 
put into effect an article in the federal constitution entitling the government to 
expel “foreigners violating the home and foreign security of Switzerland”. 
p- 138 

The decision of the Geneva master builders to declare a lock-out of building 
workers evoked protests from workers of other trades. On June 19, 1870, 
L’Internationale wrote about a 10,000-strong meeting of Geneva workers 
protesting against this decision of the employers. L’Egalité, No. 23, June 11, 
1870 published a protest of a 5,000-strong meeting of watch-makers 
(“Protestation votée en Assemblée populaire nationale tenue au Batiment 
Electoral 7 juin 1870”). On June 14 the Egalité editors published a special 
supplement to No. 23 on the Geneva building workers’ strike. The next issue 
of June 18 published an address by the Geneva factory workers to the strikers, 
expressing solidarity with them and informing them of the aid that had been 
organised. p. 138 

Engels wrote notes at the request of Marx’s eldest daughter, Jenny. They were 
intended as a preface to Erins-Harfe, Ivldéndische Volksmelodien nach Thomas 
Moore, which was being prepared for publication in Hanover. Jenny Marx sent 
them to Ludwig Kugelmann, asking him to hand them to Joseph Risse, the 
compiler of the collection (see Jenny Marx’s letter to Kugelmann, July 17, 1870, 
present edition, Vol. 43). However, they did not appear in the collection 

— 

Notes 487 

printed in 1870. They were first published in 1955, in Movimento Operaio, 
No. 2, Milano, in Italian, and in La Pensée, No. 75, 1957, in French. 

The supposed works of Ossian, a mythical Celtic bard, were forged and published 
in 1760-65 by the Scottish poet James Macpherson. p. 140 

This confidential communication was drawn up by Marx in connection with 
preparations for the next congress of the International scheduled for 
September 5, 1870 in Mainz. At the General Council meeting on June 28, 1870 
Marx proposed that the sections of the Association should discuss the change of 
the seat of the General Council so as to avoid creating privileged conditions for 
workers of one or another country. Although adopted, Marx’s proposition was 
objected to by Hales, a General Council member. The Council resumed the 
debate on July 5 and 12 and turned down Hales’ objections. On July 14 Marx 
sent Hermann Jung the French text of the confidential communication and a 
letter in English (see present edition, Vol. 43) to be forwarded to Switzerland, 
with one reservation: “The following must not be published but only 
communicated by letter to the different séctions.”” Also extant is the text sent to 
De Paepe by Auguste Serraillier, Corresponding Secretary for Belgium. The 
sections opposed any change of the Council’s seat, considering London the 
most suitable place for the leading body of the International Working Men’s 
Association. 

The document was first published in Russian in Marx and Engels, Works, 
Second Russian Edition, Vol. 16, Moscow, 1960 and in English in The General 
Council of the First International. 1868-1870, Moscow, 1966. p. 142 

The agenda of the Mainz Congress of the International to be opened on 
September 5, 1870 was drawn up by Marx and approved by the General 
Council on July 12, 1870. When it was discussed Marx took the floor several 
times to explain different points. The text of the programme adopted by the 
Council was published as a leaflet entitled The Fifth Annual Congress of the 
International Working Men’s Association. The programme was prefaced by the 
following text: “The International Working Men’s Congress of 1870 will be 
held in the city of Mayence-on-the-Rhine. The delegates are requested to 
assemble on Monday, September 5, at nine o'clock in the forenoon, in the Marble Hall, 
which the Burgomaster of the City has kindly placed at the disposal of the 
Association during the Session of the Congress.” In a letter to Jung of July 14, 
1870, Marx quoted the full text of the agenda, asking him to preserve the 
order of the items. He wrote: “Dear Jung. Enclosed the Programme. The 
questions are arranged in such an order as will facilitate the business of next 
Congress. You'll understand my meaning. Your truly, K. M.” (see present 
edition, Vol. 43). 

In this volume the programme of the Mainz Congress is printed according 
to Marx’s manuscript, sent to Jung, which is fuller than the text of the leaflet. 

Besides the Mainz Congress agenda was published in The Bee-Hive, 
No. 461, August 13, 1870; it appeared in French in La Solidarité, No. 17, July 
30, La Liberté, No. 162, July 31, L’Internationale, No. 81, July 31, L’Egalité, 
No. 28, August 6 and Le Mirabeau, No. 55, August 7, 1870; and in German in 
Der Vorbote, No. 7, July 1870 (with some inaccuracies), Die Tagwacht, No. 24, 
July 30, Der Volksstaat, No. 65, August 13, 1870 (the text corrected and signed 
by Marx). p- 143 

488 Notes 

It was Wilhelm Liebknecht who proposed that this point should be included in 
the agenda of the Mainz Congress (in his letter to Marx of April 27, 1870). It 
was also discussed at the Stuttgart Congress of the Social-Democratic Workers’ 
Party (see Note 173), Liebknecht delivering a report on the subject. p. 143 

The History of Ireland is a fragment of a voluminous work which Engels 
intended to write and on which he worked at the end of 1869 and during the 
first half of 1870. Engels studied a vast selection of literary and _ historical 
sources: the works of antique and medieval writers, annals, collections of 
ancient law codes, legislative acts and legal treatises, folklore, travellers’ notes, 
numerous works on archaeology, history, economics, geography, geology, etc. 
Engels’ bibliography, embracing over 150 titles, is selective and includes only a 
few of the sources he studied. 

Engels presumably did not complete his preparatory work. However, the 
collected material comprising 15 paginated notebooks, the excerpts from books, 
the list of literature, notes on separate sheets and newspaper cuttings show the 
scale of his research into Irish history as well as his understanding of certain of 
its aspects. 

Engels studied Gaelic in order to do research into Irish sources. Marx 
attached great importance to Engels’ work and constantly helped him with it 
(see their letters during this period in Vol. 43 of the present edition). The 
views of Marx and Engels on major problems of Irish history took shape in the 
course of joint discussion. 

The draft plan (see p. 307) shows that Engels’ work was to consist of four 
long chapters, the last two being subdivided into sections. Engels actually 
succeeded in finishing only the first chapter—‘Natural Conditions”. The 
second chapter—“Old Ireland” —is unfinished. The manuscript breaks off 
where Engels intended to throw light on the social structure of Irish society 
before the English conquest in the second half of the twelfth century. Engels 
did not begin writing the last two chapters, which were to describe the 
development of the country up to the events of his own day, although he had 
compiled most of the required material. In a letter to Sigismund Borkheim 
written in early March 1872 (see present edition, Vol. 44), Engels mentioned 
that the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune, the clash with the 
Bakuninists in the International, etc., interrupted his work. Engels used the 
results of his research in his theoretical works, such as The Origin of the Family, 
Private Property and the State (see present edition, Vol. 27) and in his letters to 
various correspondents. 

The fragment The History of Ireland (see this volume, pp. 308-14) and some 
preparatory material Engels collected for this work were first published in 1948 
draft plan and the fragment The History of Ireland were published in Marx and 

The History of Ireland was published for the Irish Communist Group by Angela 
Clifford, 258 Liverpool Road, No. 1, August 1965. 

In the present edition The History of Ireland is printed according to Engels’ 
manuscript in German. Omissions in passages from different authors are 
marked by dots in square brackets. Italics in the quotations are mostly by 
Engels unless otherwise indicated in the footnotes. p. 145 

Engels refers to the formation of a centralised feudal state in England after the 
conquest in 1066 by William, Duke of Normandy. The reforms carried out in 
the twelfth century by Henry II Plantagenet were particularly instrumental in 
strengthening the King’s power. One of the objects of the English monarchy’s 

Notes 489 

aggressive designs was Ireland, a country at an earlier stage of social and 
political development and still in a state of feudal decentralisation. Between 
1169 and 1171 part of the island was conquered by the Anglo-Norman barons, 
who founded a colony in South-East Ireland known as the English Pale. The 
term came into use in the second half of the fourteenth century. The 
boundaries of the English Pale changed during the continual wars of the 
conquerors against the hitherto unsubdued population. Castles and fortifica- 
tions were built in the border areas. At the end of the fifteenth century the 
Pale included only part of the present counties of Louth, Meath, Dublin and 
Kildare, but it served as a bridgehead for the complete subjection of Ireland by 
the English in the sixteenth century. Dublin was the centre of the Pale and the 
seat of the English Lord Deputy. — p. 147 

A reference to County Laoighis (Leix) in Central Ireland, which, in 1557, 
following the confiscation by the Tudors of the lands of local tribal 
communities (the clans), was renamed Queen’s County in honour of Mary 
Tudor, Queen of England. The neighbouring Offaley (Offaly) County, the 
population of which had also fallen victim to the expropriation policy of the 
English colonial authorities, was renamed King’s County in honour of Mary’s 
husband, Philip II of Spain (see also this volume, pp. 297 and 298). p. 148 

In modern terms—deposits of the Mesozoic and Cainozoic periods. p. 152 

Engels presumably quoted Young according to Murphy’s Ireland. Industrial, 
Political, and Social, London, 1870. p. 156 

The: synopsis of Wakefield’s book, which contains rich factual material on the 
Ireland of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, is to be found in 
notebooks VII, XI and XII of Engels’ preparatory material on the history of 
Ireland (see his letters to Marx of February 22 and April 13, 1870, present 
edition, Vol. 43). p. 156 

A reference to the period of cruel reprisals against the Irish population and 
their wholesale expropriation, which began soon after the suppression of the 
Irish national liberation uprising of 1641-52 by the troops of the English 
bourgeois republic (see Note 229). According to the Acts of the English 
Parliament of 1652 and 1653, some of the Irish landowners, who were declared 
guilty of revolt, were to be forcibly moved to the barren province of Connaught 
and the swampy southern County Clare. Resettlement was carried out under 
pain of execution. 

On the eve of the 1798 Irish uprising, Connaught, and to an even greater 
extent the bordering counties of the province of Ulster in the north, became 
the scene of widespread terrorism by English mercenaries and Protestant gangs 
hired by the landlords from among their menials (Ancient Britons, etc.), against 
the local Catholic population and its self-defence units. Under the pretext of 
confiscating arms from the population and billeting, soldiers committed ll 
kinds of outrages, torturing and murdering Irish people who fell into their 
hands and burning down their homes. Many Catholic peasants were evicted 
from Ulster after receiving threatening notes reading: “Go to the devil or 
Connaught”, p. 159. 

A reference to the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 (see Note 219), leading to 
the influx of cheap corn to England and creating conditions which, from the 
point of view of the landlords and the bourgeoisie, favoured the development 
of stock-breeding in Ireland. p. 161 

490 Notes 

G. Boate, Natural History of Ireland, London, 1652. Engels, like Wakefield, gives 
an earlier date of publication. p. 162 

The reference is to England’s war against Napoleonic France and the European 
countries dependent on her (in 1812 England fought Napoleon in alliance with 
Russia, Spain and Portugal), and to the Anglo-American War which broke out 
that year. It was won by the United States in 1814. p. 165 

The third volume of this publication, concluding the collection Senchus Mor 
(The Great Book of Old), appeared in 1873, after Engels had written the 
passage in this book. Senchus Mor is one of the most detailed records of the 
laws of the Brehons, guardians of and commentators on laws and customs in 
Celtic Ireland (for Engels’ description of Senchus Mor, see his letters to Marx of 
April 29, May 8 and 10, 1870, present edition, Vol. 43). p. 165 

Engels refers to the collection Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores (Ancient Annalists 
of Ireland), published in four volumes in 1814, 1825 and 1826 by Charles 
O’Conor in Buckingham. 

The collection contains the first publications of part of the Annales IV 
Magistrorum, the Annales Tigernachi, which were written between the eleventh 
and fifteenth centuries and described events from the close of the third 
century, the Annales Ultonienses (compiled by various chroniclers between the 
fifteenth and seventeenth centuries and describing events beginning with the 
mid-fifth century), and the Annales Inisfalensis (generally assumed to have been 
compiled from 1215 onwards, and treating events up to 1318), all of them 
mentioned by Engels, and others. p. 168 

Arthur O’Connor was one of the few leaders of the United Irishmen Society, 
which prepared the 1798 uprising (see Note 229), who managed to escape 
execution. After his release from gaol in 1803, O’Connor was banished to 
France, where he stayed to the end of his days. p-. 169 

Saerrath and Daerrath—two forms of tenancy in old Ireland, whereby the 
tenant, generally an ordinary member of the community, was given the use of 
stock and later also of land by the chief of the clan or tribe and by other 
representatives of the tribal élite. They entailed partial loss of personal freedom 
(especially under Daerrath) and various onerous duties. These forms of 
dependence were typical of the period of the disintegration of trjbal relations | 
in ancient Irish society and of the early stages of feudalisation. At this time 
land tenure was still mainly communal, while stock and farming implements 
were already private property, and private landownership already existed in 
embryonic form. 

Engels’ “see below” refers to the unfinished part of this chapter. p. 172 

The works of Giraldus Cambrensis on Ireland, Topographia Hibernica and 
Expugnatio Hibernica (in Engels’ manuscript Hibernia Expugnata), were included 
in the fifth volume of the Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, mentioned by Engels, the 
publication of which was begun by J. S. Brewer. The fifth volume, published 
by J. F. Dimock, appeared in 1867. p- 173 

A reference to the following works: M. Hanmer, The Chronicle of Ireland; 
E. Campion, History of Ireland; E. Spenser, A View of the State of Ireland, 
published in Ancient Irish Histories. The Works of Spencer, Campion, Hanmer and 
Marleburrough, vols. I-II1, Dublin, 1809, and also to: John Davies, Historical 
Tracts, London, 1786; W. Camden, Britannia, London, 1722 (the first edition 
of this book was published in 1586 in Latin; later English translations 

202 ” 

Notes 49] 

appeared); F. Moryson, An Itinerary Containing Ten Years Travels through the 
Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohmerland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, 
Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland and Ireland, London, 1617. 

pe 

Huxley spoke of this in a public lecture in Manchester on January 9, 1870. A 
detailed account of the lecture was published in the Manchester Examiner and 
The Times on January 12, 1870 under the heading “Professor Huxley on 
Political Ethnology” (see also Engels’ letter of March 9, 1870 to Marx, present 
edition, Vol. 43). p. 174 

See Note 180. p. 176 

The reference is to the following medieval works: Claudianus, De IV consulatu 
Honorii Augusti panegiricus; Isidorus Hispalensis, Etymologiarum libri XX; Beda 
Venerabilis, Historiae Ecclesiasticae libri quinque; Anonymus Ravenatis, De 
Geographiae libri V; Eginhard, Vita et gesta Karoli Magni; Alfred the Great, 
Anglo-Saxon Version of the Historian Orosius. In all probability Engels used 
extracts from the above-mentioned works contained in K. Zeuss, Die Deutschen 
und die Nachbarstaemme. p. 177 

Triads— medieval Welsh works written in the form characteristic of the poetry 
of the ancient Celts of Wales, with persons, things, events, etc., arranged in sets 
of three. As regards their content, the Triads are subdivided into historical, 
theological, judicial, poetical and ethical. The early Triads were composed not 
later than the tenth century, but the extant manuscripts of these works date 
back to the period from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. p. 177 

Alexandrian Neoplatonic school—a trend in ancient philosophy originating in the 
third century A.D. in Alexandria during the decline of the Roman Empire. 
The source of Neoplatonism was Plato’s idealism and the idealistic aspect of 
Aristotle’s teaching, interpreted in a mystical spirit by the Neoplatonic 
philosophers. In the fifth century A.D. an unknown adherent of this school, 
who attempted to combine the Christian doctrine with Neoplatonism, signed his 
works with the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the first Christian Bishop of 
Athens. p. 178 

Haraldsaga was written early in the thirteenth century by the Icelandic poet 
and chronicler Snorri Sturluson and describes the life and exploits of the 
Norwegian King Harald (the ninth-tenth centuries), founder of the Harfagr 
(Fair hair) dynasty. It is part of Snorri Sturluson’s book Heimskringla covering 
the history of the Norwegian kings from ancient times to the twelfth century. 

p. 179 

Krakumal (Song of Kraka)—a medieval Scandinavian poem, composed as the 
death-song of Ragnar Lodbrok (ninth century), a Danish Viking taken prisoner 
and put to death by Ella, King of Northumberland. According to the legend, 
Kraka, Ragnar’s wife, sang the song to her children to inspire them with the 
desire to avenge their father’s death. Engels used the text of the song as given 

~ in the reader: F. E. Ch. Dietrich, Altnordisches Lesebuch, Leipzig, 1864, S. 73-80. 

p. 180 

Njal’s Saga—an Icelandic saga which, according to the latest research, was 
recorded at the end of the thirteenth century from oral tradition and ancient 
written documents. The central theme is the life story of Gunnar, an Icelandic 
Hawding (a member of the clan nobility), and his friend Bond Nyal (a free 
community member), an expert and commentator on ancient customs and laws. 

492 Notes 

The saga tells of the battle of the Norsemen against the Irish King Brian Boru, 
and is an authentic source for the study of a major event in Irish history —the 
Irish victory over the Norse invaders in 1014 ° at the battle 
of Clontarf. Engels quoted the excerpt from the Njal’s Saga according to the 
text of the reader: F. E. Ch. Dietrich, Altnordisches Lesebuch, Leipzig, 1864, 

S. 103-08. p. 181 
Contemporary scholars transcribe the name of King Brian’s residence in 
Munster as Kankaraborg, or Kincora. p. 184 
The Cimbri and Teutons, Germanic tribes, invaded Southern Gaul and 

Northern Italy in 113-101 B.C. In 101 B.C. these tribes were routed by the 
Roman General Marius at the battle of Vercelli (Northern Italy). The Battle of 
the Romans against the Cimbri and Teutons was described by Plutarch in his 
biography of Marius, by Tacitus in Germania, and by other ancient historians. 
p. 184 

Beowulf—a poem about the legendary hero Beowulf is supposed to have been 
recorded in the eighth century and ranks as the finest known work of 
Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is based on folk sagas about the life of the Germanic 
tribes in the early sixth century. 

Hildebrandslied—an eighth-century German epic poem, of which only a few 
passages have survived. 

Engels refers to the so-called Elder Edda and the Younger Edda. The Elder 

_.£dda is a collection of epic poems and songs about the lives and deeds of the 

Scandinavian gods and heroes. It has come down to us in a manuscript dating 
back to the thirteenth century, discovered in 1643 by the Icelandic Bishop 
Sveinsson. The Younger Edda is a treatise on pagan mythology and the poetry 
of the scalds compiled in the early thirteenth century by Snorri Sturlusson. 

p. 185 
Leges barbarorum—records of the common law of various Germanic tribes, 
compiled between the fifth and ninth centuries. p- 185 

Engels’ manuscript breaks off here. The extant plan for the second chapter 
(“Old Ireland’) shows that Engels also intended to describe the clan system, 
landed property and the laws of old Ireland (see this volume, p. 307). 

p. 185 

These notes were written by Marx in English as a conspectus for a speech to be 
made at a meeting of the General Council of the International Working Men’s 
Association on November 26, 1867, when the discussion on the Irish question, 
begun on November 19, was to be continued. In view of the immense 
disturbance caused by the execution of the three condemned Fenians (Larkin, 
Allen and O’Brien) on November 23, Marx considered this speech as no longer 
suitable. Feeling that at such a moment it would be more appropriate for one 
of the English members of the General Council to express sympathy with the 
Irish revolutionaries, he gave the floor to Peter Fox, who was known for his 
support of the Irish national liberation movement. Marx described the meeting 
in great detail in his letter of November 30, 1867 to Engels (see present edition, 
Vol. 42). Later, preparing for a report on the Irish question in the German 
Workers’ Educational Society in London (see this volume, p. 194), Marx used 
this draft and the materials he had compiled for it. 

These notes were first. published in English in The General Council of the 
First International. 1866-1868, Moscow, 1964. Inaccuracies in the figures have 
been corrected. _ p. 189 

<7 

Notes 493 

A reference to the Act of Settlement adopted by the Long Parliament on August 
12, 1652, during the English bourgeois revolution, following the suppression of 
the 1641-52 national liberation uprising in Ireland. The Act legalised the reign 
of terror and violence established by the English colonialists in Ireland and 
sanctioned the wholesale plunder of Irish lands in favour of the English 
bourgeoisie and the “new” bourgeoisified nobility. This Act declared the 
majority of Ireland’s indigenous population “guilty of revolt”. Even those 
Irishmen who had not been directly involved in the uprising but had failed to 
show the proper “loyalty” to the English Parliament were considered “guilty”. 
Those declared “guilty” were classified into categories, depending on the 
extent of their involvement in the uprising, and subjected to brutal reprisals: 
execution, deportation, confiscation of property. On September 26, 1653, the 
Act of Settlement was supplemented by the Act of Satisfaction which prescribed 
the forcible resettkement of Irish people whose property had been confiscated 
to the barren province of Connaught and to County Clare (see Note 190) and 
defined the procedure for allotting the confiscated land to the creditors of 
Parliament, the officers and men of the English army. Both Acts consolidated 
and extended the economic foundations of English landlordism in Ireland. 
p. 189 

See Note 142. p. 189 

Marx uses an appraisal of the Fenian movement given in Queen Victoria’s 
address to Parliament of November 19, 1867 (see The Times, No. 25973, 
November 20, 1867) to describe the brutal policy of the English Government 
towards the Irish Fenians. p. 189 

During an abortive coup in Boulogne in 1840, Prince Louis Bonaparte 
wounded an officer of the government troops. This crime did not prevent the 
English Government from obsequiously recognising the Bonapartist regime 
after the usurpation of power by Louis Bonaparte in 1851. In 1867, however, 
three Irish Fenians were sent to the gallows purely on suspicion of having 
made an attempt on the life of a policeman while attacking a prison van in 

Manchester. p. 189 

The corn-acre (conacre) system—the subletting to the poorest peasants of small 
plots (up to half an acre) by middlemen on extortionate terms, which was 
extensively practised in Ireland. The term came into use in the eighteenth 
century, after the adoption of a law decreeing that corn be sown on these 
small-holdings. p. 191 

The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 led to a reduction in grain prices due to 
the fall in the demand for Irish grain in England, and the rise in the demand 
for wool and other stock-breeding products from Ireland (see Marx’s letter to 
Engels of November 30, 1867, present edition, Vol. 42). This made landlords 
and rich farmers switch to extensive pasture farming which resulted in the 
mass eviction of small Irish tenants from the land (“clearing of estates’’) in the 
mid-imineteenth century (see also this volume, pp. 201-03). p. 192 

A reference to the forcible eviction from the land of the population of the 
Scottish Highlands (the Gaels) by the Anglo-Scottish nobility in the eighteenth 
and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, a process similar to the 
“clearing of estates” in Ireland. Marx describes this process in Chapter XXVII 
of Volume I of Capstal and in his article “Elections.— Financial Clouds.— The 
Duchess of Sutherland and Slavery” (present edition, Vol. 11). p-. 192 

494 Notes 

Roundheads—the nickname given by the Royalists to the Parliamentarians 
during the seventeenth-century English revolution because of their puritan 
custom of cutting their hair close, while the cavaliers—supporters of the 
King—wore their hair long. p. 192 

See Note 123. p. 192 

Early in the nineteenth century the Irish national movement developed under 
the slogan of the abolition of political restrictions for the Catholic population 
and the granting to Catholics (who formed the majority of the population) of 
the right to stand for election to Parliament. In 1829 the British Parliament, 
under pressure of a mass movement in Ireland, lifted some of the restrictions 
(Catholic Relief Act). Catholics were granted the rights to be elected to 
Parliament and hold certain government posts. Simultaneously the property 
qualification for electors was increased fivefold. With the aid of this manoeuvre 
the British ruling classes hoped to win over to their side the upper crust of the 
Irish bourgeoisie and Catholic landowners and thus split the Irish national 
movement. p. 192 

In the 1820s the demand for the repeal of the Union became the most popular 
slogan of the Irish national liberation movement. In 1840 a Repeal Association 
was founded whose leader, Daniel O’Connell, stood for a compromise with the 
English ruling circles and reduced the programme of the movement to the 
demand for autonomy and other political concessions. In the mid-forties the 
supporters of the liberation of Ireland by revolutionary methods, up to and 
including armed uprising against English rule (Young Ireland—a revolutionary 
patriotic society), gained ground in the Repeal Association. The differences 
between O’Connell and those advocating the use of “physical force” led to a 
split in the Association and the formation of the more radical Irish 
Confederation (the beginning of 1847). Its Left, revolutionary wing headed the 
national liberation movement and became the target of severe reprisals in 1848. 

Eventually, the Repeal Association broke up completely. p. 193 
Marx refers to France’s colonial wars in Algeria which began in the 1830s and 
lasted (with intervals) for 40 years. p- 193 

A reference to the reactionary foreign policy pursued by Castlereagh, the 
British Foreign Secretary (1812-22). He supported the efforts of the Holy 
Alliance to strengthen the reactionary feudal monarchies in Europe, notably 
the measures against the revolutionary movements in Italy and Spain. The 
counter-revolutionary Tory policy of Castlereagh was continued by Palmerston, 
the Whig leader, who relied on the support of the Right wing of the party. He, 
however, masked the real nature of this policy with liberal phrases and 
hypocritical expressions of sympathy with the oppressed peoples. Marx showed 
in his pamphlet Lord Palmerston (see present edition, Vol. 12) that, as Foreign 
Secretary, Palmerston played an ignoble role with regard to the Polish struggle for 
independence during the general uprising of 1830-31 and the uprising in the free 
city of Cracow in 1846. While inciting the Poles to action by his false promises of 
assistance, Palmerston sanctioned the suppression ‘ef the Polish movement by 
Tsarist Russia, Austria and Prussia. p. 193 

Marx refers to an error which the leadership of the Reform League (see 
Note 39) committed by refusing to give any real support to the Irish national 
liberation movement, although many of the League’s rank-and-file members 
expressed sympathy with it. The meeting of the League’s Council on 
November 1, 1867 adopted a resolution condemning Fenianism, tabled by 

Notes 495 

bourgeois radicals. When the Irish question came up for discussion in the 
General Council of the International in November 1867, the speeches were 
spearheaded against this chauvinistic and anti-revolutionary position of the 
Reform League and its supporters among the liberal trade unionists. p. 193 

This outline is a draft conspectus for a report on the Irish question that Marx 
was to make at a meeting of the German Workers’ Educational Society in 
London on December 16, 1867. “Yesterday I gave a 1!/y9 hour lecture on 
Ireland at our German Workers’ Society (though a further 3 German workers’ 
associations were represented, about 100 people in all),”” Marx wrote to Engels 
on December 17 (see present edition, Vol. 42). Some members of the General 
Council of the International also attended the meeting. Eccarius, a Council 
member who attached great importance to this report, which explained the 
attitude of the General Council towards the Irish national liberation movement, 
took notes in order to prepare them for publication (for Eccarius’ record of 
Marx’s report see this volume, pp. 317-19). A copy of these notes was sent to 

. Johann Philipp Becker, the editor of Der Vorbote, but they were not published. 

The outline was written by Marx both in German and English. English 
words used by Marx are set in small caps. Longer passages written in English in 
the original are placed in asterisks. German words and sentences occurring in the 
passages written by Marx in English are, with a few exceptions, not indicated, so as 
to avoid numerous footnotes. 

On the German Workers’ Educational Society in London see Note 50. p. 194 

A reference to the three biggest national liberation uprisings in Ireland. 

The 1641-52 uprising was provoked by the colonialist policy which the 
English absolute monarchy pursued in Ireland and which was continued during 
the seventeenth-century English Revolution by the English bourgeoisie and the 
“new” nobility. The majority of the insurgents were Irish peasants led by the 
expropriated clan chiefs and the Catholic clergy. The Anglo-Irish nobility, 
descendants of the first English conquerors who had become, related to the 
Irish clan élite and adopted many Irish customs and habits, also participated in 
the uprising. In October 1642, the insurgents formed the [rish Confederation 
in Kilkenny. A struggle went on within it between the indigenous Irish, who 
stood for Ireland’s independence and action both against the Long Parliament 
and the English Royalists, and the Anglo-Irish aristocrats, who endeavoured to 
come to terms with Charles I on condition that they were allowed to keep their 
estates and receive a guarantee of freedom of worship for Catholics. The latter 
gained the upper hand and a treaty was signed with a representative of 
Charles I. After the defeat of the Royalists in England, Oliver Cromwell, the head 
of the new bourgeois republic, organised an expedition to Ireland on the pretext 
of suppressing a Royalist revolt there but in fact with the aim of reducing it to 
colonial submission and plundering the land. (He hoped that by confiscating Irish 
lands he would solve the problem of paying the creditors of the republic, the 
officers and men of the army.) In 1649-52, the Irish uprising was brutally 
suppressed; the garrisons and population of entire towns were destroyed, the 
Irish were sold en masse into slavery in the West Indies, and Irish lands were 
confiscated and handed over to new English landlords. These actions by Cromwell 
and his successors did much to prepare the ground for the restoration of the 
monarchy in England in 1660. 

The 1689-91 uprising followed in the wake of the 1688-89 coup d’état in 
England (known as the Glorious Revolution), involving the overthrow of 

496 Notes 

James II and the establishment of a bourgeois-aristocratic constitutional 
monarchy in England under William III of Orange. The Catholic nobility in 
Ireland, supported by the masses who were dissatisfied with the colonial 
regime, rose against William. Under the banner of defence of the Stuarts the 
insurgents fought for the abolition of Ireland’s political and religious inequality 
and the return of the confiscated estates. James II, who had taken refuge in 
Ireland and was endeavouring to use the Irish movement to regain the crown, 
became its official head and recognised the demands of the Irish people. But 
the differences between the reactionary Jacobites and the Irish patriots 
weakened the insurgents. Despite their stubborn resistance, they were finally 
defeated. 

The 1798 uprising was the result of the upsurge of national sentiments in 
Ireland, caused by the growth of the liberation movement and the impact of 
the American and French bourgeois revolutions at the end of the eighteenth 
century. It was prepared by Irish bourgeois revolutionaries (Theobald Wolfe 
Tone, Edward Fitzgerald and others), who in 1791 founded a patriotic society, 
“The United Irishmen”, in Belfast (the chief town’ of the Northern Irish 
province of Ulster) and proclaimed a fight for an independent Irish republic. 
On the eve of the uprising, however, most of the society’s leaders were tracked 
down by government spies and arrested. The uprising broke out on May 23 and 
lasted until June 17, 1798. It flared up in a number of counties in 
South-Eastern and Northern Ireland and was particularly strong in County 
Wexford. The majority of the insurgents were peasants and urban poor. In 
August and September 1798, after the landing of a French force in support of 
the Irish patriots, the uprising spread to a number of places in Connaught. 
The English authorities launched savage reprisals against the rebels (almost all 
the leaders were executed) and passed the Act of Anglo-Irish Union (see 
Note 123). p. 194 

About 1155 Pope Adrian IV issued a Bull which conferred on the English King 
Henry II the title of Supreme Ruler of Ireland in exchange for the promise to 
subject the trish Church to Rome. Henry II used this “gift” to launch an 
aggressive expedition against Ireland in 1171. 

In 1576, in connection with the exacerbation of relations between Protestant 
England and the Catholic powers, Pope Gregory XIII declared that Queen 
Elizabeth I had forfeited the right to the Irish crown. p. 195 

See Note 185. p. 195 

The name given in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to merchants and 
bankers, particularly those from the City of London, who took part in colonial 
plunder and financial speculation. During the English revolution of the 
mid-seventeenth century, “adventurers” loaned Parliament considerable sums 
of money to finance the war against the Royalists in exchange for land 
confiscated in Ireland. Among the “adventurers” were many statesmen, 
members of the gentry, and civil servants. p. 195 

The Anglo-Irish Parliament, convoked at the end of the thirteenth century, was 
initially made up of representatives of the big barons and dignitaries of the 
Church of the English colony in Ireland (the Pale). With the extension of the 
power of the English Crown to the entire island (sixteenth-early seventeenth 
centuries), the Parliament became a representative body of the English and 
Anglo-Irish aristocracy under the English Lord Deputy. The competency of 
that Parliament was limited; according to an Act passed by Lord Deputy 
Poynings in 1495, it could be convoked only with the sanction of the Royal 

18* 

Notes 497 

Privy Council. Under the impact of the growing national liberation movement, 
in the 1780s the English Government was compelled to extend the rights of the 
Irish Parliament (Renunciation Act). In 1801, however, the Irish Parliament 
was abolished under the Act ot Union. p. 195 

See Note 214. p-. 196 

Amalekites— members of a nomadic tribe living in the second millennium B.C. 
on the Sinai. The Amalekite warriors made raids on Palestine and drove the 
population into captivity. At the turn of the tenth century B.C. the Amalekites 
were practically annihilated. p- 196 

A reference to the capitulation at Limerick, an agreement signed in October 
1691 between the Irish insurgents and representatives of the English command 
and approved by King William III. The surrender terms were honourable: the 
insurgents were given permission to serve either in foreign armies or in the 
army of William III; the people were promised an amnesty, the preservation of 
their property, suffrage and religious freedom. Several months before the 
Limerick Agreement, similar agreements were concluded during the capitula- 
tion of the insurgent garrisons in Galway and other towns. The terms of these 
agreements, however, were soon flagrantly violated by the English authorities. 

p. 196 
Absentees—landlords who owned estates in Ireland but lived permanently in 
England. Their estates were managed by realty agents who robbed the Irish 
peasants, or were leased to speculator-middlemen who subleased small plots to 
the peasants. p. 197 

Penal Code or Penal Laws—a set of laws passed by the English for Ireland at 
the end of the seventeenth and in the first half of the eighteenth centuries on 
the pretext of a struggle against Catholic conspiracies. These laws deprived the 
indigenous Irish, the majority of whom were Catholics, of all civil and political 
rights. They limited the right of Catholics to inheritance and to the acquisition 
and alienation of property, introducing the practice of confiscating property 
for petty offences. The Penal Code was used as an instrument for the 
expropriation of the Irish who still owned land. It established unfavourable 
lease terms for Catholic peasants, increasing their dependence on the English 
landlords. The ban on Catholic schools, the severe punishment meted out to 
Catholic priests and other measures were intended to stamp out Irish national 
traditions. The penal laws were abrogated, and then only in part, at the end of 
the eighteenth century under the influence of the growing national liberation 
struggle in Ireland. p. 197 

Catholics were officially deprived of voting rights by the Act on the Regulation 
of Elections passed in 1727. Irish Catholics had not enjoyed the right to stand 
for election to Parliament from the end of the seventeenth century, after the 
introduction of an oath to be taken by M.P.s involving the abjuration of 
Catholic dogma. The latter restriction was only lifted in 1829. Voting rights 
were restored to the Catholic population somewhat earlier, in 1793, since the 
English landlords themselves often needed the votes of their Catholic tenants. 

p. 197 

Marx refers to a number of concessions which the English Government was 
forced to make to Ireland because of the victory of the American troops at 
Saratoga in October 1777, during the American War of Independence, and the 
reaction to this event in England. The penal laws most hated by the Irishmen 
were abrogated (in 1778 the Government abrogated the law prohibiting the 

498 Notes 

Catholics to rent more than two acres of land from Protestants or to enter into 
commercial or credit agreements with them). However, as before the Catholics 
were deprived of the right to elect M.P.s. p. 198 

Freehold—a category of small landownership which had come down from 
medieval England. The freeholder paid the lord a comparatively small rent in 
cash and was allowed to dispose of his land as he saw fit. In Ireland, 
freeholders were mainly English colonists and their descendants. p. 198 

See Note 123. p. 198 

Marx refers to England’s war against Napoleonic France which ended in 1815. 
On the movement for the emancipation of Catholics mentioned by Marx 
further in this passage, see Note 223, p. 198 

Cottiers—a category of the rural population consisting of land-hungry or 
landless peasants. In Ireland cottiers rented small plots of land and cottages 
from landlords or real estate agents on extremely onerous terms. Their 
position resembled that of farmhands. p. 200 

The Corn Laws, the first of which were passed as early as the fifteenth century, 
imposed high import duties on agricultural products in order to maintain high 
prices for these products on the domestic market. The Corn Laws served the 
interests of the big landowners. The struggle between the industrial bourgeoisie 
and the landed aristocracy over the Corn Laws ended in their repeal in June 
1846. The repeal of the Corn Laws marked the victory of the industrial 
bourgeoisie whose motto was Free Trade (see also Note 219). p. 200 

In February 1835, Daniel O’Connell, the leader of the Irish bourgeois 
nationalists, signed an agreement with representatives of the Whigs according 
to which he was to support them in the House of Commons in return for 
certain concessions; in particular, Irish political leaders were promised posts in 
the administrative apparatus after the Whigs came to office. For his part, 
O’Connell undertook to stop the Repeal of the Union campaign. The 
agreement was negotiated in Lord Lichfield’s London house and became 
known as the Lichfield-House Contract. It meant that the liberal circles of the 
Irish bourgeoisie and the medium landowners had reached a compromise with 
the English politicians and had renounced consistent struggle for Ireland’s 
independence (see also’ Note 223). p-. 201 

See Note 218. p-. 203 

Marx made these remarks on the Programme and Rules of the International 
Alhance of Socialist Democracy (see Note 55) probably on December 15, 1868, 
the day when the General Council of the International Working Men’s 
Association discussed the admission of the Alliance into the International and 
instructed Marx to prepare an answer. The remarks were written in the right 
and left margins of a French leaflet containing the Programme and Rules. 
Marx underlined certain words and phrases (in this volume they are set in bold 
type) and in some places drew vertical lines in the margins. (The names of 
Jules Johannard and Eugéne Dupont, who had read the Programme and taken 
part in its discussion, were written in the margin by Jung.) The same day Marx 
sent this document to Engels asking for his opinion (see Note 55). Taking into 
account Engels’ ideas, Marx drew up a circular letter “The International 
Working Men’s Association and the International Alliance of Socialist Democra- 
cy” (see this volume, pp. 34-36) which was approved by the General Council on 
December 22, 1868. 

Notes 499 

Marx’s comments on the Programme and Rules of the Alliance were first 
Moscow, 1966. p. 207 

Marx apparently refers to the plans to publish L’Fgalité. He was invited to 
contribute to this paper by A. A. Serno- -Solovyevich in a letter of November 20, 
1868 which did not mention the new newspaper’s title. On December 3, 1868 
Charles Perron wrote to Hermann Jung about steps taken to publish L’Egalité 
and asked Marx, Eccarius and Jung to contribute to it. Eccarius’ reply of 
December 2 and Jung’s reply of December 6 were published in a special issue 
of L’Egalité on December 16. In addition, the editors published the following 
note: “Citizen Marx brings it to the notice of the commission that, to his great 
regret, his health and the excessive amount of work make it impossible for him 
to guarantee his participation in the journal. Nevertheless, we hope that from time 
to time this brave champion of the working class will write to the organ of the 
Romance sections in Switzerland.” p. 210 

Marx wrote this work in October and November 1869 when preparing for the 
forthcoming debate on the Irish question in the General Council of the 
International (see this volume, p. 83). This is also shown by the extracts taken 
by Marx from the newspaper The Irishman about the movement for the 
amnesty of the Irish political prisoners and the draft resolution on the amnesty