IN THIS EDITION we have inserted all the Genealogies contained in the Third Edition of Irish Pedigrees, as well as those given in our Irish Landed Gentry when Cromwell came to Ireland; and, wherever we could do so, we have given a description of the Armorial Bearings [1] of each family whose genealogy we have traced.
From the large quantity of additional matter collected therefor, this Edition became so voluminous, that it had to be divided into two Volumes.
In this Vol. we give the “Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation,” and, so far as we could collect them, the genealogies of the families which branched from that ancient stem; together with the territories possessed by the ancient Irish families in the twelfth century; a Chapter on the “English Invasion,” and another on the “Cromwellian Devastation,” of Ireland.
In Vol. II. we give the “Families in Ireland from the twelfth to the end of the sixteenth century,” with the counties in which they, respectively, were located; the Names of the Settlers in Ireland under the “Plantation of Ulster;” the Names of the Adventurers who came into Ireland with the Cromwellian Settlement, or with the Revolution; the Names of the Huguenot and Palatine families which settled in Ireland; the “Most important families in Ireland, and the counties in which they were located, at the beginning of the seventeenth century;” the Genealogies of Anglo-Irish and other families which settled in Ireland since the English invasion; the Irish Brigades in the service of foreign nations; the papers contained in the Appendix to the Third Edition of our Irish Pedigrees, and in the Appendix to our Irish Landed Gentry; the “Opinions of the Press,” from Newspapers and Periodicals in the Old and New World, etc.