My aim has been to interest the ordinary reader, rather than the specialist, who can best obtain his information from original authorities; and for this reason I have avoided technical descriptions and details. As the events of the last hundred years would have occupied an undue proportion of the history I have practically confined its scope to the conclusion of the eighteenth century. The parish, which I have chosen as the geographical unit, has been selected because in England it has been found the most convenient division for local history, and though Irish parishes are sadly wanting in the wealth of historical material which those of England afford, still they rival them in early origin, and in most cases possess remains of the primitive church in which their inhabitants at one time united in common worship.
