Chapter I: Ireland in 1901

Ireland has passed through a revolution in the Victorian
age--Material progress--Dublin--Belfast--Improvement in
Catholic places of worship and in the habitations of the
people--State of the Irish community--Symptoms of
retrogression--Decline of agriculture--The progress of Ireland
Ireland much less than that of England and Scotland, and
why--State of the Irish land system--Recent legislation has
done some good, but it has been unjust, and has had pernicious
effects--Ireland divided into three peoples--Notwithstanding
great reforms Catholic Ireland is still, in the main,
disaffected--Presbyterian Ireland--Cry for the confiscation of
the Irish land--Protestant Ireland--Fall of its old
ascendency--Discontent among the landed gentry--Nature of the
government of Ireland by the Imperial Parliament--Its merits
and defects--Attitude of the greater part of Ireland towards
it--The administration of Irish affairs--The bureaucracy of
the Castle--The Anglican, Presbyterian, and Catholic Irish
Churches--The administration of justice in Ireland--Irish
literature and public opinion--General survey of the present
state of Ireland--Irish policy of Lord Salisbury's
Ministry--'Present Irish Questions' to be discussed in this
work 1-38