One house, in which there had been three thousand pounds' worth of plate, was left without a spoon, [154] But the chief riches of Ireland consisted in cattle.

Innumerable flocks and herds covered that vast expanse of emerald meadow, saturated with the moisture of the Atlantic.

More than one gentleman possessed twenty thousand sheep and four thousand oxen.

The freebooters who now overspread the country belonged to a class which was accustomed to live on potatoes and sour whey, and which had always regarded meat as a luxury reserved for the rich.

These men at first revelled in beef and mutton, as the savage invaders, who of old poured down from the forests of the north on Italy, revelled in Massic and Falernian wines.