Excerpt from The Secret Societies of Ireland: Their Rise and Progress For the purposes of this book I have undertaken a considerable amount of research, and have read all the existing books, pamphlets and contemporary journals, germane to the subject, upon which I could lay my hands. In most cases I have indicated, either in foot-notes or in the text, the sources of information quoted. Most of these sources are available in the libraries either of Dublin Castle, the Irish Office, or the British Museum. In all cases Where statements of fact appear which are not referred to published books or documents, they have been gleaned from papers which came into the possession of the authorities after raids, etc., or are from confidential official sources. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.