An endeavour is made in the following pages to sketch very briefly the condition of the Catholics of Ireland under the Penal Laws in the eighteenth century. The first Chapter is the substance of an article that appeared in the Dublin Review as far back as January, 1882. The subject was continued in a series of papers in the Australasian Catholic Record, published in Sydney, commencing in 1895. At the request of the Catholic Truth Society, those papers now appear in their present form.<br><br>Perhaps no one will be more convinced than the writer, that the sketch here presented is far from being perfect or complete. The subject matter, however, cannot fail to commend the little volume to those readers who rejoice in the triumphs of religion. Never has a whole nation suffered more for the Faith than Ireland; and nowhere has fidelity to God and loyalty to the Holy See, amid unparalleled sufferings and national humiliations, achieved more glorious victories or been crowned with happier results. Those victories of the Faith and those grand religious results are a priceless heritage, of which the Irish race at home and abroad is justly proud at the present day. Every tradition of those times of suffering, and every record of the heroism of Ireland's martyrs, cannot but be acceptable to those who have at heart the success of the great work of religion in which the Catholic Truth Society is engaged.