Though Belfast's present position as a great centre of trade was won for her chiefly by the manufacture of linen and the building of ships, the foundation of her prosperity, contrary to popular belief, is to be traced to the cotton industry, which had its rise about the year 1790 and flourished till about 1830, when the linen industry which had then been gathering force in Ireland profited from a slump in the cotton industry and ousted it from its preeminence. The manufacture of cotton was begun in Leinster and Munster as early as 1750, and, before 1782, was developed in the counties of Cork, Carlow, Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Waterford. The Linen Board, strangely enough, encouraged the cotton industry by the payment of bounties that were intended solely for mixed fabrics, that is cloth made of linen warp and cotton weft. As the manufacturers used the money for the purchase of spinning jennies and carding machines, the Linen Board was, in fact, subsidising the cotton manufacture.

The year 1842 was one of preparation for the revival of the movement for repeal of the act of union. O'Connell had been elected lord mayor of Dublin in November 1841, and he allowed the Repeal Association to mark time during his tenure of office. The year was not regarded as wasted, however, as his conduct as mayor tended to increase his popularity, and ensured that he would be able to commence his campaign in the following year with a more solid backing of public opinion. It was during this year also that Davis, Duffy and Dillon first came together and made their plans for launching a new nationalist newspaper. They were all members of the Repeal Association, but only one of them (Duffy) had any extensive experience of journalism. The Nation newspaper first began to appear in October 1842.

For long there has been accepted as genuine a charter, purporting to be issued by Henry III, which follows the text of his first reissue of the Great Charter in favour of his English subjects but which has been to some extent modified to adapt it to Irish conditions. This document, to which the title Magna Carta Hiberniae has been applied, has received an official cachet by its inclusion, with no mark of suspicion, in the first volume of the Early statutes of Ireland, edited by H. F. Berry. In undertaking a careful enquiry into the transmission of the text and its historical background, Dr. Dudley Edwards has performed a valuable service and, as a result, the authenticity of the supposed charter is, at least, very much open to question. He might, indeed, have gone further than he has done and have stated as a positive conclusion his tentative conjecture ‘ that Magna Carta Hiberniae is an adaptation of Henry's first charter, compiled in Ireland ’.

Writers of Irish history who treat in any detail of O'Doherty's rebellion, take, almost without exception, the view that the charge of complicity therein preferred by the authorities against Sir Niall Garbh O'Donnell was well-founded. D'Alton states that Niall Garbh was in collusion with O'Doherty; Bagwell that he was a fellow-conspirator. Lord Ernest Hamilton arrives at the conclusion that no doubts can remain of his guilt. Meehan asserts that Niall Garbh advised O'Doherty to march on Derry and massacre the English settlers in the market-square; and Dunlop writes that the attorney general had little difficulty in accumulating proof of his correspondence with O'Doherty. Let the matter be examined.