SNIPPET: Giraldus CAMBRENSIS (1146-1223), a member of a Norman Welsh family involved in the Norman invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century, left an unflattering portrait of the Irish, although he did remark on their prowess in battle and admired their musical skills. His illustrated manuscript, "Topography of Ireland," can be found in the National Library of Ireland, Dublin. Miniature drawings include 'Harper Seated on Chair' and 'Bareback Rider on Horse' (12th century). Per Gerald of Wales .... "They are a wild and inhospitable people. They live on beasts only, and live like beasts They have not progressed at all from the primitive habits of pastoral living. While man usually progresses from the woods to the fields, and from the fields to settlements and communities of citizens, this people despises work on the land, has little use for the money-making of towns, contemns (abhors) the rights and privileges of citizenship, and desires neither to abandon, nor lose respect for, the life which it has been accustomed to lead in the woods and countryside. They use the fields generally as pasture, but pasture in poor condition. Little is cultivated, and even less sown. The fields cultivated are so few because of the neglect of those who should cultivate them. But many of them are naturally very fertile and and productive. The wealth of the soil is lost, not through the fault of the soil, but because there are no farmers to cultivate even the best land: 'the fields demand, but there are no hands.' How few kinds of fruit-bearing trees are grown here! The nature of the soil is not to be blamed, but rather the want of industry on the part of the cultivator. He is too lazy to plant the foreign types of trees that would grow very well here. The different types of minerals too, with which the hidden veins of the earth are full, are not mined or put to any use, precisely because of the same laziness. Even gold, of which they are very desirous - just like the Spaniards - and which they would like to have in abundance, is brought here by traders that search the ocean for gain. They do not devote their lives to the processing of flax or wool, or to any kind of merchandise or mechanical art. For given only to leisure, and devoted only to laziness, they think that the greatest pleasure is not to work, and the greatest wealth is to enjoy liberty...."