Excerpt from The O'briens and the O'flahertys, Vol. 3 of 4: A National Tale Reading and writing were the peculiar privilege of protestantism: and he who had not given up transubstantiation and the infallibility of the Pope, had but little chance of enjoying the delectable adventures of Renard the F ox, or of imitating the heroism of Don Bellianis of Greece and the Seven Champions of Christendom. While the first elements of learning were thus jealously withheld from the catholic people, it is not surprising that the higher branches of science, the pathways to professional eminence, were still more rigorously guarded; and that the Gates -of the Irish University were hermetically sealed against all, save the sons of ascendancy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at 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.