It was my misfortune, but not my fault, that I was born at Bath and not
in Kerry.

However, my earliest recollection is of Dingle, for I was only three
months old when I was taken back to Ireland, and up to that time I did
not study the English question very deeply, especially as I had an Irish
nurse.

There is a lot of Hussey history before I was born, and some is worth
preserving here.

It is a thousand pities that so many details of family history have been
lost, and to my mind it is incumbent on one member of every reasonably
old family in this generation to collect and set down what should be
remembered about their ancestors for the unborn to come.

My contribution does not profess to be very exhaustive, but it will
serve for want of a better.

When a man claims to be descended from Irish kings, it generally means
that his forbears were bigger scoundrels than he is, for they were
cattle-lifters and marauders, whilst his depredations are probably
disguised under some of the many insidious forms of finance. Just as
every Scotsman is not canny and every American is not cute, so every
Irishman is not what the Saxon believes him to be. But there can be
little doubt what type of men these ancient Irish sovereigns were, and I
regretfully confess I cannot trace my descent from them.

The family of Hussey was of English extraction, according to that rather
valuable book _The Antient and Present State of the County of Kerry_, by