Nafusa Mountains
الجبل الغربي, جبال نفوسة
Nafusa Mountains Location in Libya
Elevation	968 m (3,176 ft)[1]
Location
Location	Tripolitania, northwest Libya
Coordinates	31°51′54″N 11°47′36″E / 31.8649°N 11.7933°E / 31.8649; 11.7933Coordinates: 31°51′54″N 11°47′36″E / 31.8649°N 11.7933°E / 31.8649; 11.7933

The Nafusa Mountains (Berber: Adrar n Infusen (Nafusa Mountain), Arabic: الجبل الغربي‎ Al Ǧabal al Gharbi (Western mountain)) are a mountain range in the western Tripolitania region of northwestern Libya. It also includes their regions around the escarpment formed where the northern end of the Tripolitanian Plateau meets the Mediterranean coastal plain or the Jefara.

History[link]

Ancient Libyan people

The area has been as a major population and cultural center of the Ancient Libyans. The Ancient Libyan Zenata tribe expanded west into the Berber regions in various periods. The Nafusa region shelters most of Libya's Berber-speaking population, who speak Nafusi Berber. In addition to their living society and culture, the area contains a rich variety of Ancient Libyan legacy, which goes back over millenia.

Libyan civil war

This distinct culture, suppressed and oppressed by the Libyan regime, has risen to new prominence in the course of the 2011 Libyan civil war, when their initiatives led to the Nafusa Mountains becoming a major front in that war.^[2][3] The terrain and topography of the region are critical strategic factors, constraining mechanised advances from the flat plain and plateau, and favouring guerrilla tactics based on close local knowledge and the advantage of high ground. By the end of June 2011 the Nafusi people had almost succeeded in liberating themselves completely from the control of the regime, and this progress seems likely to continue.^[2]

Geography[link]

The Nafusa Mountains form the boundary between the Libyan coastal plain, known as the Jafara, to the north, and the Tripolitanian Plateau to the south. The beds (strata) of the Tripolitanian Plateau slope downwards to the south and tilt upwards towards the north creating the highest portion of the plateau as the Nafusa mountains which rise to over 750 meters.^[4][5][6] The plateau ends abruptly on the north with an escarpment which has up to 350 meters of topographic prominence. A series of deep valleys which drain north toward the Jefara cut into this escarpment.^[6] It extends some 250 kilometers within Libya, from just east of the city of Gharyan (about 60 kilometers south of Tripoli) in the east to the city of Wazzin at the Tunisian border in the west. Spurs and isolated upthrusts continue into Tunisia, but this region is almost unpopulated, in marked contrast to the situation in Libya.

The mountain area is rarely more than 25 kilometers in depth, from its southern boundary, the flat arid plateau some 650 meters above sea level, to its northern limit on the plain, where the land falls to below 150 meters. Much of the 500 meter drop in level is accomplished abruptly, at the escarpment, where local topographic prominences may be up to 350 meters. It is from below, on the plain, viewing the steep slopes and sharply-etched skyline that the area appears mountainous; from the plateau the land appears merely hilly, and in fact it is rather flat apart from the effects of differential erosion.

Towns in the mountains include Gharyan, Yafran, Zintan, Jadu, Kabaw, Al-Qawalish and Nalut, which have all been the sites of military action during the 2011 civil war. Since 2007, the mountains stretch across two districts: Jabal al Gharbi District and Nalut District.

Economy[link]

The mountain villages raise primarily goats, olives and grain, but also have fig and apricot orchards.^[7]

Ethic composition of the Libyan population in 1974. The orange arc in the Northwest shows the Berber population in the Nafusa Mountains.

2011 Libyan civil war[link]

The Nafusa Mountains became first a hotbed for anti-Gaddafi protests (with protests breaking out relatively early in Nalut and Zintan) and then a rebel stronghold, an island of rebel control in the mainly Gaddafi-controlled western part of the country. During the early stages, forces allied to the national transitional government succeeded in evacuating most non-combatants into Tunisia; the Wazzin border crossing was captured and held to ensure supply lines from Tunisia; all the mountain towns were retaken; and the front extended to the plains, cutting regime communications lines and allowing electricity to be restored. They were the first rebel combatants to be supplied with arms by air-drop.^[8]

In the course of the civil war, many towns in the area were subjected to shelling by artillery and rockets from both sides, with much damage to infrastructure. Regime forces cut off electricity and water supplies. Médecins Sans Frontières sent a team in Zintan to help the large number of wounded.^[9] Al Galaa was without electricity and water for seven weeks, and more than 45,000 refugees fled for safety to the adjoining Tunisian region of Tatouine, where many had relatives.^[10][11]

Cultural renaissance[link]

As towns and villages in the Nafusa Mountains and surrounding areas were liberated from control by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi in early summer 2011, and while fierce fighting continued, Berber exhibitions and workshops sprang up to share and spread the Tamazight culture and language, after four decades during which there were severe punishments for speaking and writing Tamazight openly.^[12]

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Nafusa Mountains: Winding roads, rugged mountains"

v t e Mountains of Libya Acacus Bikku Bitti Sherif Haruj Arkanu Jebel Akhdar Nafusa Tibesti Al Uweinat Waw an Namus

Henry Flood, portrait drawn by John Comerford and engraved by James Heath.

Henry Flood (1732 – 2 December 1791), Irish statesman, son of Warden Flood, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench for Ireland, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became proficient in the classics. He was a leading Irish politician, and a friend of Henry Grattan, the leader of the Irish Patriot Party.

His father was of good birth and fortune and he himself married the daughter of Marcus Beresford, 1st Earl of Tyrone,^[1] who brought him a large fortune. In his early years he was handsome, witty, good-tempered, and a brilliant conversationalist. He had a natural gift of eloquence which had been cultivated and developed by study of classical oratory and the practice of elocution.

Irish Parliament[link]

In 1759, he entered the Irish parliament as member for Kilkenny County, a seat he held until 1761. There was at that time no party in the Irish House of Commons that could truly be called national, and until a few years before there had been none that deserved even the name of an opposition. The Irish parliament was still constitutionally subordinate to the English privy council; it had practically no powers of independent legislation, and none of controlling the policy of the executive, which was nominated by the ministers in London. Though the great majority of the people were Roman Catholics, no person of that faith could either enter parliament or exercise the franchise; the penal code, which made it almost impossible for a Roman Catholic to hold property, to follow a learned profession, or even to educate his children, and which in numerous particulars pressed severely on the Roman Catholics and subjected them to degrading conditions, was as yet unrepealed, though in practice largely obsolete; the industry and commerce of Ireland were throttled by restrictions imposed, in accordance with the economic theories of the period, in the interest of the rival trade of Great Britain. Men like Anthony Malone and Hely-Hutchinson fully realized the necessity for far-reaching reforms; and it only needed the ability and eloquence of Flood in the Irish House of Commons to raise up an independent party in parliament, and to create in the country a public opinion with definite intelligible aims.

The chief objects for which Flood strove were the shortening of the duration of parliament which had then no legal limit in Ireland except that of the reigning sovereign's life, the reduction of the scandalously heavy pension list, the establishment of a national militia, and, above all, the complete legislative independence of the Irish parliament. For some years little was accomplished; but in 1768 the English ministry, which had special reasons at the moment for avoiding unpopularity in Ireland, allowed an octennial bill to pass, which was the first step towards making the Irish House of Commons in some measure representative of public opinion.

It had become the practice to allow crown patronage in Ireland to be exercised by the owners of parliamentary boroughs in return for their undertaking to manage the House in the government interest. But during the viceroyalty of Lord Townshend the aristocracy, and more particularly these undertakers as they were called, were made to understand that for the future their privileges in this respect would be curtailed. When, therefore, an opportunity was taken by the government in 1768 for reasserting the constitutional subordination of the Irish parliament, these powerful classes were thrown into temporary alliance with Flood. In the following year, in accordance with the established procedure, a money bill was sent over by the privy council in London for acceptance by the Irish House of Commons. It rejected, but a reason for this course was assigned; namely, that the bill had not originated in the Irish House. In consequence parliament was peremptorily prorogued, and a recess of fourteen months was employed by the government in securing a majority by the most extensive corruption. Nevertheless, when parliament met in February 1771 another money bill was thrown out on the motion of Flood; and the next year Lord Townshend, the lord lieutenant whose policy had provoiced this conflict, was recalled. The struggle was the occasion of a publication, famous in its day, called Baratariana, to which Flood contributed a series of powerful letters after the manner of Junius, one of his collaborators being Henry Grattan.^[2]

The success which had thus far attended Flood's efforts had placed him in a position such as no Irish politician had previously attained. He had, as an eminent historian of Ireland observes, proved himself beyond all comparison the greatest popular orator that his country had yet produced, and also a consummate master of parliamentary tactics. Under parliamentary conditions that were exceedingly unfavourable, and in an atmosphere charged with corruption, venality and subserviency, he had created a party before which ministers had begun to quail, and had inoculated the Protestant constituencies with a genuine spirit of liberty and self-reliance. Lord Harcourt, who succeeded Townshend as viceroy, saw that Flood must be conciliated at any price rather than risk the opposition of so formidable a leader.

Flood represented Callan between 1762 and 1776 and Longford Borough between 1768 and 1769. Accordingly, in 1775, he was offered and accepted a seat, in the Privy Council of Ireland and the office of vice-treasurer with a salary of £3500 a year. For this step. he has been severely criticized. Flood may reasonably have held that he had a better prospect of advancing his policy by the leverage of a ministerial position. The result, however, was that the leadership of the national party passed from Flood to Grattan, who entered the Irish parliament in the same session that Flood became a minister.

Flood continued in office for nearly seven years. Reelected for Enniskillen in 1777, he necessarily remained silent on the subject of the independence of the Irish parliament, and had to be content with advocating minor reforms as occasion offered. He was instrumental in obtaining bounties on the export of Irish corn to foreign, countries and other commercial concessions. On the other hand he failed to procure the passing of a Habeas corpus bill and a bill for making the judges irremovable, while his support of Lord North's American policy gravely injured his popularity and reputation.

An important event in 1778 led indirectly to his recovering to some extent his former position in the country; this was the alliance of France with the revolted American colonies. Ireland was thereby placed in peril of a French invasion, while the English government could provide no troops to defend the island. A volunteer movement was then set on foot to meet the emergency; in a few weeks more than 40,000 men were under arms, officered by the country gentry, and controlled by Lord Charlemont. This volunteer force, in which Flood was a colonel soon made itself felt in politics.

A Volunteer Convention, formed with all the regular organization of a representative assembly, but wielding the power of an army, began menacingly to demand the removal of the commercial restrictions which were destroying Irish prosperity. Under, this pressure the government gave way; the whole colonial trade was in 1779 thrown open to Ireland for the first time, and other concessions were also extorted. Flood, who had taken an active though not a leading part in this movement, now at last resigned his office to rejoin his old party. He found to his chagrin that his former services had been to a great extent forgotten, and that he was eclipsed by Grattan.

When in a debate on the constitutional question in 1779 Flood complained of the small consideration shown him in relation to a subject which he had been the first to agitate, he was reminded that by the civil law if a man should separate from his wife and abandon her for seven years, another might then take her and give her his protection. But though Flood had lost control of the movement for independence of the Irish parliament, the agitation, backed as it now was by the Volunteer Convention and by increasing signs of popular disaffection, led at last in 1782 to the concession of the demand, together with a number of other important reforms.

No sooner, however, was this great success gained than a question arose known as the Simple Repeal controversy as to whether England, in addition to the repeal of the Acts on which the subordination of the Irish parliament had been based, should not be required expressly to renounce for the future all claim to control Irish legislation. The chief historical importance of this dispute is that it led to the memorable rupture of friendship between Flood and Grattan, each of whom assailed the other with unmeasured but magnificently eloquent invective in the House of Commons. In 1783, Flood was again returned to the house, this time for Kilbeggan. His view prevailed for a Renunciation Act such as he advocated was ungrudgingly passed by the English parliament of the same year and for a time he regained popularity at the expense of his rival. Flood next (28 November 1783) introduced a reform bill, after first submitting it to the Volunteer Convention.

The bill, which contained no provision for giving the franchise to Roman Catholics, which Flood always opposed, was rejected, ostensibly on the ground that the attitude of the volunteers threatened the freedom of parliament. The volunteers were perfectly loyal to the crown and the connection with England. They carried an address to the king, moved by Flood, expressing the hope that their support of parliamentary reform might be imputed to nothing but a sober and laudable desire to uphold the constitution and to perpetuate the cordial union of both kingdoms. The convention then dissolved, but Flood had desired, in opposition to Grattan, to continue it as a means of putting pressure on parliament for the purpose of obtaining reform.

In Dublin, he was a member of Daly's Club.^[3]

British Parliament[link]

In 1776, Flood had made an attempt to enter the British House of Commons. In 1783, he tried again, this time with success. He purchased a seat for Winchester from the duke of Chandos, and for the next seven years he was a member at the same time of both the British and Irish parliaments. He reintroduced, but without success, his reform bill in the Irish House in 1784; supported the movement for protecting Irish industries; but short-sightedly opposed Pitt's commercial propositions in 1785. He remained a firm opponent of Roman Catholic emancipation, even defending the penal laws on the ground that after the Revolution, they were not laws of persecution but of political necessity; but after 1786, he does not appear to have attended the parliament in Dublin.

In the House at Westminster, where he refused to enrol himself as a member of either political party, he was not successful. His first speech, in opposition to Charles James Fox's India Bill on 3 December 1783, disappointed the expectations aroused by his celebrity. His speech in opposition to the commercial treaty with France in 1787 was, however, most able; and in 1790 he introduced a reform bill which Fox declared to be the best scheme of reform that had yet been proposed, and which in Edmund Burke's opinion retrieved Flood's reputation. But at the dissolution in the same year he lost his seat in both parliaments, and he then retired to Farmley, his residence in County Kilkenny, where he remained till his death.

When Peter Burrowes, notwithstanding his close personal friendship with Grattan, declared that Flood was perhaps the ablest man Ireland ever produced, indisputably the ablest man of his own times, he expressed what was probably the general opinion of Flood's contemporaries. Lord Charlemont, who knew him intimately though not always in agreement with his policy, pronounced him to be a man of consummate ability. He also declared that avarice made no part of Flood's character. Lord Mountmorres, a critic by no means partial to Flood, described him as a pre-eminently truthful man, and one who detested flattery. Grattan, who even after the famous quarrel never lost his respect for Flood, said of him that he was the best tempered and the most sensible man in the world. In his youth he was genial, frank, sociable and witty; but in later years disappointment made him gloomy and taciturn. As an orator he was less polished, less epigrammatic than Grattan; but a clear reasoner and a greater master of sarcasm and invective.

Personal ambition often governed his actions, but his political judgment was usually sound; and it was the opinion of Bentham that Flood would have succeeded in carrlting a reform bill that might have preserved Irish parliamentary independence if he had been supported by Grattan and the rest of his party in keeping alive the Volunteer Convention in 1783. Though he never wavered in loyalty to the British crown and empire, Ireland never produced a more sincere patriot than Henry Flood.

See also[link]

• Warden Flood, Memoirs of Henry Flood (London, 1838);
• Henry Grattan, Memoirs of the Life and Times of the Right Hon. H. Grattan (5 vols., London, 1839–1846);
• Charles Phillips, Recollections of Curran and some of his Contemporaries (London, 1822); The Irish Parliament 1775, from an official and contemporary manuscript, edited by William Hunt (London, 1907);
• WJ O'Neill Daunt, Ireland and Her Agitators; Lord Mountmorres, History of the Irish Parliament (2 vols., London, 1792); WEH Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century (8 vols., London, 1878–1890);
• Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (enlarged edition, 2 vols., London, 1903); JA Froude, The English in Ireland, vols. ii. and iii. (London, 1881);
• Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III (4 vols., London, 1845, 1894);
• Sir Jonah Barrington, Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation (London, 1833);
• Francis Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland (London, 1803); Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography (Dublin, 1878); F Hardy, Memoirs of Lord Charlemont (London, 1812), especially for the volunteer movement, on which see also Proceedings of the Volunteer Delegates of Ireland 1784 (Anon. Pamphlet, Brit. Mus.);
• also The Charlemont Papers, and Irish Parl. Debates, (vols. i.-iv.).

References[link]

Notes[link]

Sources[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Martin, Peter (2005). Edmond Malone, Shakespearean Scholar: A Literary Biography. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-61982-3. 

Parliament of Ireland
Preceded by William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon Patrick Wemys	Member of Parliament for Kilkenny County 1759–1761 With: Patrick Wemys	Succeeded by Hon. John Ponsonby James Agar
Preceded by Patrick Wemys James Agar	Member of Parliament for Callan 1762–1776 With: Patrick Wemys 1762 James Wemys 1762–1765 Jocelyn Flood 1765–1767 John Flood 1767–1776 Hercules Langrishe 1776	Succeeded by Pierce Butler George Agar
Preceded by Sir Thomas Newcomen, 8th Bt Joseph Henry	Member of Parliament for Longford Borough 1768–1769 With: David La Touche	Succeeded by Warden Flood David La Touche
Preceded by Sir Archibald Acheson, 6th Bt John Leigh	Member of Parliament for Enniskillen 1777 – 1783 With: John Leigh	Succeeded by Sir John Blaquiere John McClintock
Preceded by Sir Richard Johnston, 1st Bt Charles Lambart	Member of Parliament for Kilbeggan 1783–1790 With: John Philpot Curran	Succeeded by Thomas Burgh[disambiguation needed ] William Sherlock
Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by Lovell Stanhope Henry Penton[disambiguation needed ]	Member of Parliament for Winchester 1783 – 1784 With: Henry Penton[disambiguation needed ]	Succeeded by Richard Grace Gamon Henry Penton[disambiguation needed ]
Preceded by Sir Peter Parker Sir John Henderson	Member of Parliament for Seaford 1786 – 1790 With: Sir Godfrey Webster	Succeeded by John Sargent Richard Paul Jodrell