In supporting these resolutions, Grattan cited England's
dealings with America, to show what Ireland too might effect
by claiming her just rights. … The Earl of Carlisle became
Viceroy in 1781, with Mr. Eden as Secretary. Viewing England's
embroilment in war—in America, in India, with France, and
Spain, and Holland—the Irish Volunteers, whose numbers had
swelled, Grattan said, to well-nigh 100,000 men, held meetings
and reviews in various parts of the country. … The 16th of
April, 1782, was a memorable day for Dublin. On that date, in
a city thronged with Volunteers, with bands playing, and
banners blazoned with gilded harps fluttering in the wind,
Grattan, in an amendment to the Address which was always
presented to the King at the opening of Parliament, moved,
'That Ireland is a distinct Kingdom, with a separate
Parliament, and that this Parliament alone has a right to make
laws for her.' On the 17th of May, the two Secretaries of
State, Lord Shelburne in the Lords, and Charles James Fox in
the Commons of Great Britain—proposed the repeal of the 6th
of George I., a statute which declared the right of the
English Parliament to make laws for Ireland. The English
Government frankly and fully acceded to the demands of
Ireland. Four points were granted—
(1) an Independent Irish Parliament;
(2) the abrogation of Poynings' Law, empowering the English
Privy Council to alter Irish Bills;
(3) the introduction of a Biennial Mutiny Bill;
(4) the abolition of the right of appeal to England from the
Irish law courts.
These concessions were announced to the Irish Parliament at
once: in their joy the Irish Houses voted £100,000, and 20,000
men to the navy of Great Britain. Ireland had at last achieved
political freedom. Peace and prosperity seemed about to bless
the land. … That there might be no misunderstanding as to
the deliberate intention of the English Parliament in granting
Irish legislative independence, Lord Shelburne had passed an
Act of Renunciation, declaring that 'the Right claimed by the
people of Ireland, to be bound only by laws enacted by His
Majesty and the Parliament of that Kingdom, is hereby declared
to be established and ascertained for ever, and shall at no
time hereafter be questioned or questionable.' During the same
session (1782), the two Catholic Relief Bills proposed by Luke
Gardiner, who afterwards became Viscount Mountjoy, were
passed. These measures gave Catholics the right to buy
freeholds, to teach schools, and to educate their children as
they pleased. The Habeas Corpus Act was now extended to
Ireland; and marriages by presbyterian ministers were made
legal."
W. F. Collier,
History of Ireland for Schools,
period 5, chapter 3.
"Had the Irish demanded a complete separation it would have
been yielded without resistance. It would have been better had
it been. The two countries would have immediately joined on
terms of equality and of mutual confidence and respect. But
the more the English Cabinet gave way the less were the Irish
disposed to press their advantage. A feeling of warm
attachment to England rapidly took the place of distrust.
There never existed in Ireland so sincere and friendly a
spirit of spontaneous union with England as at this moment,
when the formal bond of union was almost wholly dissolved.
From the moment when England made a formal surrender of her
claim to govern Ireland a series of inroads commenced on the
various interests supposed to be left to their own free
development by that surrender. Ireland had not, like England,
a body of Cabinet Ministers responsible to her Parliament. The
Lord Lieutenant and the Irish Secretary held their offices and
received their instructions from the English minister. There
was greater need than ever before for a bribed majority in the
Irish Commons, and the machinery for securing and managing it
remained intact."
W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
book 4, chapter 2, section 2 (volume 2).
"The history of these memorable eighteen years [1782-1800] has
never been written, and yet these years are the … key to
Irish political opinion in the 19th [century]. The Government
which granted the constitution of 1782 began to conspire
against it immediately. They had taken Poynings' Act away from
the beginning of its proceedings, and they clapped it on to
the end of its proceedings, as effectually as if the change
had not been made. They developed in the Irish mind that
distrust of all government which has made it so turbulent and
so docile—turbulent to its administrators, docile to its
popular leaders."
J. E. Thorold Rogers,
Ireland
(A. Reid, editor), p. 25.
ALSO IN:
W. E. H. Lecky,
Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland: Henry Grattan.
J. G. MacCarthy,
Henry Grattan.
IRELAND: A. D. 1784.
Peep-o'-Day Boys and Defenders.
"Disturbances … commenced in the north between two parties
called Peep-o'-Day Boys and Defenders. They originated in 1784
among some country people, who appear to have been all
Protestants or Presbyterians; but Catholics having sided with
one of the parties, the quarrel quickly grew into a religious
feud, and spread from the county of Armagh, where it
commenced, to the neighbouring districts of Tyrone and Down.
Both parties belonged to the humblest classes of the
community. The Protestant party were well armed, and
assembling in numbers, attacked the houses of Catholics under
pretence of searching for arms; insulting their persons, and
breaking their furniture. These wanton outrages were usually
committed at an early hour in the morning, whence the name of
Peep-o'-Day Boys; but the faction was also known as
'Protestant Boys,' and 'wreckers,' and ultimately merged in
the Orange Society."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
p. 722.
IRELAND: A. D. 1793.
Passage of the Catholic Relief Bill.
"On February 4 (1793) Hobart [Chief Secretary] moved for leave
to bring in his Catholic Relief Bill, and stated the nature of
its provisions. It was of a kind which only a year before
would have appeared utterly impossible, and which was in the
most glaring opposition to all the doctrines which the
Government and its partisans had of late been urging. … This
great measure was before Parliament, with several
intermissions, for rather more than five weeks. …
{1779}
The vast preponderance of speakers were in favour of relief to
Catholics, though there were grave differences as to the degree,
and speakers of the highest authority represented the genuine
Protestant feeling of the country as being in its favour. …
Few things in Irish parliamentary history are more remarkable
than the facility with which this great measure was carried,
though it was in all its aspects thoroughly debated. It passed
its second reading in the House of Commons with only a single
negative. It was committed with only three negatives, and in
the critical divisions on its clauses the majorities were at
least two to one. The qualification required to authorise a
Catholic to bear arms was raised in committee on the motion of
the Chancellor, and in addition to the oath of allegiance of
1774, a new oath was incorporated in the Bill, copied from one
of the declarations of the Catholics, and abjuring certain
tenets which had been ascribed to them, among others the
assertion that the infallibility of the Pope was an article of
their faith. For the rest the Bill became law almost exactly
in the form in which it was originally designed. It swept away
the few remaining disabilities relating to property which grew
out of the penal code. It enabled Catholics to vote like
Protestants for members of Parliament and magistrates in
cities or boroughs; to become elected members of all
corporations except Trinity College; to keep arms subject to
some specified conditions; to hold all civil and military
offices in the kingdom from which they were not specifically
excluded; to hold the medical professorships on the foundation
of Sir Patrick Dun; to take degrees and hold offices in any
mixed college connected with the University of Dublin that
might hereafter be founded. It also threw open to them the
degrees of the University, enabling the King to alter its
statutes to that effect. A long clause enumerated the prizes
which were still withheld. Catholics might not sit in either
House of Parliament; they were excluded from almost all
Government and judicial positions; they could not be Privy
Councillors, King's Counsel, Fellows of Trinity College,
sheriffs or sub-sheriffs, or generals of the staff. Nearly
every post of ambition was still reserved for Protestants, and
the restrictions weighed most heavily on the Catholics who
were most educated and most able. In the House of Lords as in
the House of Commons the Bill passed with little open
opposition, but a protest, signed among other peers by
Charlemont, was drawn up against it. … The Catholic Relief
Bill received the royal assent in April, 1793, and in the same
month the Catholic Convention dissolved itself. Before doing
so it passed a resolution recommending the Catholics 'to
co-operate in all loyal and constitutional means' to obtain
parliamentary reform. … The Catholic prelates in their
pastorals expressed their gratitude for the Relief Bill. The
United Irishmen on their side issued a proclamation warmly
congratulating the Catholics on the measure for their relief,
but also urging in passionate strains that parliamentary
reform was the first of needs."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 25 (volume 6).
IRELAND: A. D. 1793-1798.
Organization of the United Irishmen.
Attempted French invasions.
The rising of '98.
"Nothing could be less sinister than the original aims and
methods of the Society of United Irishmen, which was conceived
in the idea of uniting Catholics and Protestants 'in pursuit
of the same object—a repeal of the penal laws, and a
(parliamentary) reform including in itself an extension of the
right of suffrage.' This union was founded at Belfast, in
1791, by Theobald Wolfe Tone, a young barrister of English
descent, and, like the majority of the United Irishmen, a
Protestant. Some months later a Dublin branch was founded, the
chairman being the hon. Simon Butler, a Protestant gentleman
of high character, and the secretary a tradesman named James
Napper Tandy. The society grew rapidly, and branches were
formed throughout Ulster and Leinster. The religious strife of
the Orange boys and Defenders was a great trouble to the
United men, who felt that these creed animosities among
Irishmen were more ruinous to the national cause than any
corruption of parliament or coercion of government could
possibly be. Ireland, united, would be quite capable of
fighting her own battles, but these party factions rendered
her contemptible and weak. The society accordingly set itself
the impossible task of drawing together the Defenders and the
Orange men. Catholic emancipation—one of the great objects of
the union—naturally appealed very differently to the rival
parties: it was the great wish of the Defenders, the chief
dread of the Orangemen. Both factions were composed of the
poorest and most ignorant peasantry in Ireland, men whose
political views did not soar above the idea that 'something
should be done for old Ireland.' The United Irishmen devoted
themselves to the regeneration of both parties, but the
Orangemen would have none of them, and the Protestant United
men found themselves drifting into partnership with the
Catholic Defenders. To gain influence with this party, Tandy
took the Defenders' oath. He was informed against; and, as to
take an illegal oath was then a capital offence in Ireland, he
had to fly for his life to America. This adventure made Tandy
the hero of the Defenders, who now joined the union in great
numbers; but the whole business brought the society into
disrepute, and connected it with the Defenders, who, like the
Orange boys, were merely a party of outrage. … One night in
the May of '94 a government raid was made upon the premises of
the union. The officers of the society were arrested, their
papers seized, the type of their newspaper destroyed, and the
United Irish Society was proclaimed as an illegal
organisation. Towards the close of this year all need for a
reform society seemed to have passed. Fitzwilliam was made
viceroy, and emancipation and reform seemed assured. His
sudden recall, the reversal of his appointments, the rejection
of Grattan's Reform Bill, and the renewal of the old coercive
system, convinced the United men of the powerlessness of
peaceful agitation to check the growth of the system of
government by corruption. They accordingly reorganised the
union, but as a secret society, and with the avowed aim of
separating Ireland from the British empire. The Fitzwilliam
affair had greatly strengthened the union, which was joined by
many men of high birth and position, among them lord Edward
Fitzgerald, brother of the duke of Leinster, and Arthur
O'Connor, nephew to lord Longueville, both of whom had been
members of the House of Commons. … But the ablest man of the
party was Thomas Addis Emmet, a barrister, and the elder
brother of Robert Emmet.
{1780}
The society gradually swelled to the number of 5,000 members,
but throughout its existence it was perfectly riddled with
spies and informers, by whom government was supplied with a
thorough knowledge of its doings. It became known to Pitt that
the French government had sent an Englishman, named Jackson,
as an emissary to Ireland. Jackson was convicted of treason,
and hanged, and Wolfe Tone was sufficiently implicated in his
guilt … to find it prudent to fly to America. But before
leaving Ireland he arranged with the directors of the union to
go from America to France, and to try to persuade the French
government to assist Ireland in a struggle for separation.
While Tone was taking his circuitous route to Paris,
government, to meet the military development of the society,
placed Ulster and Leinster under a stringent Insurrection Act;
torture was employed to wring confession from suspected
persons, and the Protestant militia and yeomanry were drafted
at free quarters on the wretched Catholic peasantry. The
barbarity of the soldiers lashed the people of the northern
provinces into a state of fury. … In the meantime the
indomitable Tone—unknown, without credentials, without
influence, and ignorant of the French language—had persuaded
the French government to lend him a fleet, 10,000 men, and
40,000 stand of arms, which armament left Brest for Bantry Bay
on the 16th December, 1796. Ireland was now in the same
position as England had been when William of Orange had
appeared outside Torbay. Injustice, corruption, and oppression
had in both cases goaded the people into rebellion. A calm sea
and a fierce gale made the difference between the English
patriot of 1688 and the Irish traitor of 1796. Had the sea
been calm in the Christmas week of '96, nothing could have
stopped the French from marching on to Dublin, but just as the
ships put in to Bantry Bay, so wild a wind sprang up that they
were driven out to sea, and blown and buffetted about. For a
month they tossed about within sight of land, but the storm
did not subside, and, all chance of landing seeming as far off
as ever, they put back into the French port."
Wm. S. Gregg,
Irish History for English Readers,
chapter 23.
"After the failure of Hoche's expedition, another great
armament was fitted out in the Texel, where it long lay ready
to come forth, while the English fleet, the only safeguard of
our coasts, was crippled by the mutiny at the Nore. But the
wind once more fought for England, and the Batavian fleet came
out at last only to be destroyed at Camperdown. Tone was
personally engaged in both expeditions, and his lively Diary,
the image of his character, gives us vivid accounts of both.
The third effort of the French Government was feeble, and
ended in the futile landing of a small force under Humbert.
… In the last expedition Tone himself was taken prisoner,
and, having been condemned to death, committed suicide in
prison. … It was well for Ireland, as well as for England,
that Tone failed in his enterprise. Had he succeeded, his
country would for a time have been treated as Switzerland and
the Batavian Republic were treated by their French
regenerators, and, in the end, it would have been surely
reconquered and punished by the power which was mistress of
the sea. … But now that all is over, we can afford to say
that Tone gallantly ventured his life in what naturally
appeared to him, and would to a high-spirited Englishman under
the same circumstances have appeared, a good cause. One of his
race had but too much reason then to 'hate the very name of
England,' and to look forward to the burning of her cities
with feelings in which pity struggled with revenge for
mastery, but revenge prevailed. … From the Republicans the
disturbance spread, as in 1641, to that mass of blind
disaffection and hatred, national, social, agrarian, and
religious, which was always smouldering among the Catholic
peasantry. With these sufferers the political theories of the
French Revolutionists had no influence; they looked to French
invasion, as well as to domestic insurrection, merely as a
deliverance from the oppression under which they groaned. …
The leading Roman Catholics, both clerical and lay, were on
the side of the government. The mass of the Catholic
priesthood were well inclined to take the same side, They
could have no sympathy with an Atheist Republic, red with the
blood of priests, as well as with the blood of a son of St.
Louis. If some of the order were concerned in the movement, it
was as demagogues, sympathizing with their peasant brethren,
not as priests. Yet the Protestants insisted on treating the
Catholic clergy as rebels by nature. They had assuredly done
their best to make them so. … No sooner did the Catholic
peasantry begin to move and organize themselves than the
Protestant gentry and yeomanry as one man became Cromwellians
again. Then commenced a Reign of Terror scarcely less savage
than that of the Jacobins, against whom Europe was in arms, as
a hideous and portentous brood of evil, the scourge and horror
of the whole human race. The suspected conspirators were
intimidated, and confessions, or pretended confessions, were
extorted by loosing upon the homes of the peasantry the
license and barbarity of an irregular soldiery more cruel than
a regular invader. Flogging, half-hanging, pitch-capping,
picketing, went on over a large district, and the most
barbarous scourgings, without trial, were inflicted in the
Riding-house at Dublin, in the very seat of government and
justice. This was styled, 'exerting a vigour beyond the law;'
and to become the object of such vigour, it was enough, as
under Robespierre, to be suspected of being suspect. No one
has yet fairly undertaken the revolting but salutary task of
writing a faithful and impartial history of that period; but
from the accounts we have, it appears not unlikely that the
peasantry, though undoubtedly in a disturbed state, and to a
great extent secretly organized, might have been kept quiet by
measures of lenity and firmness; and that they were
gratuitously scourged and tortured into open rebellion. When
they did rebel, they shewed, as they had shewn in 1641, what
the galley-slave is when, having long toiled under the lash,
he contrives in a storm to slip his chains and become master
of the vessel. The atrocities of Wexford and Vinegar-Hill
rivalled the atrocities of Portnadown. Nor when the rebellion
was vanquished did the victors fail to renew the famous feats
of Sir Charles Coote and of the regiment of Cole. We now
possess terrible and overwhelming evidence of their sanguinary
ferocity in the correspondence of Lord Cornwallis, who was
certainly no friend to rebels, having fought against them in
America, but who was a man of sense and heart, most wisely
sent over to quench the insurrection, and pacify the country.
…
{1781}
The murders and other atrocities committed by the Jacobins
were more numerous than those committed by the Orangemen, and
as the victims were of higher rank they excited more
indignation and pity; but in the use of torture the Orangemen
seem to have reached a pitch of fiendish cruelty which was
scarcely attained by the Jacobins. … The Jacobin party was
almost entirely composed of men taken from the lowest of the
people, whereas among the Irish terrorists were found men of
high social position and good education."
Goldwin Smith,
Irish History and Irish Character,
pages 166-175.
ALSO IN:
R. R. Madden,
The United Irishmen, their Lives and Times.
Theobald Wolfe Tone,
Memoirs.
Marquis Cornwallis,
Correspondence,
chapter 19 (volume 2).
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 16.
Viscount Castlereagh,
Memoirs and Correspondence,
volume 1.
W. H. Maxwell,
History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798.
IRELAND: A. D. 1795-1796.
Formation of the Orange Society.
Battle of the Diamond.
Persecution of Catholics by Protestant mobs.
"The year 1795 is very memorable in Irish history, as the year
of the formation of the Orange Society, and the beginning of
the most serious disturbances in the county of Armagh. … The
old popular feud between the lower ranks of Papists and
Presbyterians in the northern counties is easy to understand,
and it is not less easy to see how the recent course of Irish
politics had increased it. A class which had enjoyed and
gloried in uncontested ascendency, found this ascendency
passing from its hands. A class which had formerly been in
subjection, was elated by new privileges, and looked forward
to a complete abolition of political disabilities. Catholic
and Protestant tenants came into a new competition, and the
demeanour of Catholics towards Protestants was sensibly
changed. There were boasts in taverns and at fairs, that the
Protestants would speedily be swept away from the land and the
descendants of the old proprietors restored, and it was soon
known that Catholics all over the country were forming
themselves into committees or societies, and were electing
representatives for a great Catholic convention at Dublin. The
riots and outrages of the Peep of Day Boys and Defenders had
embittered the feeling on both sides. … Members of one or
other creed were attacked and insulted as they went to their
places of worship. There were fights on the high roads, at
fairs, wakes, markets, and country sports, and there were
occasionally crimes of a much deeper dye. … In September
1795 riots broke out in this county [Armagh], which continued
for some days, but at length the parish priest on the one
side, and a gentleman named Atkinson on the other, succeeded
in so far appeasing the quarrel that the combatants formally
agreed to a truce, and were about to retire to their homes,
when a new party of Defenders, who had marched from the
adjoining counties to the assistance of their brethren,
appeared upon the scene, and on September 21 they attacked the
Protestants at a place called the Diamond. The Catholics on
this occasion were certainly the aggressors, and they appear
to have considerably outnumbered their antagonists, but the
Protestants were better posted, better armed, and better
organised. A serious conflict ensued, and the Catholics were
completely defeated, leaving a large number—probably twenty
or thirty—dead upon the field. It was on the evening of the
day on which the battle of the Diamond was fought, that the
Orange Society was formed. It was at first a league of mutual
defence, binding its members to maintain the laws and the
peace of the country, and also the Protestant Constitution. No
Catholic was to be admitted into the society, and the members
were bound by oath not to reveal its secrets. The doctrine of
Fitzgibbon, that the King, by assenting to Catholic
emancipation, would invalidate his title to the throne, was
remarkably reflected in the oath of the Orangemen, which bound
them to defend the King and his heirs, 'so long as he or they
support the Protestant ascendency.' The society took its name
from William of Orange, the conqueror of the Catholics, and it
agreed to celebrate annually the battle of the Boyne. In this
respect there was nothing in it particularly novel. Protestant
associations, for the purpose of commemorating the events and
maintaining the principles of the Revolution, had long been
known. … A very different spirit, however, animated the
early Orangemen. The upper classes at first generally held
aloof from the society; for a considerable time it appears to
have been almost confined to the Protestant peasantry of
Ulster, and the title of Orangemen was probably assumed by
numbers who had never joined the organisation, who were simply
Peep of Day Boys taking a new name, and whose conduct was
certainly not such as those who instituted the society had
intended. A terrible persecution of the Catholics immediately
followed. The animosities between the lower orders of the two
religions, which had long been little bridled, burst out
afresh, and after the battle of the Diamond, the Protestant
rabble of the county of Armagh, and of part of the adjoining
counties, determined by continuous outrages to drive the
Catholics from the country. Their cabins were placarded, or,
as it was termed, 'papered,' with the words, 'To hell or
Connaught,' and if the occupants did not at once abandon them,
they were attacked at night by an armed mob. The webs and
looms of the poor Catholic weavers were cut and destroyed.
Every article of furniture was shattered or burnt. The houses
were often set on fire, and the inmates were driven homeless
into the world. The rioters met with scarcely any resistance
or disturbance. Twelve or fourteen houses were sometimes
wrecked in a single night. Several Catholic chapels were
burnt, and the persecution, which began in the county of
Armagh, soon extended over a wide area in the counties of
Tyrone, Down, Antrim, and Derry. … The outrages continued
with little abatement through a great part of the following
year. As might have been expected, there were widely differing
estimates of the number of the victims. According to some
reports, which were no doubt grossly exaggerated, no less than
1,400 families, or about 7,000 persons, were driven out of the
county of Armagh alone. Another, and much more probable
account, spoke of 700 families, while a certain party among
the gentry did their utmost to minimise the persecutions."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 27 (volume 7).
{1782}
IRELAND: A. D. 1798-1800.
The Legislative Union with Great Britain.
"No sooner had the rebellion been suppressed than the
Government proposed, to the Parliament of each country, the
union of Great Britain and Ireland under a common legislature.
This was no new idea. It had frequently been in the minds of
successive generations of statesmen on both sides of the
Channel; but had not yet been seriously discussed with a view
to immediate action. Nothing could have been more safely
predicted than that Ireland must, sooner or later, follow the
precedent of Scotland, and yield her pretensions to a separate
legislation. The measures of 1782, which appeared to establish
the legislative independence of Ireland, really proved the
vanity of such a pretension. … On the assembling of the
British Parliament at the commencement of the year [1799], the
question of the Union was recommended by a message from the
Crown; and the address, after some opposition, was carried
without a division. Pitt, at this, the earliest stage,
pronounced the decision at which the Government had arrived to
be positive and irrevocable. … Lord Cornwallis [then Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland] also expressed his conviction that
union was the only measure which could preserve the country.
… The day before the intended Union was signified by a royal
message to the English Parliament, the Irish Houses assembled;
and the Viceroy's speech, of course, contained a paragraph
relative to the project. The House of Lords, completely under
the control of the Castle, agreed to an address in conformity
with the speech, after a short and languid debate, by a large
majority; but the Commons were violently agitated. … An
amendment to the address pledging the House to maintain the
Union was lost by one vote, after the House had sat twenty-one
hours; but, on the report, the amendment to omit the paragraph
referring to the Union was carried by a majority of four. …
When it was understood that the Government was in earnest …
there was little difficulty in alarming a people among whom
the machinery of political agitation had, for some years, been
extensively organised. The bar of Dublin took the lead, and it
at once became evident that the policy of the Government had
effected a union among Irishmen far more formidable than that
which all the efforts of sedition had been able to accomplish.
The meeting of the bar included not merely men of different
religious persuasions, but, what was of more importance in
Ireland, men of different sides in politics. … However
conclusive the argument in favour of Union may appear to
Englishmen, it was difficult for an Irishman to regard the
Union in any other view than as a measure to deprive his
country of her independent constitution, and to extinguish her
national existence. Mr. Foster, the Speaker, took this view.
… Sir John Parnell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
followed the Speaker. Mr. Fitzgerald, the Prime Serjeant, a
law officer of the Crown, was on the same side. Ponsonby, the
leader of the Whigs, was vehement against the scheme; so was
Grattan; so was Curran. Great efforts were made by the
Government to quiet the Protestants, and to engage the
Catholics to support the Union. These efforts were so far
successful that most of the Orange lodges were persuaded to
refrain from expressing any opinion on the subject. The
Catholic hierarchy were conciliated by the promise of a
provision for the clergy, and of an adjustment of the Tithe
question. Hopes were held out, if promises were not actually
made, to the Catholic community, that their civil disabilities
would be removed. … If the Union was to be accomplished by
constitutional means, it could be effected only by a vote of
the Irish Parliament, concurring with a vote of the English
Parliament; and if the Irish assembly were to pronounce an
unbiased judgment on the question of its extinction, it is
certain that a very small minority, possibly not a single
vote, would be found to support the measure. … The vote on
the address was followed, in a few days, by an address to the
Crown, in which the Commons pledged themselves to maintain the
constitution of 1782. The majority in favour of national
independence had already increased from five to twenty. …
The votes of the Irish Commons had disposed of the question
for the current session; but preparations were immediately
made for its future passage through the Irish Houses. The
foremost men in Ireland … had first been tempted, but had
indignantly refused every offer to betray the independence of
their country. Another class of leading persons was then
tried, and from these, for the most part, evasive answers were
received. The minister understood the meaning of these dubious
utterances. There was one mode of carrying the Union, and one
mode only. Bribery of every kind must be employed without
hesitation and without stint."
W. Massey,
History of England: Reign of George. III.,
chapter 38 (volume 4).
"Lord Cornwallis had to work the system of 'negotiating and
jobbing,' by promising an Irish Peerage, or a lift in that
Peerage, or even an English Peerage, to a crowd of eager
competitors for honours. The other specific for making
converts was not yet in complete operation. Lord Castlereagh
[the Irish Chief Secretary] had the plan in his
portfolio:—borough proprietors to be compensated; … fifty
barristers in parliament, who always considered a seat as the
road to preferment, to be compensated; the purchasers of seats
to be compensated; individuals connected either by residence
or property with Dublin to be compensated. 'Lord Castlereagh
considered that £1,500,000 would be required to effect all
these compensations.' The sum actually paid to the
borough-mongers alone was £1,260,000. Fifteen thousand pounds
were allotted to each borough; and 'was apportioned amongst
the various patrons.' … It had become a contest of bribery
on both sides. There was an 'Opposition stock-purse,' as Lord
Castlereagh describes the fund against which he was to
struggle with the deeper purse at Whitehall. … During the
administration of Lord Cornwallis, 29 Irish Peerages were
created; of which seven only were unconnected with the
question of Union. Six English Peerages were granted on
account of Irish services; and there were 19 promotions in the
Irish Peerage, earned by similar assistance." The question of
Union was virtually decided in the Irish House of Commons on
the 6th of February, 1800. Lord Castlereagh, on the previous
day, had read a message from the Lord Lieutenant,
communicating resolutions adopted by the parliament of Great
Britain in the previous year. "The question was debated from
four o'clock in the afternoon of the 5th to one o'clock in the
afternoon of the 6th.
{1783}
During that time the streets of Dublin were the scene of a
great riot, and the peace of the city was maintained only by
troops of cavalry. … On the division of the 6th there was a
majority of 43 in favour of the Union." It was not, however,
until the 7th of June, that the final legislative
enactment—the Union Bill—was passed in the Irish House of
Commons. The first article provided "that the kingdoms of
Great Britain and Ireland should, upon the 1st of January,
1801, be united into one kingdom, by the name of The United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom was
to be represented in one and the same parliament. In the
United Parliament there were to be 28 temporal Peers, elected
for life by the Irish Peerage; and four spiritual Peers,
taking their places in rotation. There were to be 100 members
of the Lower House; each county returning two, as well as the
cities of Dublin and Cork. The University returned one, and 31
boroughs each returned one. Of these boroughs 23 remained
close boroughs till the Reform Bill of 1831. … The Churches
of England and Ireland were to be united. The proportion of
Revenue to be levied was fixed at fifteen for Great Britain
and two for Ireland, for the succeeding twenty years.
Countervailing duties upon imports to each country were fixed
by a minute tariff, but some commercial restrictions were to
be removed."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 7, chapter 21.
"If the Irish Parliament had consisted mainly, or to any
appreciable extent, of men who were disloyal to the
connection, and whose sympathies were on the side of rebellion
or with the enemies of England, the English Ministers would, I
think, have been amply justified in employing almost any means
to abolish it. … But it cannot be too clearly understood or
too emphatically stated, that the legislative Union was not an
act of this nature. The Parliament which was abolished was a
Parliament of the most unqualified loyalists; it had shown
itself ready to make every sacrifice in its power for the
maintenance of the Empire, and from the time when Arthur
O'Connor and Lord Edward Fitzgerald passed beyond its walls,
it probably did not contain a single man who was really
disaffected. … It must be added, that it was becoming
evident that the relation between the two countries
established by the Constitution of 1782 could not have
continued unchanged. … Even with the best dispositions, the
Constitution of 1782 involved many and grave probabilities of
difference. … Sooner or later the corrupt borough ascendency
must have broken down, and it was a grave question what was to
succeed it. … An enormous increase of disloyalty and
religious animosity had taken place during the last years of
the century, and it added immensely to the danger of the
democratic Catholic suffrage, which the Act of 1793 had called
into existence. This was the strongest argument for hurrying
on the Union; but when all due weight is assigned to it, it
does not appear to me to have justified the policy of Pitt."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 32 (volume 8).
ALSO IN:
T. D. Ingram,
History of the Legislative Union.
R. Hassencamp,
History of Ireland,
chapter 14.
Marquis Cornwallis,
Correspondence,
chapters 19-21 (volumes 2-3).
Viscount Castlereagh,
Memoirs and Correspondence,
volumes 2-3.
IRELAND: A. D. 1801.
Pitt's promise of Catholic Emancipation broken by the king.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1801-1806.
IRELAND: A. D. 1801-1803.
The Emmet insurrection.
"Lord Hardwicke succeeded Lord Cornwallis as viceroy in May
[1801]; and for two years, so far as the British public knew,
Ireland was undisturbed. The harvest of 1801 was abundant. The
island was occupied by a military force of 125,000 men.
Distant rumours of disturbances in Limerick, Tipperary, and
Waterford were faintly audible. Imports and exports increased.
The debt increased likewise, but, as it was met by loans and
uncontrolled by any public assembly, no one protested, and few
were aware of the fact. Landlords and middlemen throve on high
rents, and peasants as yet could live. … Early in 1803 the
murmurs in the southwest became louder. Visions of a fixed
price for potatoes began to shape themselves, and the invasion
of 'strangers' ready to take land from which tenants had been
ejected was resisted. The magistrates urged the viceroy to
obtain and exercise the powers of the Insurrection Act; but
the evil was not thought of sufficient magnitude, and their
request was refused: Amidst the general calm, the insurrection
of Robert Emmett in July broke like a bolt from the blue. A
young republican visionary, whose brother had taken an active
part in the rebellion, he had inspired a few score comrades
with the quixotic hope of rekindling Irish nationality by
setting up a factory of pikes in a back street of Dublin. On
the eve of St. James's Day, Quigley, one of his associates,
who had been sowing vague hopes among the villages of Kildare,
brought a mixed crowd into Dublin. When the evening fell, a
sky-rocket was fired. Emmett and his little band sallied from
Marshalsea Lane into St. James's Street, and distributed pikes
to all who would take them. The disorderly mob thus armed
proceeded to the debtors' prison, which they attacked, killing
the officer who defended it. Emmett urged them on to the
Castle. They followed, in a confused column, utterly beyond
his power to control. On their war they fell in with the
carriage of the Chief Justice, Lord Kilwarden, dragged him
out, and killed him. By this time a few handfuls of troops had
been collected. In half an hour two subalterns, with fifty
soldiers each, had dispersed the whole gathering. By ten
o'clock all was over, with the loss of 20 soldiers and 50
insurgents. Emmett and Russell, another of the leaders who had
undertaken the agitation of Down and Antrim, were shortly
afterwards taken and executed; Quigley escaped. Such was the
last reverberation of the rebellion of 1798, or rather of the
revolutionary fervour that led the way to that rebellion,
before it had been tainted with religious animosity. Emmett
died as Shelley would have died, a martyr and an enthusiast;
but he knew little of his countrymen's condition, little of
their aspirations, nothing of their needs. He had no
successors."
J. H. Bridges,
Two Centuries of Irish History,
part 3, chapter 2.
"Emmet might easily have escaped to France if he had chosen,
but he delayed till too late. Emmet was a young man, and Emmet
was in love. 'The idol of his heart,' as he calls her in his
dying speech, was Sarah Curran, the daughter of John Philpot
Curran. … Emmet was determined to see her before he went. He
placed his life upon the cast and lost it. … The White
Terror which followed upon the failure of Emmet's rising was
accompanied by almost all the horrors which marked the hours
of repression after the rebellion of '98. … The old devil's
dance of spies and informers went merrily forward; the prisons
were choked with prisoners."
J. H. McCarthy,
Ireland Since the Union,
chapters 5-6.
ALSO IN:
R. R. Madden,
The United Irishmen, their Lives and Times,
volume 3.
J. Wills,
History of Ireland in the Lives of Irishmen,
volume 6, pages 68-80.
{1784}
IRELAND: A. D. 1811-1829.
O'Connell and the agitation for Catholic Emancipation
and the Repeal of the Union.
Catholic disabilities removed.
"There is much reason to believe that almost from the
commencement of his career" Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish
agitator, "formed one vast scheme of policy which he pursued
through life with little deviation, and, it must be added,
with little scruple. This scheme was to create and lead a
public spirit among the Roman Catholics; to wrest emancipation
by this means from the Government; to perpetuate the agitation
created for that purpose till the Irish Parliament had been
restored; to disendow the Established Church; and thus to open
in Ireland a new era, with a separate and independent
Parliament and perfect religious equality. It would be
difficult to conceive a scheme of policy exhibiting more
daring than this. The Roman Catholics had hitherto shown
themselves absolutely incompetent to take any decisive part in
politics. … O'Connell, however, perceived that it was
possible to bring the whole mass of the people into the
struggle, and to give them an almost unexampled momentum and
unanimity by applying to politics a great power that lay
dormant in Ireland—the power of the Catholic priesthood. To
make the priests the rulers of the country, and himself the
ruler of the priests, was his first great object. … There
was a party supported by Keogh, the leader in '93, who
recommended what was called 'a dignified silence'—in other
words, a complete abstinence from petitioning and agitation.
With this party O'Connell successfully grappled. His advice on
every occasion was, 'Agitate, agitate, agitate!' and Keogh was
so irritated by the defeat that he retired from the society."
O'Connell's leadership of the movement for Catholic
Emancipation became virtually established about the beginning
of 1811. "He avowed himself repeatedly to be an agitator with
an 'ulterior object,' and declared that that object was the
repeal of the Union. 'Desiring, as I do, the repeal of the
Union,' he said in one of his speeches, in 1813, 'I rejoice to
see how our enemies promote that great object. … They delay
the liberties of the Catholics, but they compensate us most
amply because they advance the restoration of Ireland. By
leaving one cause of agitation, they have created, and they
will embody and give shape and form to, a public mind and a
public spirit.' … Nothing can be more untrue than to
represent the Repeal agitation as a mere afterthought designed
to sustain his flagging popularity. Nor can it be said that
the project was first started by him. The deep indignation
that the Union had produced in Ireland was fermenting among
all classes, and assuming the form, sometimes of a French
party, sometimes of a social war, and sometimes of a
constitutional agitation. … It would be tedious to follow
into minute detail the difficulties and the mistakes that
obstructed the Catholic movement, and were finally overcome by
the energy or the tact of O'Connell. … Several times the
movement was menaced by Government proclamations and
prosecutions. Its great difficulty was to bring the public
opinion of the whole body of the Roman Catholics actively and
habitually into the question. … All preceding movements
since the Revolution (except the passing excitement about
Wood's halfpence) had been chiefly among the Protestants or
among the higher order of the Catholics. The mass of the
people had taken no real interest in politics, had felt no
real pain at their disabilities, and were politically the
willing slaves of their landlords. For the first time, under
the influence of O'Connell, the great swell of a really
democratic movement was felt. The simplest way of
concentrating the new enthusiasm would have been by a system
of delegates, but this had been rendered illegal by the
Convention Act. On the other hand, the right of petitioning
was one of the fundamental privileges of the constitution. By
availing himself of this right O'Connell contrived, with the
dexterity of a practised lawyer, to violate continually the
spirit of the Convention Act, while keeping within the letter
of the law. Proclamation after proclamation was launched
against his society, but by continually changing its name and
its form he generally succeeded in evading the prosecutions of
the Government. These early societies, however, all sink into
insignificance compared with that great Catholic Association
which was formed in 1824. The avowed objects of this society
were to promote religious education, to ascertain the
numerical strength of the different religions, and to answer
the charges against the Roman Catholics embodied in the
hostile petitions. It also 'recommended' petitions
(unconnected with the society) from every parish, and
aggregate meetings in every county. The real object was to
form a gigantic system of organisation, ramifying over the
entire country, and directed in every parish by the priests,
for the purpose of petitioning and in every other way
agitating in favour of emancipation. The Catholic Rent [a
system of small subscriptions—as small as a penny a
month—collected from the poorest contributors, throughout
Ireland] was instituted at this time, and it formed at once a
powerful instrument of cohesion and a faithful barometer of
the popular feeling. … The success of the Catholic
Association became every week more striking. The rent rose
with an extraordinary rapidity [from £350 a week in October to
£700 a week in December, 1824]. The meetings in every county
grew more and more enthusiastic, the triumph of priestly
influence more and more certain. The Government made a feeble
and abortive effort to arrest the storm by threatening both
O'Connell and Sheil [Richard Lalor] with prosecution for
certain passages in their speeches. … The formation of the
Wellington Ministry [Wellington and Peel, 1828] seemed
effectually to crush the present hopes of the Catholics, for
the stubborn resolution of its leader was as well known as his
Tory opinions. Yet this Ministry was destined to terminate the
contest by establishing the principle of religious equality.
… On the accession of the Wellington Ministry to power the
Catholic Association passed a resolution to the effect that
they would oppose with their whole energy any Irish member who
consented to accept office under it. …
{1785}
An opportunity for carrying the resolution into effect soon
occurred. Mr. Fitzgerald, the member for Clare, accepted the
office of President of the Board of Trade, and was
consequently obliged to go to his constituents for
re-election." O'Connell entered the lists against him. "The
excitement at this announcement rose at once to fever height.
It extended over every part of Ireland, and penetrated every
class of society. The whole mass of the Roman Catholics
prepared to support him, and the vast system of organisation
which he had framed acted effectually in every direction." For
the first time, the landlords found that the voting of their
tenants could not be controlled. Fitzgerald withdrew from the
contest and O'Connell was elected. "Ireland was now on the
very verge of revolution. The whole mass of the people had
been organised like a regular army, and taught to act with the
most perfect unanimity. … The Ministers, feeling further
resistance to be hopeless, brought in the Emancipation Bill,
confessedly because to withhold it would be to kindle a
rebellion that would extend over the length and breadth of the
land."
W. E. H. Lecky,
Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland: O'Connell.
"Peel introduced the Relief Bill on the 5th March [1829]. The
king had given to it a reluctant assent. At the last hour, the
intrigues of Eldon and the Duke of Cumberland had so far
influenced his weak and disingenuous mind that he withdrew his
assent to his ministers' policy, on the pretence that he had
not expected, and could not sanction, any modification of the
Oath of Supremacy. He parted from his ministers with kisses
and courtesy, and, for a few hours their resignation was in
his hands. But with night his discretion waxed as his courage
waned; his ministers were recalled, and their measure
proceeded. In its main provisions it was thorough and
far-reaching. It admitted the Roman Catholic to Parliament,
and to all lay offices under the Crown, except those of
Regent, Lord Chancellor, whether of England or of Ireland, and
Lord Lieutenant. It repealed the oath of abjuration, it
modified the oath of supremacy. … It approximated the Irish
to the English county franchise by abolishing the
forty-shilling freeholder, and raising the voters'
qualifications to £10. All monasteries and institutions of
Jesuits were suppressed; and Roman Catholic bishops were
forbidden to assume titles of sees already held by bishops of
the Church of Ireland. Municipal and other officials were
forbidden to wear the insignia of their office at Roman
Catholic ceremonies. Lastly, the new Oath of Supremacy was
available only for persons thereafter to be elected to
Parliament"—which nullified O'Connell's election at Clare.
This petty stroke of malice is said to have been introduced in
the bill for the gratification of the king. The vote in the
Commons on the Bill was 353 against 180, and in the Lords 217
to 112. It received the Royal assent on the 13th of April.
J. A. Hamilton,
Life of Daniel O'Connell,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
J. McCarthy,
Sir Robert Peel,
chapters 2-7.
W. J. Fitzpatrick,
Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell,
with notices of his Life and Times,
volume 1, chapters 1-5.
W. J. Amherst,
History of Catholic Emancipation.
W. C. Taylor,
Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 1, chapters 16-18
and volume 2, chapters 1-2.
IRELAND: A. D. 1820-1826.
Rise of the Ribbon Society.
"Throughout the half-century extending from 1820 to 1870, a
secret oath-bound agrarian confederacy, known as the 'Ribbon
Society,' was the constant affliction and recurring terror of
the landed classes of Ireland. The Vehmgericht itself was not
more dreaded. … It is assuredly strange—indeed, almost
incredible—that although the existence of this organisation
was, in a general way, as well and as widely known as the fact
that Queen Victoria reigned, or that Daniel O'Connell was once
a living man; although the story of its crimes has thrilled
judge and jury, and parliamentary committees have filled
ponderous blue-books with evidence of its proceedings, there
is to this hour the widest conflict of assertion and
conclusion as to what exactly were its real aims, its origin,
structure, character, and purpose. … I long ago satisfied
myself that the Ribbonism of one period was not the Ribbonism
of another; that the version of its aims and character
prevalent amongst its own members in one county or district
differed widely from that existing elsewhere. In Ulster it
professed to be a defensive or retaliatory league against
Orangeism. In Munster it was at first a combination against
tithe-proctors. In Connaught it was an organisation against
rack-renting and evictions. In Leinster it often was mere
trade-unionism. … The Ribbon Society seems to have been
wholly confined to small farmers, cottiers, labourers, and, in
the towns, petty shopkeepers, in whose houses the 'lodges'
were held. … Although from the inception, or first
appearance, of Ribbonism the Catholic clergy waged a
determined war upon it … the society was exclusively
Catholic. Under no circumstances would a Protestant be
admitted to membership. … The name 'Ribbon Society' was not
attached to it until about 1826. It was previously known as
'Liberty Men'; the 'Religious Liberty System'; the 'United
Sons of Irish Freedom'; 'Sons of the Shamrock'; and by other
names. … It has been said, and probably with some truth,
that it has been too much the habit to attribute erroneously
to the Ribbon organisation every atrocity committed in the
country, every deed of blood apparently arising out of
agrarian combination or conspiracy. … But vain is all
pretence that the Ribbon Society did not become, whatever the
original design or intention of its members may have been, a
hideous organisation of outrage and murder. … There was a
period when Ribbon outrages had, at all events, a conceivable
provocation; but there came a time when they sickened the
public conscience by their wantonness. The vengeance of the
society was ruthless and terrible. … From 1835 to 1855 the
Ribbon organisation was at its greatest strength. … With the
emigration of the labouring classes it was carried abroad, to
England and to America. At one time the most formidable lodges
were in Lancashire."
A. M. Sullivan,
New Ireland,
chapter 4.
IRELAND: A. D. 1831.
Establishment of National Schools.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.—IRELAND.
IRELAND: A. D. 1832.
Parliamentary Representation increased by the Reform Bill.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830-1832.
{1786}
IRELAND: A. D. 1840-1841.
Discontent with the results of the Union.
Condition of the people.
O'Connell's revival of agitation for Repeal.
"The Catholics were at length emancipated in 1829; and now,
surely, their enemies suggested, they must be contented and
grateful for evermore? Perverse must the people be who, having