_J. Lingard,

History of England,

volume 10, chapter 5, with foot-note._

ALSO IN:

_D. Murphy,

Cromwell in Ireland._

IRELAND: A. D. 1651.

The Massachusetts colonists invited to Ireland by Cromwell.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1649-1651.

IRELAND: A. D. 1652.

The Kilkenny Articles.

"On 12th May, 1652, the Leinster army of the Irish surrendered

on terms signed at Kilkenny, which were adopted successively

by the other principal armies between that time and the

September following, when the Ulster forces surrendered. By

these Kilkenny articles, all except those who were guilty of

the first blood were received into protection, on laying down

their arms; those who should not be satisfied with the

conclusions the Parliament might come to concerning the Irish

nation, and should desire to transport themselves with their

men to serve any foreign state in amity with the Parliament,

should have liberty to treat with their agents for that

purpose."

_J. P. Prendergast,

The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,

part 1, section 2._

IRELAND: A. D. 1653.

The Cromwellian Settlement.

"By the term Cromwellian Settlement is to be understood the

history of the dealings of the Commonwealth of England with

the lands and habitations of the people of Ireland after their

conquest of the country in the year 1652. … The officers of

the army were eager to take Irish lands in lieu of their

arrears, though it does not appear that the common soldiers

were, who had small debentures and no capital, and no chance

of founding families and leaving estates to their posterity.

But the adventurers [national creditors, who had loaned money

to the government for the Irish War] must be first settled

with, as they had a claim to about one million of acres, to

satisfy the sums advanced for putting down the rebellion on

the faith of the Act of 17 Charles I. (A. D. 1642), and

subsequent Acts and Ordinances, commonly called 'The Acts of

Subscription.' By these, lands for the adventurers must be

first ascertained, before the rest of the country could be

free for disposal by the Parliament to the army. … Towards

the close of the year 1653, the island seemed sufficiently

desolated to allow the English to occupy it. On the 26th of

September in that year, the Parliament passed an Act for the

new planting of Ireland with English. The government reserved

for themselves all the towns, all the church lands and tithes;

for they abolished all archbishops, bishops, deans, and other

officers, belonging to that hierarchy, and in those days the

Church of Christ sat in Chichester House on College-green.

They reserved also for themselves the four counties of Dublin,

Kildare, Carlow, and Cork. Out of the lands and tithes thus

reserved, the government were to satisfy public debts, private

favourites, eminent friends of the republican cause in

Parliament, regicides, and the most active of the English

rebels, not being of the army. They next made ample provision

for the adventurers. The amount due to the adventurers was

£360,000. This they divided into three lots, of which £110,000

was to be satisfied in Munster, £205,000 in Leinster, and

£45,000 in Ulster, and the moiety of ten counties was charged

with their payment:—Waterford, Limerick, and Tipperary, in

Munster; Meath, Westmeath, King's and Queen's Counties, in

Leinster; and Antrim, Down, and Armagh, in Ulster. But, as all

was required by the Adventurers Act to be done by lot, a

lottery was appointed to be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for

the 20th July, 1653. … A lot was then to be drawn by the

adventurers, and by some officer appointed by the Lord General

Cromwell on behalf of the soldiery, to ascertain which

baronies in the ten counties should be for the adventurers,

and which for the soldiers. The rest of Ireland, except

Connaught, was to be set out amongst the officers and

soldiers, for their arrears, amounting to £1,550,000, and to

satisfy debts of money or provisions due for supplies advanced

to the army of the Commonwealth, amounting to £1,750,000.

Connaught was by the Parliament reserved and appointed for the

habitation of the Irish nation; and all English and

Protestants having lands there, who should desire to remove

out of Connaught into the provinces inhabited by the English,

were to receive estates in the English parts, of equal value,

in exchange. … The Earl of Ormond, Primate Bramhall, and all

the Catholic nobility, and many of the gentry, were declared

incapable of pardon of life or estate, and were banished. …

Connaught was selected for the habitation of all the Irish

nation by reason of its being surrounded by the sea and the

Shannon, all but ten miles, and the whole easily made into one

line by a few forts. To further secure the imprisonment of the

nation, and cut them off from relief by sea, a belt four miles

wide, commencing one mile to the west of Sligo, and so winging

along the coast and Shannon, was reserved by the Act of 27th

September, 1653, from being set out to the Irish, and was

given to the soldiery to plant. Thither all the Irish were to

remove at latest by the first day of May, 1654, except Irish

women married to English Protestants before the 2d December,

1650, provided they became Protestants; except, also, boys

under fourteen and girls under twelve, in Protestant service

and to be brought up Protestants; and, lastly, those who had

shown during the ten years' war in Ireland their constant good

affection to the Parliament of England in preference to the

king.

{1770}

There they were to dwell without entering a walled town, or

coming within five miles of some, on pain of death. All were

to remove thither by the 1st of May, 1654, at latest, under

pain of being put to death by sentence of a court of military

officers, if found after that date on the English side of the

Shannon." In the actual enforcement of the law—found

impracticable in all its rigor—there were many special

dispensations granted, and extensions of time.

_J. P. Prendergast,

The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,

preface, and parts 1-2._

ALSO IN:

_J. A. Froude,

The English in Ireland in the 18th Century,

book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1)._

_J. Lingard,

History of England,

volume 10, chapter 6._

IRELAND: A. D. 1655.

Cromwell's deportation of Girls to Jamaica.

See JAMAICA: A. D. 1655.

IRELAND: A. D. 1660-1665.

The restored Stuarts and their Act of Settlement.

"On the fall of Richard Cromwell, a council of officers was

established in Dublin; these summoned a convention of deputies

from the protestant proprietors; and the convention tendered

to Charles the obedience of his ancient kingdom of Ireland.

… To secure the royal protection, they made the king an

offer of a considerable sum of money, assured him, though

falsely, that the Irish Catholics meditated a general

insurrection, and prayed him to summon a protestant parliament

in Ireland, which might confirm the existing proprietors in

the undisturbed possession of their estates. The present was

graciously accepted, and the penal laws against the Irish

Catholics were ordered to be strictly enforced; but Charles

was unwilling to call a parliament, because it would

necessarily consist of men whose principles, both civil and

religious, he had been taught to distrust. The first measure

recommended to him by his English advisers, with respect to

Ireland, was the re-establishment of episcopacy. For this no

legislative enactment was requisite. His return had given to

the ancient laws their pristine authority. … In a short time

the episcopal hierarchy was quietly restored to the enjoyment

of its former rights, and the exercise of its former

jurisdiction. To this, a work of easy accomplishment,

succeeded a much more difficult attempt,—the settlement of

landed property in Ireland. The military, whom it was

dangerous to disoblige, and the adventurers, whose pretensions

had been sanctioned by Charles I., demanded the royal

confirmation of the titles by which they held their estates;

and the demand was opposed by a multitude of petitioners

claiming restitution or compensation [protestant royalists,

loyal Catholics, &c.]. … Humanity, gratitude, and justice,

called on the king to listen to many of these claims. … From

an estimate delivered to the king, it appeared that there

still remained at his disposal forfeited lands of the yearly

rental of from eighty to one hundred thousand pounds; a fund

sufficiently ample, it was contended, to 'reprize' or

compensate all the Irish really deserving of the royal favour.

Under this impression, Charles published his celebrated

declaration for the settlement of Ireland. It provided that no

person deriving his title from the adventurers under the

parliament, or the soldiers under the commonwealth, should be

disturbed in the possession of his lands, without receiving an

equivalent from the fund for reprisals; that all innocents,

whether protestants or Catholics, that is, persons who had

never adhered either to the parliament or the confederates,

should be restored to their rightful estates." After much

contention between deputations from both sides sent to the

king, an act was passed through the Irish parliament

substantially according to the royal declaration. "But to

execute this act was found to be a task of considerable

difficulty. By improvident grants of lands to the church, the

dukes of York, Ormond, and Albemarle, the earls of Orrery,

Montrath, Kingston, Massarene, and several others, the fund

for reprisals had been almost exhausted." New controversies

and agitations arose, which finally induced the soldiers,

adventurers, and grantees of the crown to surrender one third

of their acquisitions, for the augmenting of the fund for

reprisals. "The king, by this measure, was placed in a

situation [August, 1665], not indeed to do justice, but to

silence the most importunate or most deserving among the

petitioners. … But when compensation had thus been made to a

few of the sufferers, what, it may be asked, became of the

officers who had followed the royal fortune abroad, or of the

3,000 Catholics who had entered their claims of innocence? To

all these, the promises which had been made by the act of

settlement were broken; the unfortunate claimants were

deprived of their rights, and debarred from all hope of future

relief. A measure of such sweeping and appalling oppression is

perhaps without a parallel in the history of civilized

nations. Its injustice could not be denied; and the only

apology offered in its behalf was the stern necessity of

quieting the fears and jealousies of the Cromwellian settlers,

and of establishing on a permanent basis the protestant

ascendancy in Ireland. … The following is the general

result. The protestants were previously [i. e., before the

Cromwellian Settlement] in possession of about one moiety of

all the profitable lands in the island; of the second moiety,

which had been forfeited under the commonwealth, something

less than two-thirds was by the act confirmed to the

protestants; and of the remainder a portion almost equal in

quantity, but not in quality, to one-third, was appropriated

to the Catholics."

_J. Lingard,

History of England,

volume 11, chapter 4._

ALSO IN:

_J. A. Froude,

The English in Ireland,

book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1)._

_T. Carte,

Life of James Duke of Ormond,

book 6 (volume 4)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1685-1688.

The reign of James II.

Domination of Tyrconnel and the Catholics.

"At the accession of James II., in 1685, he found the native

Irish, all of whom were Roman Catholics, opposed to the

English rule, as to that of a conquering minority. … Of the

settlers, the Scotch Presbyterians shared the feelings of

their brethren in their native country, and hated

Episcopalians with the true religious fury. In the Irish

Parliament the Presbyterians and Episcopalians were nearly

balanced, whilst the Protestant Nonconformists, in numbers

almost equalling the other two parties, had but few seats in

the Parliament. The Episcopalians alone were hearty supporters

of the house of Stuart; the Presbyterians and Nonconformists

were Whigs. James was in a most favourable position for

tranquilising Ireland, for, as a Roman Catholic, he was much

more acceptable to the native Irish than his predecessors had

been.

{1771}

Had he followed his true interests, he would have endeavoured,

firstly, to unite together, as firmly as possible, the English

settlers in Ireland, and secondly, by wise acts of mediation,

to bridge over the differences between the English and Irish.

Thus he might have welded them into one people. James,

however, followed a directly opposite policy, and the results

of this misgovernment of Ireland are visible at the present

day. The Duke of Ormond was at the time of the death of

Charles II. both lord lieutenant and commander of the forces.

… Soon after his accession James recalled him, and the

office of lord lieutenant was bestowed on his own

brother-in-law, Lord Clarendon, whilst the post of general of

the troops was given to Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel.

Talbot … was a coarse, vulgar, truculent ruffian, greedy and

unprincipled; but in the eyes of James he had great virtues,

for he was devoted to the Romish Church and to his sovereign.

'Lying Dick Talbot,' as he was called, was raised by James to

the peerage as Earl of Tyrconnel. Lord Clarendon was, from the

time of his appointment, hampered by his associate," who,

finally, in 1687, supplanted him, gathering the reins of

government into his own hands, "not indeed as lord lieutenant,

but with the power which Ormond had formerly held, although

under a new title, that of lord deputy. The rule of Tyrconnel

entirely subverted the old order of things. Protestants were

disarmed and Protestant soldiers were disbanded. The militia

was composed wholly of Roman Catholics. The dispensing power

in the royal prerogative set aside the statutes of the

kingdom, and the bench and privy council were occupied by

Roman Catholics. Vacant bishoprics of the Established Church

remained unfilled, and their revenues were devoted to Romish

priests. Tithes were with impunity withheld from the clergy of

the Establishment. … The hatred of the Irish Roman Catholics

towards the Protestant settlers was excited to the utmost

under Tyrconnel's rule. The former now hoped to mete out to

the latter a full measure of retaliation. The breach was

widened owing to the fear and distrust openly showed by the

Protestants, and has never since been effectually repaired."

Before the occurrence of the Revolution which drove James from

his throne, in 1688, "Tyrconnel had disarmed all the

Protestants, except those in the North. He had a large force

of 20,000 men under arms, and of this force all the officers

were trustworthy and Papists. He had filled the corporations

of the towns with adherents of James. He had shown himself to

be, as ever, tyrannical and unscrupulous. It was universally

believed by the Protestants that a general massacre, a second

St. Bartholomew, was intended. Even a day, December 9, was,

they thought, fixed for the expected outbreak. The garrison of

Londonderry had been temporarily withdrawn. On December 8,

Lord Antrim arrived in command of 12,000 [1,200?] soldiers to

form the new garrison. Without any warning, the Protestant

apprentices ('the prentice boys of Derry') shut the gates of

the city in his face. The inhabitants, in spite of the

entreaties of the bishop and of the town council, refused to

allow them to be opened. Antrim was compelled to withdraw.

Thus one rallying-point was gained for the opponents of James.

Another was found in Enniskillen, sixty miles south of

Londonderry. Into these two towns poured all the Protestants

from the surrounding districts. With these two exceptions, the

boast of Tyrconnel that Ireland was true, was well founded."

_E. Hale,

The Fall of the Stuarts,

chapters 10 and 13._

"He [James II.] deliberately resolved, not merely to give to

the aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland the entire dominion of

their own country, but also to use them as his instruments for

setting up arbitrary government in England. The event was such

as might have been foreseen. The colonists turned to bay with

the stubborn hardihood of their race. The mother country

justly regarded their cause as her own. Then came a desperate

struggle for a tremendous stake. … The contest was terrible

but short. The weaker went down. His fate was cruel; and yet

for the cruelty with which he was treated there was, not

indeed a defence, but an excuse: for though he suffered all

that tyranny could inflict, he suffered nothing that he would

not himself have inflicted. The effect of the insane attempt

to subjugate England by means of Ireland was that the Irish

became hewers of wood and drawers of water to the English. …

The momentary ascendency of Popery produced such a series of

barbarous laws against Popery as made the statute book of

Ireland a proverb of infamy throughout Christendom. Such were

the bitter fruits of the policy of James."

_Lord Macaulay,

History of England,

chapter 6 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:

_J. R. O'Flanagan,

Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland,

chapter 28 (volume 1)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1688-1689.

Enniskillen and the Battle of Newton Butler.

Enniskillen, then a village, surrounding an ancient castle,

was, in 1688-89, one of the two rallying points of the

Protestant colonists in Ireland, who supported the Revolution

by which James II. was dethroned and William and Mary were

crowned. The chief stronghold of their cause was Londonderry;

but Enniskillen bore a scarcely less important part. "In

December, 1688, Tyrconnel's troops, being two companies of

Popish infantry, advanced upon Enniskillen. The inhabitants,

reinforced by 200 foot and 150 horse, contributed by the

neighbouring gentry, marched out to oppose them. Tyrconnel's

men fled to Cavan. The Enniskilleners, then, arming themselves

as well as they could, and converting all the country-houses

round Lough Erne into garrisons, appointed Gustavus Hamilton

their governor and resolved upon defence. … Early in May,

1689, the Enniskilleners routed Tyrconnel's troops, sent from

Connaught into Donegal. They next drove 1,500 men out of the

County Cavan—destroyed the Castle of Ballincarrig—and then

entered the County Meath, whence they carried off oxen and

sheep. Colonel Hugh Sutherland was sent with a regiment of

dragoons and two regiments of foot against the Enniskilleners,

who, however, defeated them, and took Belturbet, where they

found muskets, gunpowder, and provisions; but unfortunately

they were unable to relieve Derry, then beleaguered and sorely

distressed. The Enniskilleners held out against all attacks,

and refused all terms of surrender. They were now assailed

from various points; by Macarthy (then by James created

Viscount Mountcashel) from the east, by another body from the

west, and by the Duke of Berwick from the north.

{1772}

The Enniskilleners sent to Colonel Kirke [commanding the

English forces first sent to Ireland by William of Orange] who

had arrived in Lough Foyle, and received from him some arms

and ammunition; and Colonel Wolseley and Lieutenant-Colonel

Berry came from him to their assistance. Colonel Wolseley took

the command." Under Wolseley, the men of Enniskillen, 3,000

strong, encountered 5,000 of the enemy, under Mountcashel,

near the town of Newton Butler, on the 31st of July, three

days after Derry had been relieved. Their victory was

complete. "The whole Irish force was totally and hopelessly

routed. Their slaughter was dreadful—l,500 killed, and 500

drowned in Lough Erne, whither they were driven. Mountcashel

was wounded and taken prisoner. The Enniskilleners lost only

twenty killed and fifty wounded. They took 400 prisoners, some

cannons, fourteen barrels of gunpowder, and all the colours

and drums. … The victory became known at Strabane to the

Irish army retreating from Derry, which thereupon broke up in

confusion and fled to Omagh, and thence to Charlemont."

_W. H. Torriano,

William the Third,

chapter 21._

ALSO IN:

_Lord Macaulay,

History of England,

chapter 12 (volume 3)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.

The War of the Revolution.

The Orange conquest.

Supported by a French fleet, supplied moderately with French

gold, and accompanied by a picked body of French officers, for

the organizing and disciplining of raw Irish troops, James II.

landed in Ireland, at Kinsale, on the 12th of March, 1689, to

take personal possession of the government still maintained

there in his name. From Kinsale he hastened to Dublin, "and

summoned a Parliament, which met on May 7, 1689, and sat until

July 18. This Parliament of James has been described as a

Parliament of Irish Celts, yet out of the 228 members of the

House of Commons about one-fourth only belonged to the native

race, and even including members of families Anglicized or of

doubtful origin, not one-third of the House of Commons

belonged to the so-called Celts. Of the thirty-two lay peers

who attended, not more than two or three bore old Irish names.

The four spiritual peers were Protestant bishops."

_W. K. Sullivan,

part 1, of Two Centuries of Irish History

chapter 1._

"The members of the House of Commons were almost all new men,

completely inexperienced in public business and animated by

the resentment of the bitterest wrongs. Many of them were sons

of some of the 3,000 proprietors who without trial and without

compensation had been deprived by the Act of Settlement of the

estates of their ancestors. To all of them the confiscations

of Ulster, the fraud of Strafford, the long train of

calamities that followed were recent and vivid events. … It

will hardly appear surprising to candid men that a Parliament

so constituted and called together amid the excitement of a

civil war, should have displayed much violence, much disregard

for vested interests. Its measures, indeed, were not all

criminal. By one Act which was far in advance of the age, it

established perfect religious liberty in Ireland. … By

another Act, repealing Poynings' law, and asserting its own

legislative independence, it anticipated the doctrine of

Molyneux, Swift, and Grattan. … A third measure abolished

the payments to Protestant clergy in the corporate towns,

while a fourth ordered that the Catholics throughout Ireland

should henceforth pay their tithes and other ecclesiastical

dues to their own priests and not to the Protestant clergy.

The Protestants were still to pay their tithes to their own

clergy. … Several other measures—most of them now only

known by their titles—were passed for developing the

resources of the country or remedying some great abuse. … If

these had been the only measures of the Irish Parliament it

would have left an eminently honourable reputation. But,

unfortunately, one of its main objects was to re-establish at

all costs the descendants of the old proprietors in their

land, and to annul by measures of sweeping violence the

grievous wrongs and spoliations their fathers and their

grandfathers had undergone. The first and most important

measure with this object was the repeal of the Acts of

Settlement and Explanation. … The preamble asserts that the

outbreak of 1641 had been solely due to the intolerable

oppression and to the disloyal conduct of the Lords Justices

and Puritan party, that the Catholics of Ireland before the

struggle had concluded had been fully reconciled to the

sovereign, that they had received from the sovereign a full

and formal pardon, and that the royal word had been in

consequence pledged to the restitution of their properties.

This pledge by the Act of Settlement had been to a great

extent broken, and the Irish legislators maintained that the

twenty-four years which had elapsed since that Act had not

annulled the rights of the old proprietors or their

descendants. They maintained that these claims were not only

valid but were prior to all others, and they accordingly

enacted that the heirs of all persons who had possessed landed

property in Ireland on October 22, 1641, and who had been

deprived of their inheritance by the Act of Settlement, should

enter at once into possession of their old properties. … The

long succession of confiscations of Irish land which had taken

place from the days of Mary to the Act of Settlement had been

mainly based upon real or pretended plots of the owners of the

soil, which enabled the Government, on the plea of high

treason, to appropriate the land which they desired. In 1689

the great bulk of the English proprietors of Irish soil were

in actual correspondence with William, and were therefore

legally guilty of high treason. The Irish legislators now

proceeded to follow the example of the British Governments,

and by a clause of extreme severity they pronounced the real

estates of all Irish proprietors who dwelt in any part of the

three kingdoms which did not acknowledge King James, or who

aided, abetted or corresponded with the rebels, to be

forfeited and vested in the Crown, and from this source they

proposed to compensate the purchasers under the Act of

Settlement. … The measure of repeal, however, was speedily

followed by another Act of much more sweeping and violent

injustice. The Act of Attainder, which was introduced in the

latter part of June, aimed at nothing less than a complete

overthrow of the existing land system in Ireland. A list

divided into several groups, but containing in all more than

2,000 names, was drawn up of landowners who were to be

attainted of high treason. …

{1773}

Few persons will question the tyranny of an Act which in this

manner made a very large proportion of the Irish landlords

liable to the penalties of high treason, unless they could

prove their innocence, even though the only crime that could

be alleged against them was that of living out of Ireland in a

time of civil war. … It is … a curious illustration of the

carelessness or partiality with which Irish history is

written, that no popular historian has noticed that five days

before this Act, which has been described as 'without a

parallel in the history of civilised countries,' was

introduced into the Irish Parliament, a Bill which appears, in

its essential characteristics, to have been precisely similar

was introduced into the Parliament of England; that it passed

the English House of Commons; that it passed, with slight

amendments, the English House of Lords; and that it was only

lost, in its last stage, by a prorogation. … These facts

will show how far the Irish Act of Attainder was from having

the unique character that has been ascribed to it. It is not

possible to say how that Act would have been executed, for the

days of Jacobite ascendency were now few and evil. The

Parliament was prorogued on the 20th of July, one of its last

Acts being to vest in the King the property of those who were

still absentees."

_W. E. H. Lecky,

History of England in the 18th Century,

chapter 6 (volume 2)._

While James' Irish Parliament sat, "sufficient men had

presented themselves to form fifty regiments of infantry and a

proportionate number of cavalry. But … these levies were

undisciplined, and their officers, with few exceptions, were

without military training and experience. There were no

arsenals, and in the government stores only about 1,000

serviceable firearms were found; there was no artillery and no

supply of ammunition. … What coin was in circulation was

small in quantity and debased in quality. James's Government

issued a brass coinage, which had no currency outside the

kingdom, and even within it practically circulated only among

the partisans of James, and could not consequently help in

purchasing arms, ammunition, and military stores, which had to

be imported from without. Under such unfavourable

circumstances the war began. The first campaign comprised the

siege, or rather blockade, of Derry—for the Irish, having no

artillery, could not undertake a regular siege—which was

gallantly defended by the Scoto-English colonists; the check

of Mountcashel by the Enniskilleners, who had followed the

example of Derry; the landing of Schomberg with an army of

Dutch, French Protestants, and English, who went into winter

quarters near Dundalk, where he lost nearly half his troops

from sickness; and, lastly, the military parade of James, who

marched out from Dublin, and, failing to force Schomberg to

fight, went into winter quarters himself. The result of the

campaign was the successful defence of Derry, and the signal

exhibition of James's incapacity as a general. At the opening

of the second campaign, an exchange of troops was made between

James and Louis XIV., with the view of giving prestige to the

cause of the former. Six thousand French troops, under a

drawing-room general, the well-known Comte de Lauzun, arrived

in Ireland, and the same ships carried back an equal number of

Irish troops—the brigade of Mountcashel, the best-trained and

best-equipped body of troops in the Irish army. … The wasted

army of Schomberg was strengthened by the arrival of William

himself on June 14, 1690, with a considerable force. The

united armies, composed of the most heterogeneous materials,

one-half being foreigners of various nationalities, amounted

to between 36,000 and 48,000 men. … To meet William, James

set out from Dublin with an army of about 23,000 men. The

French troops and the Irish cavalry were good, but the

infantry was not well trained, and the artillery consisted

only of twelve field-pieces. The battle took place on July 1,

1690, at the passage of the River Boyne, a few miles above

Drogheda the rout of James's army being complete and its loss

about 1,500 men. William lost but 500; but the number included

Schomberg, one of the great soldiers of his age. James was

among the first in the flight, and he scarcely paused until he

had put himself on board of a French frigate and quitted

Ireland forever]. The Irish fell back on Dublin and thence

retired behind the line of the Shannon. About 20,000

half-armed infantry and about 3,500 horse concentrated at

Limerick. The English having failed in taking Athlone, the key

of the upper Shannon, William gathered together about 38,000

men in the neighbourhood of Limerick. Lauzun having declared

that Limerick could not be defended, and might be taken with

roasted apples, withdrew with the whole of the French troops

to Galway, to await the first opportunity of returning to

France. On August 9, 1690, William moved his whole army close

to the town and summoned the garrison to surrender; but having

failed, with a loss of 2,000 men, to carry the town by

assault, he raised the siege and went to England. The third

and last campaign began late in 1691. The Irish received many

promises of assistance from Louis XIV., but his ministers

fulfilled few or none of them. With scarcely any loss of men,

and with a small expenditure of stores and money, the Irish

war enabled Louis to keep William and a veteran army of 40,000

men out of his way. … The campaign opened in the beginning

of June with the advance of Ginkel [William's general] on

Athlone. The chief defence of the place was the River Shannon,

the works being weak, and mounting only a few field-pieces;

yet so obstinately was the place defended that, but for the

discovery of a ford, and some neglect on the part of D'Usson,

who commanded, it is probable that the siege would have been

raised. As it was, Ginkel became master of the heap of ruins.

… St. Ruth [the French officer commanding the Irish] moved

his camp to Aughrim [or Aghrim], and there was fought the

final battle of the war on Sunday, July 12, 1691. … St. Ruth

was killed at a critical moment, and his army defeated, with a

loss of about 4,000 men, the English loss being about half

that number. Part of the defeated Irish infantry retreated to

Galway; but the bulk of the troops, including the whole of the

cavalry, fell back on Limerick, which surrendered, after a

gallant resistance, in October, 1691."

_W. K. Sullivan,

part 1 of Two Centuries of Irish History,

chapter 1._

ALSO IN:

_Lord Macaulay,

History of England,

chapters 12, 16 and 17._

_W. H. Torriano,

William the Third,

chapters 5 and 21-23._

_J. A. Froude,

The English in Ireland,

chapter 3 (volume 1)._

_W. A. O'Conor,

History of the Irish People,

book 3, chapter 3 (volume 2)._

_Sir J. Dalrymple,

Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland,

part 2, books 2-5 (volume 2)._

{1774}

IRELAND: A. D. 1691.

The Treaty of Limerick and its violation.

The surrender of Limerick was under the terms of a treaty—or

of two treaties, one military, the other civil—formally

negotiated for the terminating of the war. This Treaty of

Limerick was signed, October 3, 1691, by Baron De Ginkel,

William's general, and by the lords justices of Ireland, on

behalf of the English, and by Sarsfield and other chieftains

on behalf of the Irish. "Its chief provisions were: 'The Roman

Catholics of this kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the

exercise of their religion as are consistent with the laws of

Ireland; or as they did enjoy in the reign of King Charles

II.; and their Majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit

them to summon a Parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to

procure the said Roman Catholics such further security in that

particular as may preserve them from any disturbance upon the

account of their said religion. All the inhabitants or

residents of Limerick, or any other garrison now in the

possession of the Irish, and all officers and soldiers now in

arms under any commission of King James, or those authorized

by him to grant the same in the several counties of Limerick,

Clare, Kerry, Cork, and Mayo, or any of them, and all the

commissioned officers in their Majesties' quarters that belong

to the Irish regiments now in being that are treated with and

who are not prisoners of war, or having taken protection, and

who shall return and submit to their Majesties' obedience, and

their and every of their heirs shall hold, possess, and enjoy

all and every their estates of freehold and inheritance; and

all the rights, titles, and interest, privileges and

immunities, which they, or every or any of them, held,

enjoyed, and were rightfully and lawfully entitled to in the

reign of King Charles II.' … A general pardon was to be

granted to all persons comprised within the treaty, and the

Lords Justices and the generals commanding King William's army

were to use their best endeavours to get the attainders of any

of them attainted repealed. … In the copy of the rough draft

engrossed for signature the following words, 'and all such as

are under their protection in the said counties,' which

immediately followed the enumeration of the several counties

in the second article, were omitted. This omission, whether

the result of design or accident, was, however, rectified by

King William when confirming the treaty in February, 1692. The

confirming instrument stated that the words had been casually

omitted; that the omission was not discovered till the

articles were signed, but was taken notice of before the town

was surrendered; and that the Lords Justices or General

Ginkel, or one of them, had promised that the clause should be

made good, since it was within the intention of the

capitulation, and had been inserted in the rough draft.

William then for himself did 'ratify and confirm the said

omitted words.' The colonists, or at all events the 'new

interests'—that is, those who shared or expected to share in

the confiscations—were indignant at the concessions made to

the native race."

_W. K. Sullivan,

part 1 of Two Centuries of Irish History,

chapter 1._

"The advantages secured to Catholics by the Treaty of Limerick

were moderate. But when the flower of the Irish army had

withdrawn to France, and the remnant could be hanged without

ceremony, they began to look inordinate. The parliament of

Cromwellian settlers and Government officials in Dublin having

excluded Catholic members, by requiring from them an oath of

abjuration, in direct infringement of one of the articles of

surrender, were free to proceed at their discretion. They

first passed a stringent statute depriving Catholics of arms,

and another ordering all 'Popish archbishops, bishops,

vicars-general, deans, Jesuits, monks, friars, and regulars of

whatever condition to depart from the kingdom on pain of

transportation,' and then proceeded to consider the treaty.

They … resolved by a decisive majority not to keep the

conditions affecting the Catholics. William … struggled for

a time to preserve his honour; but it is not convenient for a

new king to be in conflict with his friends, and after a time

he gave way. … In Ireland the Treaty of Limerick can never

be forgotten; it is one of the title deeds of the Irish race

to their inheritance in their native land. For more than a

century its sordid and shameless violation was as common a

reproach to England on the Continent as the partition of

Poland has been a reproach to Russia in our own day."

_Sir C. G. Duffy,

Bird's-Eye View of Irish History, revised edition,

pages 155-156

(or book 1, chapter 4, of "Young Ireland")._

"The Protestant rancour of parliament was more powerful than

the good will of the prince. The most vital articles of the

capitulation were ignored, especially in all cases where the

Catholic religion and the liberties granted to its professors

were concerned; and 4,000 Irish were denounced as traitors and

rebels,—by which declamation a fresh confiscation of

1,060,000 acres was immediately effected. … It has been

calculated that in 1692 the Irish Catholics, who quadrupled

the Protestants in number, owned only one-eleventh of the

soil, and that the most wretched and unproductive portion."

_A. Perraud,

Ireland under English Rule,

introduction, section 8._

IRELAND: A. D. 1691-1782.

The peace of despair.

A century of national death.

Oppression of the Penal Laws.

"By the military treaty [of Limerick], those of Sarsfield's

soldiers who would were suffered to follow him to France; and

10,000 men, the whole of his force, chose exile rather than

life in a land where all hope of national freedom was lost.

When the wild cry of the women who stood watching their

departure was hushed, the silence of death settled down upon

Ireland. For a hundred years the country remained at peace,

but the peace was a peace of despair. The most terrible legal

tyranny under which a nation has ever groaned avenged the

rising under Tyrconnell. The conquered people, in Swift's

bitter words of contempt, became 'hewers of wood and drawers

of water' to their conquerors; but till the very eve of the

French Revolution Ireland ceased to be a source of terror and

anxiety to England."

_J. H. Green,

Short History of England,

chapter 9, section 8._

"In Ireland there was peace. The domination of the colonists

was absolute. The native population was tranquil with the

ghastly tranquillity of exhaustion and of despair. There were

indeed outrages, robberies, fireraisings, assassinations. But

more than a century passed away without one general

insurrection. During that century, two rebellions were raised

in Great Britain by the adherents of the House of Stuart. But

neither when the elder Pretender was crowned at Scone, nor

when the younger held his court at Holyrood, was the standard

of that House set up in Connaught or Munster.

{1775}

In 1745, indeed, when the Highlanders were marching towards

London, the Roman Catholics of Ireland were so quiet that the

Lord Lieutenant could, without the smallest risk, send several

regiments across Saint George's Channel to reinforce the army

of the Duke of Cumberland. Nor was this submission the effect

of content, but of mere stupefaction and brokenness of heart.

The iron had entered into the soul. The memory of past

defeats, the habit of daily enduring insult and oppression,

had cowed the spirits of the unhappy nation. There were indeed

Irish Roman Catholics of great ability, energy and ambition;

but they were to be found everywhere except in Ireland,—at

Versailles and at Saint lldefonso, in the armies of Frederic

and in the armies of Maria Theresa. One exile became a Marshal

of France. Another became Prime Minister of Spain. If he had

staid in his native land he would have been regarded as an

inferior by all the ignorant and worthless squireens who had

signed the Declaration against Transubstantiation. …

Scattered over all Europe were to be found brave Irish

generals, dexterous Irish diplomatists, Irish Counts, Irish

Barons, Irish Knights … who, if they had remained in the

house of bondage, could not have been ensigns of marching

regiments or freemen of petty corporations. These men, the

natural chiefs of their race, having been withdrawn, what

remained was utterly helpless and passive. A rising of the

Irishry against the Englishry was no more to be apprehended

than a rising of the women and children against the men."

_Lord Macaulay,

History of England,

chapter 17. _

"An act of 1695 'deprived the Roman Catholics of the means of

educating their children, either at home or abroad, and of the

privilege of being guardians either of their own or of any

other person's children.' Another Act of the same year

deprived the Roman Catholics of the right of bearing arms, or

of keeping any horse which was worth more than £5. An Act of

1697 ordered the expulsion of every Roman Catholic priest from

Ireland. The Parliament, which had imposed these disabilities

on Irish Roman Catholics, proceeded to confirm the Articles of

Limerick, or 'so much of them as may consist with the safety

and welfare of your Majesty's subjects of this kingdom,' and

by a gross act of injustice omitted the whole of the first of

these articles, and the important paragraph in the second

article which had been accidentally omitted from the original

copy of the Treaty, and subsequently restored to it by letters

patent under the Great Seal. Reasonable men may differ on the

propriety or impropriety of the conditions on which the

surrender of Limerick was secured; but it is difficult to read

the story of their repudiation without a deep sense of shame.

Three other acts relating to the Roman Catholics were passed

during the reign of William. An Act of 1697 forbade the

intermarriage of Protestants and Papists. An Act of 1698

prevented Papists from being solicitors. Another Act of the

same year stopped their employment as gamekeepers. William

died; and the breach of faith which he had countenanced was

forgotten amidst the pressure of the legislation which

disgraced the reign of his successor. Two Acts passed in this

reign, for preventing the further growth of Popery, were

styled by Burke the 'ferocious Acts of Anne.' By the first of

these Acts a Papist having a Protestant son was debarred from

selling, mortgaging, or devising any portion of his estate:

however young the son might be, he was to be taken from his

father's hands and confided to the care of a Protestant

relation. The estate of a Papist who had no Protestant heir

was to be divided equally among his sons. The Papist was

declared incapable of purchasing real estate or of taking land

on lease for more than thirty-one years. A Papist was declared

incapable of inheriting real estate from a Protestant. He was

disqualified from holding any office, civil or military. With

twenty exceptions, a Papist was forbidden to reside in

Limerick or Galway. Advowsons the property of Papists were

vested in the Crown. Religious intolerance had now apparently

done its uttermost. … But the laws failed. Their severity

insured their failure. … The first of the ferocious Acts of

Anne was almost openly disregarded. … Its failure only

induced the intolerant advisers of Anne to supplement it with

harsher legislation. The Act of 1704 had deprived the Papist

of the guardianship of his apostate child. An Act of 1709

empowered the Court of Chancery to oblige the Papist to

discover his estate, and authorized the Court to make an order

for the maintenance of the apostate child out of the proceeds

of it. The Act of 1704 had made it illegal for a Papist to

take lands on lease; the Act of 1709 disabled him from

receiving a life annuity. An Act of 1704 had compelled the

registry of priests. The Act of 1709 forbade their officiating

in any parish except that in which they were registered.

These, however, were the least reprehensible features in the

Act of 1709. Its worst features were the encouragement which

it gave to the meaner vices of human nature. The wife of a

Papist, if she became a Protestant, was to receive a jointure

out of her husband's estate. A Popish priest abandoning his

religion was to receive an annuity of £30 a year. Rewards were

to be paid for 'discovering' Popish prelates, priests, and

schoolmasters. Two justices might compel any Papist to state

on oath where and when he had heard mass, who had officiated

at it, and who had been present at it. Encouragement was thus

given to informers; bribes were thus held out to apostates;

and Parliament trusted to the combined effects of bribery and

intimidation to stamp out the last remnant of Popery. The

penal code, however, was not yet complete. The armoury of

intolerance was not yet exhausted. An Act of George I.

disabled Papists from serving in the Irish militia, but

compelled them to find Protestant substitutes; to pay double

towards the support of the militia, and rendered their horses

liable to seizure for militia purposes. By Acts of George II.

the Papists were disfranchised; barristers or solicitors

marrying Papists were deemed Papists; all marriages between

Protestants and Papists were annulled; and Popish priests

celebrating any illegal marriages were condemned to be hanged.

By an Act of George III. Papists refusing to deliver up or

declare their arms were liable to be placed in the pillory or

to be whipped, as the Court should think proper. Such were the

laws which the intolerance of a minority imposed on the

majority of their fellow-subjects. Utterly unjust, they had

not even the bare merit of success. …

{1776}

'The great body of the people,' wrote Arthur Young [1780],

'stripped of their all, were more enraged than converted: they

adhered to the persuasion of their forefathers with the

steadiest and the most determined zeal; while the priests,

actuated by the spirit of a thousand inducements, made

proselytes among the common Protestants in defiance of every

danger. … Those laws have crushed all the industry and

wrested most of the property from the Catholics; but the

religion triumphs; it is thought to increase.'"

_S. Walpole,

History of England from 1815,

chapter 8 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:

_R. R. Madden,

Historical Notice of Penal Laws against Roman Catholics._

_A. Perraud,

Ireland under English Rule: introduction._

_E. Burke,

Letter to a Peer of Ireland on the Penal Laws

(Works, volume 4)._

_E. Burke,

Fragments of a Tract on the Popery Laws

(Works, volume 6)._

_A. J. Thébaud,

The Irish Race,

chapter 12._

IRELAND: A. D, 1710.

Colonization of Palatines in Munster.

See PALATINES.

IRELAND: A. D. 1722-1724.

Wood's halfpence.

The Drapier's Letters.

"A patent had been given [1722, by the Walpole administration]

to a certain William Wood for supplying Ireland with a copper

coinage. Many complaints had been made, and in September,

1723, addresses were voted by the Irish Houses of Parliament,

declaring that the patent had been obtained by clandestine and

false representations; that it was mischievous to the country;

and that Wood had been guilty of frauds in his coinage. They

were pacified by vague promises; but Walpole went on with the

scheme on the strength of a favourable report of a committee

of the Privy Council; and the excitement was already serious

when (in 1724) Swift published the Drapier's Letters, which

give him his chief title to eminence as a patriotic agitator.

Swift either shared or took advantage of the general belief

that the mysteries of the currency are unfathomable to the

human intelligence. … There is, however, no real mystery

about the halfpence. The small coins which do not form part of

the legal-tender may be considered primarily as counters. A

penny is a penny, so long as twelve are change for a shilling.

It is not in the least necessary for this purpose that the

copper contained in the twelve penny pieces should be worth or

nearly worth a shilling. … At the present day bronze worth

only twopence is coined into twelve penny pieces. … The

effect of Wood's patent was that a mass of copper worth about

£60,000 became worth £100,800 in the shape of halfpenny

pieces. There was, therefore, a balance of about £40,000, to

pay for the expenses of coinage. It would have been waste to

get rid of this by putting more copper in the coins; but if so

large a profit arose from the transaction, it would go to

somebody. At the present day it would be brought into the

national treasury. This was not the way in which business was

done in Ireland. Wood was to pay £1,000 a year for fourteen

years to the Crown. But £14,000 still leaves a large margin

for profit. 'What was to become of it. According to the

admiring biographer of Sir R. Walpole the patent had been

originally given by Lord Sunderland to the Duchess of Kendal,

a lady whom the King delighted to honour. … It was right and

proper that a profit should be made on the transaction, but

shameful that it should be divided between the King's mistress

and William Wood, and that the bargain should be struck

without consulting the Irish representatives, and maintained

in, spite of their protests. The Duchess of Kendal was to be

allowed to take a share of the wretched halfpence in the

pocket of every Irish beggar. A more disgraceful transaction

could hardly be imagined, or one more calculated to justify

Swift's view of the selfishness and corruption of the English

rulers. Swift saw his chance and went to work in

characteristic fashion, with unscrupulous audacity of

statement, guided by the keenest strategical instinct. … The

patent was surrendered, and Swift might congratulate himself

upon a complete victory. … The Irish succeeded in rejecting

a real benefit at the cost of paying Wood the profit which he

would have made, had he been allowed to confer it."

_L. Stephen,

Swift (English Men of Letters),

chapter 7._

ALSO IN:

_Dean Swift,

Works (Scott's edition),

volume 6._

_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),

History of England, 1713-1783,

chapter 13 (volume 2)._

_J. McCarthy,

History of the Four Georges,

chapter 15._

IRELAND: A. D. 1760-1798.

Whiteboys.

Oak Boys.

Steel Boys.

Peep of Day Boys.

Catholic Defenders.

"The peasantry continued to regard the land as their own; and

with the general faith that wrong cannot last forever, they

waited for the time when they would once more have possession

of it. 'The lineal descendants of the old families,' wrote

Arthur Young in 1774, 'are now to be found all over the

kingdom, working as cottiers on the lands which were once

their own.' … With the growth of what was called

civilization, absenteeism, the worst disorder of the country,

had increased. … The rise in prices, the demand for salt

beef and salt butter for exportation and for the fleets, were

revolutionizing the agriculture of Munster. The great

limestone pastures of Limerick and Tipperary, the fertile

meadow universally, was falling into the hands of capitalist

graziers, in whose favour the landlords, or the landlords'

agents, were evicting the smaller tenants. … To the

peasantry these men were a curse. Common lands, where their

own cows had been fed, were inclosed and taken from them. The

change from tillage to grazing destroyed their employment.

Their sole subsistence was from their potato gardens, the

rents of which were heavily raised, while, by a curious

mockery of justice, the grass lands were exempt from tithe,

and the burden of maintaining the rectors and vicars of the

Established Church was cast exclusively on the Catholic poor.

Among a people who are suffering under a common wrong there is

a sympathy of resentment which links them together without

visible or discoverable bond. In the spring of 1760 Tipperary

was suddenly overrun by bands of midnight marauders. Who they

were was a mystery. Rumours reached England of insurgent

regiments drilling in the moonlight; of French officers

observed passing and repassing the Channel; but no French

officer could be detected in Munster. The most rigid search

discovered no stands of arms, such as soldiers use or could

use. This only was certain, that white figures were seen in

vast numbers, like moving clouds, flitting silently at night

over field and moor, leaving behind them the tracks of where

they had passed in levelled fences and houghed and moaning

cattle; where the owners were specially hateful, in blazing

homesteads, and the inmates' bodies blackening in the ashes.

Arrests were generally useless. The country was sworn to

secrecy.

{1777}

Through the entire central plains of Ireland the people were

bound by the most solemn oaths never to reveal the name of a

confederate, or give evidence in a court of justice. … Thus

it was long uncertain how the movement originated, who were

its leaders, and whether there was one or many. Letters

signed by Captain Dwyer or Joanna Meskell were left at the

doors of obnoxious persons, ordering lands to be abandoned

under penalties. If the commands were uncomplied with, the

penalties were inexorably inflicted. … Torture usually being

preferred to murder, male offenders against the Whiteboys were

houghed like their cattle, or their tongues were torn out by

the roots."

_J. A. Froude,

The English in Ireland,

book 5, chapter 1 (volume 2)._

The Whiteboys took their name from the practice of wearing a

white shirt drawn over their other clothing, when they were

out upon their nocturnal expeditions. "The Oak Boy movement

took place about 1761-2. … The injustice which led to the

formation of the 'Oak Boys,' one of the best known of the

colonial societies, was duty work on roads. Every householder

was bound to give six days' labour in making and repairing the

public roads; and if he had a horse, six days' labour of his

horse. It was complained that this duty work was only levied

on the poor, and that they were compelled to work on private

job roads, and even upon what were the avenues and farm roads

of the gentry. The name Oak Boys, or Hearts of Oak Boys, was

derived from the members in their raids wearing an oak branch

in their hats. The organization spread rapidly over the

greater part of Ulster. Although the grievances were common to

Protestant and Catholic workmen, and there was nothing

religious in the objects or constitution of the Oak Boys, the

society was an exclusively Protestant body, owing to the total

absence at the period of any association between the

Protestants and Catholics. … The Steel Boys, or Hearts of

Steel Boys, followed the Oak Boys [about 1771]. They also were

exclusively Protestant; the origin of this organization was

the extravagance and profligacy of a bad landlord, the

representative of the great land thief, Chichester, of the

Plantation of King James I. … The Oak Boys and Steel Boys

did not last long."

_W. K. Sullivan,

part 1 of Two Centuries of Irish History,

chapter 5, with foot-note._

The landlord here referred to, as having provoked the

organization of the Steel Boys, was the Marquis of Donegal.

"Many of his Antrim leases having fallen in simultaneously, he

demanded £100,000 in fines for the renewal of them. The

tenants, all Protestants, offered the interest of the money in

addition to the rent.' It could not be. Speculative Belfast

capitalists paid the fine and took the lands over the heads of

the tenants, to sublet. … The most substantial of the

expelled tenantry gathered their effects together and sailed

to join their countrymen in the New World. … Between those

who were too poor to emigrate, and the Catholics who were in

possession of their homes, there grew a protracted feud, which

took form at last in the conspiracy of the Peep of Day Boys;

in the fierce and savage expulsion of the intruders, who were

bidden to go to hell or Connaught; and in the

counter-organization of the Catholic Defenders, which spread

over the whole island, and made the army of insurrection in

1798."

_J. A. Froude,

The English in Ireland,

book 5, chapter 2, section 6 (volume 2)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1778-1794.

Concession of Legislative independence by the

so-called Constitution of 1782.

"England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity. Over in the

American colonies Mr. Washington and his rebels were pressing

hard upon the troops of King George. More than one garrison

had been compelled to surrender, more than one general had

given up his bright sword to a revolutionary leader. On the

hither side of the Atlantic the American flag was scarcely

less dreaded than at Yorktown and Saratoga. … Ireland,

drained of troops, lay open to invasion. The terrible Paul

Jones was drifting about the seas; descents upon Ireland were

dreaded; if such descents had been made the island was

practically defenceless. An alarmed Mayor of Belfast,

appealing to the Government for military aid, was informed

that no more serious and more formidable assistance could be

rendered to the chief city of the North than might be given by

half a troop of dismounted cavalry and half a troop of

invalids. If the French-American enemy would consent to be

scared by such a muster, well and good; if not Belfast, and

for the matter of that, all Ireland, must look to itself.

Thereupon Ireland, very promptly and decisively, did look to

itself. A Militia Act was passed empowering the formation of

volunteer corps—consisting, of course, solely of

Protestants—for the defence of the island. A fever of

military enthusiasm swept over the country; north and south

and east and west men caught up arms, nominally to resist the

French, really, though they knew it not, to effect one of the

greatest constitutional revolutions in history. Before a

startled Government could realise what was occurring 60,000

men were under arms. For the first time since the surrender of

Limerick there was an armed force in Ireland able and willing

to support a national cause. Suddenly, almost in the twinkling

of an eye, Ireland found herself for the first time for

generations in the possession of a well-armed,

well-disciplined, and well-generalled military force. The

armament that was organised to insure the safety of England

was destined to achieve the liberties of Ireland. … All talk

of organisation to resist foreign invasion was silenced; in

its place the voice of the nation was heard loudly calling for

the redress of its domestic grievances. Their leader was

Charlemont; Grattan and Flood were their principal colonels."

_J. H. McCarthy,

Ireland Since the Union,

chapter 3._

"When the Parliament met, Grattan moved as an amendment to the

Address, 'that it was by free export and import only that the

Nation was to be saved from impending ruin'; and a corps of

Volunteers, commanded by the Duke of Leinster, lined Dame

Street as the Speaker and the Commons walked in procession to

the Castle. Another demonstration of Volunteers in College

Green excited Dublin a little later on, and (15th November,

1779) a riotous mob clamoured for Free Trade at the very doors

of the House. … These events resulted in immediate success.

Lord North proposed in the British Parliament three articles

of relief to Irish trade—

(1) to allow free export of wool, woollens, and wool-flocks;

(2) to allow a free export of glass;

(3) to allow, under certain conditions, a free trade to all

the British colonies.

{1778}

When the news reached Ireland excessive joy prevailed. … But

this was only a beginning. Poynings' Law, and the 6th of

George I., required to be swept away too, so that Ireland

might enjoy not only Free Trade, but also Self-government.

Grattan moved his two famous resolutions:—

1. That the King, with the consent of the Lords and Commons of

Ireland, is alone competent to enact laws to bind Ireland.

2. That Great Britain and Ireland are inseparably united under

one Sovereign.

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.