For more than 100 years after the Treaty of Limerick (1691) -- a period later called the "Age of Penal Laws" or "Protestant Ascendancy" -- Ireland was a powder keg of social unrest due to a repressive and apartheid-like society in which a small Anglican minority (10% of the population) used its ownership of land and its control of government to deny power, influence and civil rights to Catholics (75% of the population) and to a lesser degree to Presbyterians (15%). Nevertheless, despite serious tensions that constantly threatened to erupt into widespread violence -- rich versus poor, landlord versus tenant, Catholic versus Protestant -- Ireland was able to avoid open revolution. Then in 1782 England, while still reeling from the American Revolution, permitted Ireland to evolve into a semi-autonomous (but still repressive) "Protestant Nation", a peaceful transition that contrasted dramatically with the violent Revolutions in America (1775-83) and in France (1789-99). Finally, the Rebellion of 1798, a modest and wildly unsuccessful rising led by Presbyterians, triggered a 180 degree change of direction: The Irish Parliament disavowed its autonomy and entered into a "union" (merger) with England (1800) that nearly destroyed Ireland's separate identity.

Catholics and Presbyterians alike were required to tithe to the Anglican Church of Ireland, but were officially barred from government employment and military commissions. Catholics alone were barred from elective office, from entering the legal profession, from bearing arms, and from owning a horse worth more than five pounds. Upon the death of a Catholic landlord, his property by law went to his sons in equal shares, unless one of them converted to Anglicanism, in which case the Anglican son received the entire property, along with the right to immediately wrest management from his parents. Catholics were prohibited from purchasing realty, except leases of less than 31 years. (Between 1701 and 1778 Catholic ownership of land further declined from 14% to 5%). Catholics were barred from educating their children (except in schools proselytizing for the Anglican religion). Catholic bishops were banned from Ireland (under penalty of death by hanging, disemboweling and quartering). The last of the Penal Laws, enacted in 1727, denied Catholics the right to vote.

Catholics and Presbyterians alike were required to tithe to the Anglican Church of Ireland, but were officially barred from government employment and military commissions. Catholics alone were barred from elective office, from entering the legal profession, from bearing arms, and from owning a horse worth more than five pounds. Upon the death of a Catholic landlord, his property by law went to his sons in equal shares, unless one of them converted to Anglicanism, in which case the Anglican son received the entire property, along with the right to immediately wrest management from his parents. Catholics were prohibited from purchasing realty, except leases of less than 31 years. (Between 1701 and 1778 Catholic ownership of land further declined from 14% to 5%). Catholics were barred from educating their children (except in schools proselytizing for the Anglican religion). Catholic bishops were banned from Ireland (under penalty of death by hanging, disemboweling and quartering). The last of the Penal Laws, enacted in 1727, denied Catholics the right to vote.

In enacting the Penal Laws, the Parliament of England was motivated almost entirely by anti-Catholic animus, but the Parliament of Ireland had additional motivation: preserving the privileged position of the New English "haves" vis-à-vis the native "have nots". William and Mary initially opposed the "Penal Laws" as violative of the Treaty, but religious freedom for Catholics was not the highest priority for William, and the Crown soon acquiesced. Except for the Cromwellian era (1649-60), the period 1692-1740 was the most anti-Catholic in Irish history. However, anti-Catholic animus peaked in the mid-1730s, then gradually subsided over the next 130 years, as anti-Catholic laws were gradually repealed, one by one.

The Penal Laws helped create the misnamed "Protestant Ascendancy", which would have been more accurately called "Anglican Dominance". Under it, all of society, and certainly all of government, was dominated by an elitist aristocracy consisting exclusively of Anglicans. The stereotypical Ascendancy gentleman attended Trinity College, lived a hard-drinking, party-oriented life of luxury in a "big house", pursued a respectable professional career in law, government, education or the military, and above all, collected high rents from his Irish tenants. But he also was insecure. His prosperity and privilege were rooted in land confiscations which, if the old line Irish ever regained control, were likely to be overturned. And he knew full well that British troops were critical in keeping the old line Irish in check.

The vast majority of Catholics lived and worked on the farm in abject poverty, degradation and despair, with no way out. Their diet consisted almost entirely of the newly introduced potato, plus milk (with a herring once or twice a year). Shelter, if any, was a mud hovel with leaky roof and no windows or chimney. Even Catholics who labored full time lived in worse degradation than the poorest beggars elsewhere in Europe. A handful of Catholics achieved middle class prosperity in business -- and their numbers grew as time went by -- but they were exceptions. In terms of compliance with law, Catholics were made criminals under the Penal Laws because they refused to turn in their "illegal" priests, and the draconian injustice of these laws engendered in them a culture of disrespect for the law generally.

Presbyterians congregated in Ulster, where typically they adhered to the culture (and religion) brought over from Scotland by their ancestors. Close knit and industrious, they responded to discrimination by distancing themselves from Ascendancy culture, becoming a self reliant community within the larger society. The typical Presbyterian pursued a middle class livelihood in the linen business or in farming.

Anglicans and Presbyterians soon found themselves in serious conflict. The principal problem was that the "established" Church of Ireland, and its Anglican members, treated the Presbyterian Religion as a second class religion, and its members (who generally were less affluent than Anglicans) as second class citizens. Although Presbyterians were treated far better than Catholics -- there were no restrictions on the right to own realty or to bear arms -- they were required to tithe to the Anglican Church of Ireland, and were prohibited from holding government office or military commissions. Many emigrated to America where their descendants served with distinction in George Washington's Revolutionary army.

The Ascendancy also resented Mother England's insistence upon treating Ireland as a subservient colony, useful primarily for enhancing the prosperity of England. British trade legislation, which typically discriminated against Ireland, was particularly grating. For example, in order to protect English manufacturers, the English Parliament prohibited the export of Irish woolen goods to any country except England, where prohibitive duties made such trade unprofitable. This legislation literally destroyed the Irish woolen industry, to the dismay of merchants of all religions. The Ascendancy lobbied constantly for a more balanced alliance, something akin to an equal partnership, provided it could be attained without losing England's military protection. But no serious effort was made to address this problem in the first half of the 18th Century, and even within the Ascendancy, discontent was rampant.

In the latter half of the 18th Century, the Western World was permanently changed by two major "revolutions": (1) The Industrial Revolution, in which labor saving machines, both on farms and in factories, permitted the "necessities" to be produced with far less manpower, thereby freeing surplus manpower to be used in the production of non-necessities, and (2) A series of violent populist revolutions -- exemplified by the American Revolution (1775-83) and the French Revolution (1789-99) -- which erupted against colonial empires and undemocratic governments. Ireland was not totally exempt from either revolution.

The Industrial Revolution, which began in England in the 1760s, bypassed most of Ireland, but it took root and flourished in and around Belfast, which became the linen center of the world, and the industrial center of Ireland. For the northeast, industrialization meant prosperity, along with stronger export and economic ties with Britain, but it also brought the start of urban problems commonly associated with industrialization: overcrowding, pollution, communicable disease, etc. By late century, Ulster Protestants – particularly Presbyterians – had become more convinced than ever that "Ulster is different from the rest of Ireland", based on the indisputable facts that (1) whereas the rest of Ireland was 80% or more Irish-Catholic, Ulster had a British-Protestant majority, or near majority, with Presbyterians outnumbering Anglicans by far, and (2) whereas the rest of Ireland remained largely agrarian, Ulster to a significant degree had become industrialized. This culture of "separateness" persisted into the 20th Century and drove the partition compromise of 1910-22.

Throughout all of Ireland in the 1760s, the long simmering tensions -- landlord versus tenant, rich versus poor, Catholic versus Presbyterian versus Anglican -- began to surface, primarily in rural areas. Secret societies were formed which became governments unto themselves. They ignored duly enacted law and established their own agendas -- primarily anti-landlord, secondarily anti-government and/or anti-tithe – which were enforced through organized violence, principally against landlords and their allies. (The violence euphemistically was called "land wars" by some, "agrarian outrages" by others.) Membership tended to be from a single religion, but religious warfare did not erupt until later in the century, when Catholics and Protestants began to compete for leases. Public attention fell principally on the Catholic societies, the "Whiteboys" and "Defenders", but Protestant societies, the "Hearts of Oak", "Steelboys", and "Peep o' Day Boys", were equally effective.

Some policy makers thought there might be a partial legislative solution to the unrest. In the 1760s, the "Patriot" movement led by Henry Gratton (an affluent and pro-business Anglican), professing loyalty to the King but demanding greater autonomy for Ireland plus concessions to Catholics, emerged as an influential minority in the Irish Parliament. As a result of Gratton's advocacy, a few of the Penal Laws were repealed in the 1770s.

The American Revolution erupted in 1776, triggering obvious comparisons between the situation of the American colonies and that of Ireland. It also forced the reassignment of British troops from Ireland to America. This led to the formation of the "Irish Volunteers", a militia (consisting almost entirely of well armed Anglicans) which ostensibly was formed to defend Ireland but which was used adroitly by Gratton to intimidate the British government.

In 1782, while still negotiating a surrender in the American Revolutionary War, England handed Gratton his greatest achievement. "Gratton's Parliament" (backed by the armed "Irish Volunteers") persuaded the British government to amend English law (including Poynings' Law) to give the Irish Parliament full legislative independence, including the right to enact its own trade and tariff policies. Conventional wisdom among Ascendancy gentlemen was that Ireland had been transformed peacefully into a nearly autonomous "Protestant Nation", but this was a gross exaggeration, since the Crown had retained all executive power, including power over patronage, plus the right to veto legislation of the Irish Parliament.

Legislative independence nevertheless was a triumph for the Protestant Ascendancy, which had long sought greater legislative autonomy, particularly in matter of trade. The Ascendancy thus reacted with pride and satisfaction which manifested itself in visible signs of sovereignty such as an independent Bank of Ireland, a separate Irish postal service, and new government buildings including the Custom House and the Four Courts.

But independence for a Parliament responsive only to the Protestant Ascendancy did little or nothing for the angry lower and middle classes, either Presbyterian or Catholic. Presbyterian tenant-farmers, generally middle class, had grievances over the mandatory tithe, certain penal laws, a wide variety of landlord abuses, and a non-representative Irish Parliament. Poverty stricken Catholics had all these grievances, and many more. Thus Catholics and less affluent Presbyterians, who together made up 90% of the population, found themselves on the same side of the major issues of the day: land reform, Parliamentary reform, elimination of the tithe, and repeal of those penal laws affecting both. Religious differences historically had precluded joint political action, but some radical reformers were beginning to see potential in a Catholic-Presbyterian political alliance.

In 1789, the French Revolution impacted Ireland like a bomb, igniting existing tensions and pushing Ireland toward similar violent revolution. In France, the peasant and middle classes had risen up to topple the government (and to behead the king and queen), to oust the established Church (and to confiscate its property), to abolish tithes, religious discrimination and privilege, and to institute a democratic republic dedicated to liberty and equality. (The French Revolution's first stage was widely admired; but its later stages, particularly the infamous "Reign of Terror", were almost universally deplored.) Now it was becoming clear that the status quo in Ireland could not be maintained, and that radical change was inevitable.

Among intellectuals, Parliamentary reform topped the list of demands for change. Not only were Catholics legally barred from serving, but only freeholders (owners and life tenants in land) could vote, and voting districts were not of equal size or population. Some voting districts -- called "pocket boroughs" or "rotten boroughs" -- had only one or two eligible voters. Among 300 seats in Commons, a majority -- more than 150 seats -- were controlled by only 30 landowners. Ironically, this worked to benefit the Crown, which used patronage jobs and pensions to induce the individuals in control -- called "undertakers" -- to undertake to enact the Crown's agenda. At any one time, between one-third and two-thirds of the Irish Parliament was receiving a salary or pension from the Crown.

Theobald Wolf Tone, an Anglican of modest social standing and the founder of radical republicanism in Ireland, was profoundly influenced by the French Revolution. To Tone, the key to a better Ireland was Parliamentary reform (i.e., a popularly elected one-man-one-vote legislature), and the key to Parliamentary reform was an alliance between Catholics and less affluent Presbyterians. Ultimately, Tone's vision for Ireland was a democratic republic, patterned after the post-revolutionary French Republic; it would be totally independent from England, governed by a popularly elected one-man-one-vote type legislature, and free from religious discrimination and preferences. In 1791, with the assistance of Napper Tandy, Tone founded the Society of United Irishmen, which originally was formed as a "debating society" peacefully advocating Protestant-Catholic cooperation to achieve parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation. United Irishmen quickly gained wide support from Ulster Presbyterians, and modest support from some Catholics.

The post-revolution French government declared war on England in 1793. Hoping to secure the loyalty of rebellious Catholics, the British government pressured the reluctant Irish Parliament to repeal some penal laws and to grant Catholics the right to vote * (1793).

But unrest did not subside. Instead it escalated in the form of sectarian violence. The "Battle of the Diamond" (1795) near Armagh, which pitted Presbyterian Peep o' Day Boys against Catholic Defenders, left 20 dead. That same evening, Ulster Protestants formed the "Orange Order", a society of affluent and middle class Protestants who pledged support for the Protestant Ascendancy and confrontation with Catholics. Over the next few months, thousand of Catholics were driven out of Ulster by widespread and systematic violence.

But unrest did not subside. Instead it escalated in the form of sectarian violence. The "Battle of the Diamond" (1795) near Armagh, which pitted Presbyterian Peep o' Day Boys against Catholic Defenders, left 20 dead. That same evening, Ulster Protestants formed the "Orange Order", a society of affluent and middle class Protestants who pledged support for the Protestant Ascendancy and confrontation with Catholics. Over the next few months, thousand of Catholics were driven out of Ulster by widespread and systematic violence.

About 1794, Tone crossed over the line, converting from advocate of peaceful Parliamentary reform to violent revolutionary. About the same time, the United Irishmen became a Para-military force. In 1796, Tone convinced France to invade Ireland as part of its war effort against England. A French fleet carrying 14,000 troops set sail for Ireland, but as luck would have it, bad weather prevented a landing, and the fleet returned to France.

The government responded with a campaign to disarm the populace (1797). Initially the campaign was directed principally at Ulster Presbyterians -- Catholics already were legally prohibited from bearing arms -- but later it was expanded to include all but a handful of counties. The campaign was conducted by General Gerard Lake, who used brutal tactics with little or no restraint. Suspects against whom little evidence existed, many of them innocent, were flogged and tortured to force them to reveal information, hundreds were forced into the British navy as slave laborers, and numerous houses were burned. Lake's campaign was spectacularly successful in disarming the populace, particularly in Ulster, but it also inspired rumors -- widely believed by Catholics -- that disarmament was the first step in a joint campaign by the Orange Order and the Irish government to solve the "Catholic problem" by massacring the entire Catholic population of Ireland. Tone's followers shrewdly exploited the rumored massacre to persuade some local Defender units to merge into, and became the Catholic wing of, the Presbyterian dominated United Irishmen.

In 1798, Tone and the United Irishmen again persuaded France to invade Ireland. The plan included coordination of the French invasion with a series of local rebellions. When an informer disclosed the plot, the rebels were forced to start early. The insurrection in Ulster, led by Henry Joy McCracken, was almost entirely Presbyterian, while the ones in Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, Meath and Queen's were nonsectarian. All of these risings were serious matters, but because disarmament had been successful, all were efficiently quashed.

The rebellion in Wexford was far more serious, one of the bloodiest confrontations in Irish history. Wexford was an unlikely prospect for insurrection -- no more than 300 United Irishmen and Defenders were operating there -- but violence erupted when Protestant Volunteers, directed to enforce the disarmament order, began flogging Catholics and burning their homes even before the date specified for surrendering arms. Then a Catholic killed a soldier who had burned a barn, and government forces retaliated by burning down another 160 houses. Fully believing that a massacre of Catholics was imminent, Catholics rebelled. Led by Father John Murphy, and armed with little more than pikes against government forces with muskets, the rebels initially took Enniscorthy, then sought to expand into Wicklow. Mass atrocities occurred on both sides. In the end, the rebels were routed at Vinegar Hill (1798). Some historians regard Wexford as an extension of Tone's United Irish rebellion, but elsewhere in Ireland, the perception was that Wexford was a Catholic war against Protestants. This triggered bitter religious animosities, and destroyed (perhaps forever) Tone's dream of a political alliance between Catholics and less affluent Presbyterians.

The local uprisings all had already been suppressed when French warships arrived (with Wolf Tone aboard) and were forced to surrender. Tone was captured, convicted, and sentenced to death. Tone demanded to be shot while wearing his uniform, like a soldier and prisoner of war; the government insisted on hanging him, like a common criminal. He died in prison apparently from self inflicted wounds, almost certainly a suicide.

Despite the effective suppression of the local risings, England's Prime Minister, William Pitt, considered Irish unrest one of the greatest threats to England in history. Thus he revived a long discarded idea. He sponsored legislation (entitled "Act of Union") calling for the "union" (or merger) of England and Ireland into a single "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" with a single Parliament. To garner Catholic support, Pitt promised Catholics the right to sit in Parliament ("emancipation"); but out of 658 seats in the new Parliament, Ireland would have only 100, and Catholics could expect to fill 70 to 75 seats at most.

Pitt's proposal was one of the most far reaching in Irish history. If adopted, it would totally reverse the Gratton Parliament's most popular achievement, legislative independence. Gratton vigorously opposed union, as did Ulster Presbyterians, the business community, parish priests and nationalists; in favor were the British government, Catholic bishops and absentee landlords. The proposal certainly would have failed in a popular vote or in a representative parliament, but the vote fell to the non-representative Irish Parliament.

When the "Act of Union" was voted on the first time (1799), it failed by only five votes; later (1800), after Pitt's deputy in Ireland had bribed some members by offering peerages and lifetime seats in the British House of Lords, the measure passed the all-Protestant Irish Parliament, and was quickly ratified by the English Parliament. In a betrayal of Catholics, Pitt's promise of Catholic emancipation was defeated in a separate follow-up vote, leading Pitt to resign. After only eighteen years as a semi-autonomous country, Ireland, by the vote of its own Parliament, had been subsumed into England.


PART 8 FOOTNOTE:

* A follow up bill granting Catholics the right to sit in Parliament ("emancipation") failed, however.