Part 68

"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.