IRELAND
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IRELAND
rags, always on the verge of famine. Shut out from
every position of influence, rackrented by absentee
landlords, insulted by grasping agents and drunken
squireens, paying titlies to a Church they abhorred,
hating tlie Government which oppressed them and the
law which made them slaves, their condition was the
worst of any peasantry in Europe. From a land
blighted by such laws the enterprising and ambitious
fled, seeking an outlet for their enterprise and am-
bition in happier lands. In the time of Elizabeth and
James, and still more in Cromwell's time, thousands
joined the army of Spain. But in the latter half of
the seventeenth century the stream was diverted to
France, then the greatest military power in Europe.
Thither Sarsfield and his men went after the fall of
Limerick, and in the fifty years which followed 450,-
000 Irish died in the service of France. They fought
and fell in Spain and Italy, in the passes of the Alps, in
the streets of Cremona, at Ramillies and Malplaquet,
at Blenheim and Fontenoy. Irishmen were marshals
of France; an Irishman commanded the armies of
Maria Theresa; another the army of Russia; and there
were Irish statesmen, generals, and ambassadors all
over Europe. Beyond the Atlantic, Irish had settled in
Penn.sylvaniaand Maryland, in Kentucky and Carolina
and the New England states; Irish names were ap-
pended to the Declaration of Independence; and Irish
soldiers fought throughout the War of Independence.
Nor were soldiers and statesmen the only Irish ex- iles whom penal laws had sent abroad. The decay of schools and colleges continued from the eleventh to the sixteenth century; nor did Ireland in that period produce a single great scholar, except Duns Scotus, who was partly educated abroad. Any hope of a revival of learning in the sixteenth century was blasted by the suppression of monasteries and the penal laws; early in the seventeenth century, however, Irish colleges were already established at Louvain, Salamanca, and Seville, at Lisbon, Paris, and Rome. In these colleges the brightest Irish intellects learned and taught, and Colgan and O'Clery, Lynch and Rothe, Wadding and Keating recalled the greatest glories of their country's past. At home Trinity College had been established (1593) to wean the Irish from " Popery and other ill qualities" ; but the Catho- lics held aloof, and either went abroad or frequented the few Catholic schools left. The children of the poor, avoiding the Protestant schools, met in the open air, with only some friendly hedge to protect them from the blast; but they met in fear and trembling, for the hedge-school and its master were proscribed. Thus was the lamp of learning kept burning during tlie long night of the penal times.
In the Irish Parliament meanwhile a spirit of inde- pendence appeared. As the Parliament of the Pale it had been so often used for factious purposes that in 1496 Poyning's Law was passed, providing that hence- forth no Irish Parliament could meet, and no law could be proposed, without the previous consent of both the Irish and Eiijjli.sii Privy Councils. Further, the English Parhamcnt claimed the right to legislate for Ireland; and in the laws prohibiting the importa- tion of Irish cattle (1665), and Irish woollen manu- factures (1698), and that dealing with the Irish for- feited estates (1700), it asserted its supposed right. The Irish Parliament, dominated by bigotry and self- interest, had not the courage to protest, and when one member, Molyneux, did, the English Parliament con- demned him, and ordered his book to be burned by the common hangman. Moreover, it passed an Act in 1719 expressly declaring that it had power to legis- late for Ireland, taking away al.so the appellate juris- diction of the Irish llou.se of Lords. Tlic tight made by Swift against Wood's halfpence showed that, though Molyneux was dead, his spirit lived; Lucas continued the fight, and (irattan in 1782 obtained legislative independence. England was then beaten
by the American colonies; an Irish volunteer force
had been raised to defend Ireland against a possible
invasion, and it seems certain that legislative inde-
pendence was won less by Grattan's eloquence than
by the swords of the Volunteers. These events
favoured the growth of toleration. The Catholics,
in sympathizing with Grattan and in subscribing
money to equip the Protestant Volunteers, earned the
goodwill of the Protestant Nationalists; in conse-
quence the penal laws were less rigorously enforced,
and from the middle of the century penal legislation
ceased. In 1771 came the turn of the tide, when
Catholics were allowed to hold reclaimed bog under
lease. This grudging concession was followed in
1774 by an Act substituting an oath of allegiance for
the oath of supremacy; in 1778 by an Act enabling
Catholics to hold all lands under lease; and in 1782
by a further Act allowing them to erect Catholic
schools, with the permission of the Protestant bishop
of the diocese, to own a horse worth more than £5,
and to assist at Mass without being compelled to ac-
cuse the officiating priest. Nor were Catholic bish-
ops any longer compelled to fiuit the kingdom, nor
Catholic children specially rewarded if they turned
Protestant. Not for ten years was there any further
concession, and then an Act was passed allowing Cath-
olics to erect schools without seeking Protestant per-
mission, admitting Catholics to the Bar, and legalizing
marriages between Protestants and Catholics. Much
more important was the Act of 1793 giving the Cath-
olics the Parliamentary and municipal franchise, ad-
mitting them to the imiversities and to military and
civil offices, and removing all restrictions in regard to
the tenure of land. They were still excluded from
Parliament, from the inner Bar, and from a few of
the higher civil and military offices.
Always in favour of religious liberty, Grattan would have swept away every vestige of the Penal Code. But, in 1782, he mistakenly thought that his work was done when legislative independence was concede<t. He forgot that the executive was still left intlependent of Parliament, answerable only to the English minis- try; and that, with rotten boroughs controlled by a few great families, with an extremely limited franchise in the counties, and with pensioners and placemen filling so many seats, the Irish Parliament was but a mockery of representation. Like Grattan, Flood and Charlemont favoured Parliamentary reform, but, imlike him, they were opposed to Catholic concessions. As for Foster and Fitzgibbon, who led the forces of corruption and bigotry, they opposed every attempt at reform, and consented to the Act of 1793 only under strong pressure from Pitt and Dundas. These F^.ng- lish ministers, alarmed at the progress of French revolutionary principles in Ireland, fearing a for- eign invasion, wished to have the Catholics contented. In 1795 further concessions seemed imminent. In that year an illiberal viceroy. Lord Westmoreland, was replaced by the liberal-minded Lord Fitzwilliam, who came understanding it to be the wish of Pitt that the Catholic claims were to be conceded. He at once dismissed from office a rapacious office-holder named Beresford, so powerful that he was calletl the "King of Ireland"; he refused to consult Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon or Foster, the Speaker; he took Grattan and Ponsonby into his cunfidenee, and declared his intention to support Grattan's bill admitting Catholics to Parliament. The high hopes raised by tlieseevents were dashed to the earth whi'U Fitzwilliam was sud- denly recalled, after having been allowed to go so far without any protest from Portland, the home secre- tary, or from the premier, Pitt. The latter, disliking the Irish Parliament lieeause it had rejected his com- mercial propositions in 1785, and disagreed withhim on the regency in 1789, already meditate<l a legislative union, and felt that the admission of Catholics to Parliament would thwart his plans. He was jirob-
