Then, too, restrictive legislation lasted much longer in Ireland than in continental countries. Practically in no country in western Europe outside the British islands did a man's religious opinions shut him out from State employments after the opening of the nineteenth century.
Wakefield quotes from a speech of a Colonel O'Shee, no doubt a member of the old Kilkenny family of that name, who had commanded 3000 men in that Austrian army which had battled so stubbornly against Napoleon at Wagram. He told a Kilkenny audience that nowhere in the Austrian dominions, or in the various German States would a man's creed shut him out from military command. In the United Kingdom alone did a man's religion exclude him out from the service of his lawful sovereign.
It is not from the ranks of the old Irish gentry, whether of pure Irish or of Anglo-Norman descent, whether Protestants or Catholics, not from the Ormonds or Fingals, the Clanrickards or Inchiquins that the majority of the leaders of Irish national movements in later times have sprung. The direct descendant of that Brian Mac Phelim O'Neill, Lord of Clandeboy, who had been the victim of the treachery of the first Earl of Essex under Elizabeth, was, while fighting in the cause of George III., as Wakefield puts it, "basely murdered by a banditti of rebels who consisted chiefly of Presbyterians." The 26th Lord of Kerry, Marquess of Lansdowne, head of the Fitzmaurice family, descendant of some of the most obstinate rebels of Elizabeth's day, has more than once held some of the most important posts in the Empire.
