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V. The Catholic Relief Act of 1778
- University of Pennsylvania Press
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v TheCatholic Relief Act of1778 During the last decade of the seventeenth, and the early decades of the eighteenth century, a series of enactments known as the Penal Laws were passed by the Irish Parliament . The primary purpose of these laws was to place and retain in the hands of (Anglican) Protestants all political, administrative, and, as far as possible, economic power. The result was that Catholics were debarred from holding any political, legal, or administrative office, from sitting in parliament or town corporations, and from the franchise . They could not enter the legal profession, the army or the navy, though, in practice, they were recruited into the rank and file of the two armed forces. They were legally prohibited from teaching in schools and from sending their children overseas to Catholic schools. Special stress was laid on the ownership of landed property: a Catholic could neither buy nor lease land for a long period; at his death the law required that his estate be gavelled, that is, divided equally among his sons. The 1°3 v The C~tholic Relief Ad of 1778 During the last decade of the seventeenth, and the early decades of the eighteenth century, a series of enactments known as the Penal Laws were passed by the Irish Parliament . The primary purpose of these laws was to place and retain in the hands of (Anglican) Protestants all political, administrative, and, as far as possible, economic power. The result was that Catholics were debarred from holding any political, legal, or administrative office, from sitting in parliament or town corporations, and from the franchise . They could not enter the legal profession, the army or the navy, though, in practice, they were recruited into the rank and file of the two armed forces. They were legally prohibited from teaching in schools and from sending their children overseas to Catholic schools. Special stress was laid on the ownership of landed property: a Catholic could neither buy nor lease land for a long period; at his death the law required that his estate be gavelled, that is, divided equally among his sons. The 1°4 IRISH POLITICS AND SOCIAL CONFLICT eldest son by conforming to the established (Anglican) church-the Church of Ireland-was entitled to have his father made a life-tenant, and, on the latter's death, could claim the entire estate regardless of the rights of his younger brothers.' It is estimated that Catholics still owned some 15 per cent of the profitable land at the beginning of the eighteenth century," but the Penal Laws were successful enough in their operation to gradually render this proportion much smaller. In 1772 the viceroy, Lord Townshend , was able to say that "at this day there is no Popish family remaining of any great weight for landed property ." 3 Though undoubtedly the substantial truth, his statement was inaccurate since there still existed at least one large estate, that of Lord Kenmare.' Townshend's opinion was borne out by Lord Charlemont in his memoirs where he states that "the greatest part of the old Catholic gentry had, either from conviction or convenience , conformed to the established and ruling religion," and "the restrictive laws which were meant to operate to the diminution and impairment of Catholic property, had amply produced the desired effect." 5 As a partial compensation for this decline in landed property there occurred during the course of the eighteenth century an accumulation of wealth in the hands of Catholic merchants. Mrs. Maureen Wall, the authority on Catholics in eighteenth-century Ireland, says that in the period around 1780, Catholics formed "a not inconsiderable part of the business population of Dublin;" large numbers of them were "persons who had some stake in the country, and ... were particularly interested in leasing or in buying property." 6 The importance of this wealth can be seen in the several attempts made in the Irish Parliament between 1760 and 1773 to enable Prot104 IRISH POLITICS AND SOCIAL CONFLICT eldest son by conforming to the established (Anglican) church-the Church of Ireland-was entitled to have his father made a life-tenant, and, on the latter's death, could claim the entire estate regardless of the rights of his younger brothers.! It is estimated that Catholics still owned some 15 per cent of the profitable land at the beginning of the eighteenth century,2 but the Penal Laws were successful enough in their operation to gradually render this proportion much smaller. In 1772 the viceroy...