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| 2. Ireland |
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(See 1813, July 12)| |
| 1801, Jan. 1 |
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| ACT OF UNION dissolved the Irish Parliament. Ireland was now represented by 32 peers in the English House of Lords and 100 members in the English House of Commons. Repealing this act formed the base for most of the subsequent nationalist movements in Ireland, although discontinuation of land ownership by English landlords and emancipation of Catholics were also central. | 1 |
| Catholic emancipation: Daniel O'Connell championed the right of Catholics to participate in government through his Catholic Association. | 2 |
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| 1823, May 5 |
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| Catholic Association formed. The association had to dissolve and reorganize because of the passage of the Unlawful Societies Act in 1825, which made the existing association illegal. In 1825, the Lords rejected the Catholic Emancipation Bill, which encouraged growing discontent in Ireland. | 3 |
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| 1824, April 12 |
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| An act established free trade between Britain and Ireland in all manufactured goods. This act, and the economic decline that followed the Napoleonic Wars, devastated what remained of the Irish textile industry in the south, where linens and woolens continued to be manufactured in home-based industry. In the north, mechanization of linen production allowed merchants and textile workers to continue to produce for the English market. | 4 |
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| 1828, July 5 |
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| The county Clare election. O'Connell won the election, but under the existing Test and Corporation Acts, could not sit in Parliament without taking an oath of allegiance to the Church of England. | 5 |
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| 1829, April 13 |
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| CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION ACT. After a protracted struggle, Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Act, which allowed Catholics to hold political, civil, and military offices. Parliament also disenfranchised Irish 40-shilling freeholders by raising the county franchise to 10 pounds. | 6 |
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| 1832 |
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| Great Reform Bill increased the seats in the Commons to 105 for Ireland and introduced the 10-pound franchise in the boroughs. No attempt to reverse the restrictions on the franchise during the Act of Union was made. | 7 |
| Church reform. The Catholics objected to having to pay the tithes and church cess (church rates) for the Protestant Church of Ireland. Popular protest led to increasing difficulty in collecting the tithes. | 8 |
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| 1833 |
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| Irish Church Bill replaced the church cess, a tax paid mostly by Roman Catholics, with a graduated income tax. The Irish Catholic Church was also reorganized, and ten bishoprics were abolished. The government responded to agitation surrounding the tithe by commuting the tithe into a land tax (1838). | 9 |
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| 1834, April 22 |
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| Repeal of the Union introduced into parliamentary debates by O'Connell, under pressure from Irish radicals. The move marked the beginning of a long struggle for Home Rule and, by more radical Irish, for independence from Britain. The issues frequently helped topple British ministries, as in the fall of the Melbourne cabinet, 1839. The repeal issue gained momentum. | 10 |
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| 1840, April 15 |
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| The Repeal Association founded under O'Connell. This association organized a number of “mass” repeal meetings advocating cooperation between Protestants and Catholics. Repeal and independence had gained some support in Ulster from the dissenting Presbyterians, but the division along confessional lines grew in the latter part of the 19th century. O'Connell's involvement in popular meetings regarding repeal resulted in his arrest and sentence on conspiracy charges (Feb. 10, 1844) despite his continued claims of loyalty to the British monarchy. The judgment was reversed (Sept. 4) by the Lords. | 11 |
| Administrative reforms. The Irish Constabulary Act (May 20, 1836) extended and reorganized the central police force, while the Irish Poor Law (1838) established the English system of 1834 in Ireland; the Irish Poor Law was opposed by Irish members of Parliament on grounds that the poor were too numerous to be provided for in workhouses. | 12 |
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| 1842, Oct. 15 |
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| The Nation, the official organ of the Young Ireland Movement, was first published. The Young Irelanders advocated defensive physical force against the government, if necessary, to stop the perceived tyranny of the authorities. The tension between their physical force approach and O'Connell's belief in constitutional activity and moral force led to a split with the Repeal Association in 1846. The Young Irelanders included leaders from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds and thus refused to take a stance on religious education or other issues, which, combined with their incidental association with the similarly named Young Italy, resulted in papal opposition. | 13 |
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| 1845 |
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| Potato blight destroyed large portions of potato crops. Peel, concerned about growing scarcity, ordered the importation of Indian corn. | 14 |
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