The
Context and Development of Irish Literature:
History, Poetry, Landscape
Chapter
Three: Revolution, Emancipation, Starvation, page 2
Tone’s ill-fated rebellion of 1798 was
followed by the infamous Act of Union in 1801, when the
Irish Parliament essentially voted themselves out of existence
and merged with the Parliament of Great Britain. With
the Union, Ireland merged with England into a single United
Kingdom, meaning that all Irish political matters were decided
by the British Parliament in London. Under the Act, the
Irish would send 32 peers to the House of Lords and 100 MPs to
the House of Commons. Many Irish Catholics supported the
Act, believing that Catholic emancipation would soon
follow. In this they were disappointed.
Protestants, though initially opposed, soon saw that their
continued position of power could only be guaranteed through
alliance with the British Empire. The Act passed by a
slim margin; many opponents of the Act were convinced to vote
for it through an elaborate system of "compensation"
and promise of future patronage--perhaps standard practice in
18th-century political life, perhaps an act of bribery as
the Nationalist tradition has long insisted.
For the British, and for the bulk of the
Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, this was virtually a
military necessity: the threat of a Catholic uprising
was so forceful that the British were convinced the only way
to maintain control of the country was through British
military strength; hence Britain insisted on direct control of
Ireland from London. Britain knew that Ireland was the weak
link in its own national defenses: enemies of England,
particularly France, could land in Ireland and be only a
channel’s crossing away from the English countryside.
England could not allow such a precarious situation to exist
in Ireland, and so England took direct control over the
island. But the effect of this would be to diminish the power
of Ireland’s native ruling Protestant class, and embolden
the growing Catholic middle and lower classes. The slow
decline of the Protestant Ascendancy, and the growing
discontent of the Catholic middle class, would be the dominant
pattern of Irish political life in the 19th
century.
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