IRELAND 



3051 



IRELAND 



and their wealth confiscated, purchasing the 

 good will of the Irish chiefs by sharing these 

 riches with them. The Protestant Edward VI 

 and the Catholic Mary in turn pressed their 

 faiths on Ireland, which felt these changes of 

 religion very little, however, and Elizabeth 

 when she came to the throne planned for the 

 island some such wise policy as her father had 

 pursued. But a rebellion headed by the Irish 

 chieftain, Shayne O'Neill, had to be put down 

 with violence, and thereafter Elizabeth did not 

 return to her conciliatory policy. The whole 

 island suffered. Villages were plundered and 

 burned, crops destroyed, cattle and even peo- 

 ple were put to death in great numbers, and 

 before the close of the struggle it is estimated 

 that at least one-third of the inhabitants had 

 perished. The lands were distributed among 

 English nobles, and Ireland entered upon a 

 distinctively English period. The Anglican 

 Church, hated by practically all the people 

 except the English of the Pale, was made the 

 established Church, as in England, and Catho- 

 lics were denied all rights and excluded from 

 all public offices. 



Increasing Disaffection. Under James I and 

 Charles I the confiscation of land and the sup- 

 pression of the Catholics went on, and the 

 colonization of Ulster by the Scotch, so strong 

 a factor in present-day Irish history, was be- 

 gun. Charles's viceroy, the Earl of Strafford, 

 by his policy of "thorough" reduced the land 

 to order, but when his strong hand was re- 

 moved a rebellion broke out, in which the 

 greatest atrocities were committed on both 

 sides. The Irish might have made a substan- 

 tial change in their condition had they known 

 how to make the most of their successes, but 

 dissensions broke out among them of which 

 the English were not slow to take advantage. 

 Not until Cromwell was sent over with his 

 "New Model" army in 1649, however, was the 

 island really reduced. New confiscations of 

 land took place, and more and more English 

 became landowners in Ireland. This gave rise 

 to a strange condition. By all means the ma- 

 jority of the people were Catholic, but almost 

 nine-tenths of the land was held by Protestants. 

 Indeed, by laws passed shortly after this time, 

 a Catholic was made incapable of acquiring 

 land, as he was already of holding any sort 

 of public office. 



When James II, a Catholic, became king of 

 England, he favored the Catholics in Ireland, 

 and as a result found enthusiastic supporters 

 when, after his deposition by William and 



Mary, he went to the island. In 1690 there 

 took place the Battle of the Boyne, in which 

 James was completely defeated, and by the 

 next year Ireland was again completely sub- 

 dued. According to the terms of the treaty, 

 Irish Catholics were to regain possession of 

 much of their land and were to be allowed, 

 in a measure at least, religious liberty. But 

 the Parliament of England and that of Ireland, 

 of which the English Protestants were in con- 

 trol, refused to abide by these terms, and the 

 cruel laws that were passed crushed the infant 

 industries of the island and forced many of 

 the better class of the inhabitants to emigrate. 

 This first half of the eighteenth century is the 

 darkest period of Irish history. 



The Struggle for Better Conditions. Natur- 

 ally the Irish did not accept these conditions 

 tamely, and frequent insurrections resulted. 

 Finally, in 1778, the Irish Parliament by a 

 Relief Act lifted a little of the crushing weight, 

 giving to Catholics the right to hold land and 

 to practice their religion. The Irish Protest- 

 ants joined with the Catholics in a demand 

 for legislative freedom, and as they backed 

 their demand with an armed force and had at 

 their head the patriot Grattan, they gained 

 their point, and in 1782 the Irish Parliament 

 was declared independent. The methods of 

 gaining seats in this Parliament, however, were 

 in sore need of reform. Moreover, it was 

 composed entirely of Protestants. 



In 1798 the Irish again revolted, stirred by 

 the excitement of the revolution in France. 

 The rising was put down, but it had made 

 clear to the English that Ireland in its present 

 condition could be nothing but a hotbed of 

 insurrection. William Pitt, Premier of Eng- 

 land, thought he saw the way out of the diffi- 

 culty, and proposed a legislative union of the 

 two countries, and the emancipation of the 

 Catholics. The Act of Union passed both Par- 

 liaments, and on January 1, 1801, "The United 

 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" was 

 proclaimed. 



Early Years of the Union. Catholic emanci- 

 pation did not follow, and the Irish, little 

 pleased with the union with Great Britain, 

 were rendered still more dissatisfied. The 

 struggle for freedom, religious and political, 

 which began then did not approach settlement 

 until the second decade of the twentieth cen- 

 tury. The first rising that took place at- 

 tracted considerable attention because of the 

 picturesque character of its leader, Robert 

 Emmet, but it accomplished nothing. The 



