The Whigs and the Reform Bill
(December 1830 to November 1832)
Summary.
This was the era of reform.
Catholics could now be elected to a reformed Parliament and be appointed to
public office. But the expectations of the lower class Catholics which had been
elevated during the campaign for Emancipation were not realised. They had
assumed that all jobs on the public payroll would go to them. Daniel O'Connell
played on these feelings of disappointment claiming that they would only be
realised in a Catholic-dominated Irish Parliament. Agrarian crime and resistance
to tithe-paying fused with each other, and a Coercion Act had to be passed. The
attempt to find a means of public funding primary education resulted in an
Education Act. The great topic of the hour was, however Parliamentary Reform.
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The Return of the Whigs
Reaction to the Emancipation Act
The ‘Tithe War’
Parliamentary Reform Introduced
Melbourne’s Administration
The National Board of Education
Ireland under Anglesey and Stanley
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The Return of the Whigs
[December 1830] Wellington's ministry seemed to have coped with
the three problems, which faced it in 1828, the price of corn, currency, and
banking, and the Catholic problem. But in fact several long-standing grievances
now grabbed the attention of the public. After the excitement caused by the
successful revolt of the Catholic Belgians the previous year came news of an
attempted revolt of the Catholic Poles against the Russians. They declared
their independence in January 1831 but their revolt was puts down by the
Russians during the summer. The British Government had supported the Belgians
and guaranteed the independence of the new state. This guarantee was the reason
given by Britain for going to war in 1914. At this
point none of the European powers assisted the Poles, but their struggle was
widely reported in British and Irish newspapers. The Poles were unsuccessful
and remained under Russian control until 1919. The excitement and alarm after
dying down briefly flared up more violently. There was no great shift in public
opinion towards the Whigs. The Government had lost the support of the
ultra-Tories and the anti-popery faction as well as that of Huskisson's
followers. The death of Huskisson on the opening day of the Liverpool to
Manchester Railway left the way open for an alliance between these and the more
conservative Whigs under Lord Grey. Sir Henry Parnell was chosen to put what
amounted to a vote of no confidence in Wellington’s ministry, which then fell.
Earl
Grey (formerly Lord Howick), in the last days of November 1830, put together a
very aristocratic ministry with all the main offices going to peers, or the
sons or close relatives of peers. Lord Melbourne became Home Secretary, the
Marquis of Anglesey Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Hon. Edward Stanley, grandson of
the Earl of Derby, Irish Secretary, Lord Duncannon,
son of the Earl of Bessborough, Secretary for Woods and Forests, and the
Marquis Wellesley Lord Steward of the Household. Thomas Spring Rice became
Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Althorpe. Henry John Temple,
Viscount Palmerston in the Irish peerage became Foreign Secretary. Palmerston
had extensive estates in the west of Ireland, on which he spent vast sums for
improvements. Anglesey too had extensive estates in Ireland. Melbourne’s in-laws, the Ponsonby’s (Duncannon,
Bessborough) were Irish. Grey himself was married to another Ponsonby. Sir
Henry Parnell was made Secretary at War but was shortly afterwards dismissed
for failing to support the cabinet. He did not make himself popular by telling
the cabinet that he was the only one to understand the Irish question, and by
urging them to conciliate O’Connell. He may have been right.
Lord
Plunket resigned from the office of Chief Justice of Common Pleas to become
Irish Lord Chancellor. It seems that Lord John Russell advised giving the
vacant Chief Justiceship to O'Connell, but it was given to John Doherty, the
Solicitor General, who had just signally defeated O'Connell in Parliament
(Fitzpatrick). Doherty was a personal friend of Anglesey, but O'Connell regarded the appointment
as a mortal insult. (Whether O’Connell was suited to the bench, given his lack of knowledge of the law, and the fact that he would be excluded
from politics, is another matter.) The Attorney General under Wellington and Wellesley, Henry Joy, was promoted to the Bench
as Chief Baron of the Exchequer where a vacancy had also occurred. The
Under-Secretary, William Gregory, whom Anglesey disliked, was removed from office (11
Dec 1830), and
replaced by Captain Gosset. Apparently, the position of Third Serjeant in the
Courts was offered to O'Connell but he spurned the offer. The position was then
given to Michael O'Loughlen, O’Connell’s junior, it being the next step after
being made KC. The appointment was significant inasmuch that serjeants could be
given Commissions of Assize and Nisi
prius and so act as judges in the crown courts. Nevertheless they could
still be elected to Parliament.
O'Loghlen was the first Catholic appointed a judge for centuries. Woulfe
was made Crown Counsel for Munster. Another leading Catholic barrister,
Purcell O’Gorman, O’Connell’s contemporary in the courts, was appointed to an
official position in the Court of Chancery and later an Assistant barrister.
Sir Patrick Bellew was made High Sheriff of co. Louth
Not
many offices had been offered immediately to Catholics, but this was not
because of any prejudice against them. Anglesey's appointments policy reflected his first
pre-occupation: to calm the fears of the Protestant ultra-Tories. The Catholics
had got the Relief Act they had been demanding so insistently and so were
thought to be satisfied for the moment. In making appointments both in Church
and State Earl Grey and Anglesey
tried to pick for promotion Protestants from as wide a spectrum as possible.
Next, the Irish Whigs had to consider the claims of their own long-term
supporters, and they had been waiting a very long time. Thirdly, there were
very few Catholics actually qualified, whether by property or professionally,
for public office. Sheil's income from the bar was very small until he was made
a KC. Catholic barristers had to start at the bottom and not be automatically
promoted to the top because of their religion. Appointing
them Assistant Barristers in counties or Crown Counsel made a start. The
Catholic peers could be made High Sheriffs in turn or Lords Lieutenant of counties, and such appointments were made. Some too could be
given peerages of the United Kingdom to enable them to sit in the House of
Lords. O'Connell was likely to regard such promotions of rivals as personal
insults, for he never forgot an injury, real or imagined, and the Veto
Controversy was only fifteen years away.
[Top]
Reaction to the Emancipation Act
The Government
however seriously miscalculated the Catholic expectations in 1830, especially
in Munster. Others might have seen the campaign
for Emancipation as a minor issue regarding whether a handful of wealthy
Catholic gentlemen, not numbering more than a hundred at most, could be MPs or
generals in the army. But that was not the way it had been presented in the
campaign for Emancipation. As a writer in the Carlow Morning Post put it: ‘Everything national, past, present,
and to come, was summed up in this most absorbing event – religion, politics,
clergy, laity, penal laws, persecutions, our lives and fortunes, nay everything
which we held most dear – civil and religious freedom; in short the abridged
history of poor Ireland’s past wrongs, and all the fondest hopes for the future
were all gathered together’ (13 Sept. 1832). Catholics were led to believe that
they could get jobs back wholesale from the Protestants, though people like
Lawless and Wyse deplored this nakedly sectarian presentation. At a meeting of
the Catholic Committee in 1811, O'Connell estimated that there were 31,096 jobs
in Ireland, including in the armed forces, from which
Catholics were excluded by statute or lack of public patronage. Typical of such
jobs were junior positions like turnkey in a county gaol or tidewaiter in the
Revenue Service. With an Irish Catholic Lord Chancellor, Irish Secretary, Post
Master General, and so on, in theory all jobs could go to Catholics, at least
in Munster and Connaught.
This idea, that
Catholics would take all the jobs, was a great attraction of Repeal, and later
in the century of Home Rule. But this might have mattered little at the time if
O'Connell had not felt himself personally belittled. As a result, Irish
politics for the next ninety years were to be wracked by the issue that did not
end until the Catholics triumphed over the Protestants. One can only speculate
what would have happened if the Government had given some position to O’Connell
that had the patronage of several hundred minor positions attached. These he
could have dispensed to his worthless followers who had followed him precisely
in order to get some such official positions. This would probably have been
done without comment fifty years earlier, but that kind of customary abuse was
passing away.
After
the appointments were announced O'Connell had a long discussion with Anglesey, and the latter noted that he was full
of bitterness, and was about to go to Ireland to stir up what mischief he could. The
Duke of Leinster, the previous autumn, with his ‘Leinster Declaration’ in
favour of the Union had handed him the issue of Repeal,
and the Trades’ Political Union was strongly advocating it.
[1831] Parliament was recessed on the 24
December 1830
and did not re-assemble until 3 February 1831. On the 20 December, the Corporation
of Dublin met to express their condolences to William Gregory on his removal
from office, and it became clear that neither the Corporation nor the trade
guilds of merchants would welcome Anglesey with the usual procession on his arrival on 22
December 1830.
When he arrived, he was greeted warmly by his own supporters despite the
sulking of the Orangemen and the Trades’ Union.
On
the day before O'Connell’s arrival the (Catholic) Trades’ Union met to organise a welcome for him with
a procession carrying the banners of the different trades. O'Connell's late
arrival on 19 December rather spoiled the event so the Trades decided to hold
another proper one. The Government could not suppress Orange processions and tolerate manifestly
Catholic processions, so this was banned (25 Dec. 1830), again insulting O’Connell. The
Non-Subscribing Presbyterians in the Synod of Munster, the Presbytery of
Antrim, and the Remonstrant Synod presented an address of welcome to him.
Archbishop Murray, Archbishop Laffan of Cashel, and Dr Kelly, the co-adjutor of
Armagh attended the first levee at the end of
January.
The
cabinet was rather taken aback by the turn of events in Dublin. Sir Henry Parnell had not at first
accepted office under Grey, but when Doherty's appointment as Chief Justice of
Common Pleas was announced he went to Anglesey, Melbourne, and Palmerston, in turn to beg them
to conciliate O'Connell. The cabinet asked him what he would advise, and he
suggested among other things, the removal of Anglesey and Plunket. Only the removal from Ireland of those who had bested him would have
placated O’Connell. The Earl of Darnley then wrote to Dr Doyle to ask his
advice, and he replied in much the same fashion as Parnell. He thought that 'some
special fatality attended the present ministry'. Parliament had resisted
Catholic claims until the people felt that their rights had been extorted by
force. Then the Government persecuted the man they should above all have
conciliated. Next, few practical advantages from the Relief Act had come to the
Catholics so that they considered that Act a dead letter. The Government should
speedily bring in measures to make the Relief Act effective (Fitzpatrick).
Doyle's
letter was shown to the cabinet and Darnley wrote to him again to ask what
specific measures he had in mind. Parnell too wrote to Doyle recounting his
attempts to save something from disaster. Doyle replied to Darnley on 10
January 1831.
He noted that the people were still faithful in their allegiance [to the crown]
but agitated to an unprecedented degree. O'Connell, in a recent speech, had
gone so far as to claim to be sent by God. But he thought the Government would
do better to ignore him. He did not think the unfortunate law appointments could
be cancelled now, but a substantial Poor Law was urgently required to alleviate
the widespread distress. In a second letter, he expressed an opinion that the
excess revenue of the Established Church could be used for the public benefit,
and he commended Sir Henry Parnell highly. He warned the Government against
calling out the yeomanry in cases of disturbance. It is not obvious why Doyle
was concerned with the possible use of the yeomanry. Such units as still had
not disbanded were composed largely of those with Orange sympathies, and the Government did not
intend to employ them. It would be like putting a match to a powder keg
(Fitzpatrick).
Anglesey would have been better advised to
leave O'Connell alone, for by attacking him the Irish Government harmed itself
in two ways. For he, at that moment (December 1830 and
January 1831) was more concerned with the beginning of the resistance to the
payment of tithes in Kilkenny, and the possibility that the agrarian secret
societies would manipulate the movement to their own advantage. He recommended
the Trades Political Union to obey the law, wrote two public letters to the
people of Kilkenny urging them to avoid large intimidatory anti-tithe meetings,
and a third letter to the artisans and others of the operative classes to warn
them against joining the Ribbonmen. These letters were written between the 3rd
and 8th January 1831. He then formed his own General Association of Ireland on
6th January to work for the remedying of grievances especially through Repeal.
The
Irish Government was composed almost entirely of the moderate Tory wing of the
coalition, and it promptly suppressed the General Association on 7
January 1831,
and all societies under whatever name he might call them on 13 January.
O’Connell, as usual considered he was being helpful and the Government
considering that he was doing nothing but harm. But the Government was right on
one point; anything O’Connell did would stir up trouble among the Orangemen.
Whigs, like Russell and Duncannon, had been hoping to get the services of
O'Connell for their campaign for Parliamentary Reform, but he and the Irish
Government were embarked on a contest from which neither could easily back
down. O'Connell was arrested along with others on 18 January
1831 and
charged on 31 counts, the first 14 of which were charges of violating the
Suppression Act of 10 George IV (1829). The object of every defence lawyer was
to prolong the defence, and this O'Connell proceeded to do. It was often
alleged that the cabinet concurred in this procrastination to allow the Act to
lapse, which it eventually did. The Suppressions of Dangerous Societies Act
(1829) unexpectedly reached the end of a second Parliament when the king
dissolved it on 23 April, and expired. Stanley noted that O’Connell had pleaded
guilty to fourteen of the charges against him and so the Government had secured
a conviction of a misdemeanour. To pursue the matter further would have looked
like political persecution.
O’Connell’s
decision to keep the Catholic Rent under his own control was paying off for
him. According to the Pilot, what was
now called the ‘O’Connell Tribute’ brought in £24,000 in the first three months
of 1831. In the meantime O’Connell continued organising meetings for the sole
purpose of petitioning Parliament for Repeal not Reform. This was only
mischief-making, for there is no evidence the O’Connell ever believed, except
perhaps for a brief period in 1843, that Repeal would ever be achieved. Reform
was the urgent question of the hour, and one in which he could have made
himself very useful to the Whigs. Those who attended Repeal meetings invariably
smeared those who refused to join them, accusing them of being in the pay of
the Government, or seeking favours of the Government. Almost none of the major
figures in the Catholic Association, or those Protestants who had supported
Emancipation, joined him. One source
remarked that most of his support came from the Political Trades’ Union, and this was doubtless true in
Dublin. But in Munster especially there was no shortage of
people prepared to jump on a political bandwagon. Marcus Costello, like Jack
Lawless before him, at the end of January 1831, undertook a campaign in Ulster to gain the support of the working
classes for Repeal, but he was stoned out of various towns by the local
Orangemen.
[Top]
The ‘Tithe War’
In the meantime the
anti-tithe agitation, which was alluded to earlier had broken out. It had been
assumed that the tithe question was being solved as more and more parishes
adopted composition and commutation voluntarily. But now there was a widespread
demand for their entire abolition, and the clergymen of the Established Church
were in no mood to consider any further diminution of their legal rights. The
first dispute occurred in a parish in which commutation and composition was in
force, and there are conflicting accounts as to why exactly the dispute
occurred. A young curate, a supporter of the Second Reformation, came to the
parish, and got into dispute with the parishioners with regard to the amount
compounded for. The Catholic parishioners then refused to pay any tithes, and
as feelings rose high large crowds assembled, often carrying 'hurley sticks' as
a pretence that they were assembling for a game of hurling. (Evidence
of Dr. Doyle, in DEP 10 April 1832).
O'Connell, as mentioned above, became alarmed and wrote to the people of
Kilkenny urging them to agitate peacefully within the law. A graphic account is
given of the events in co. Limerick
by T.P. Lefanu, whose father was rector of Abington in that county, where the
respect of the people for the Protestant clergy turned to hatred almost
overnight.
At the same time,
there was a widespread outbreak of agrarian crime in many parts of Leinster and Munster and, as O Connell foresaw, it became
indistinguishable from legitimate anti-tithe protests. The whole bloody
campaign with its intertwined strands became known as the 'Tithe War'. Indeed
it was impossible to say which were the activities of the
anti-tithe protestors and which of the agrarian terrorist organisations.
No doubt many people involved belonged to both organisations. The cordial
relations between Catholics and Protestants became soured overnight. In some
places, Protestants were shot on sight. Four Protestant clergymen were
murdered. Protestant emigration from Ireland soared. The Catholic priests proved
singularly unhelpful to their Protestant brethren even when their lives and
those of their families were threatened (le Fanu).
Attacks on the
police continued, sometimes in connection with tithe-collecting; sometimes not.
In Castlepollard, in Westmeath, in May 1831, a group of policemen tried to make
an arrest on a fair day, and were attacked. The police opened fire and several
people were killed. An episode connected with tithe-collection occurred in
Newtown Barry, in Wexford, in June 1831, where a crowd attacked the police, who
opened fire. On 25 November 1831 there was an attack on a body of
police escorting prisoners at Castlecomer. Doyle issued a strongly-worded
pastoral against the secret societies, the ‘Whitefeet’ and ‘Blackfeet’ in his
diocese after the attack. He recognised that the people in his diocese had
great grievances, but the people in these societies were not those with the
greatest grievances. The members of the societies, he said, were old offenders,
thieves, liars, drunkards, fornicators, quarrellers, blasphemers, men who have
abandoned all duties of religion, and also lots of giddy young men (DEP 1 Dec 1831; he would have received
this information from the local clergy.) Thirteen constables were killed in an
attack at Carrickshock near Knocktopher in December 1831 in an affair in
connection with tithe collection. The local paper, the Kilkenny Moderator, explained the deaths of the policemen, saying
that they failed to fire with live ammunition soon enough. As was usual,
conflicting versions circulated as to what had happened and who had fired
first. One plausible version was that the crowd had charged believing that the
police muskets were loaded only with blanks. The police would have to fire
these off and would not have time to reload. (That many in the attacking crowd
were half-mad with adulterated alcohol is very likely. Substances like
methylated spirits and mercuric chloride - a timber preservative - could be
added to whiskey to hasten and enhance its effects.) In these cases the police
were put on trial and acquitted.
The
newspapers that gave accounts of these events were clearly divided on sectarian
lines. A paper which reported a 'police massacre' was obviously Catholic and
inclined towards Repeal. A paper that denounced ‘atrocities’
belonged to the ascendancy faction. The latter papers too, were more
likely to report murders of policemen, while the former stress murders by
policemen. By that time, the payment of tithes in Kilkenny had virtually
ceased, and resistance was spreading rapidly into the neighbouring counties.
(Among the leaders of the tithe-resisters in Kildare was a farmer called
Cullen, married to a woman called Maher, who had a son called Paul, studying
for the Church in Rome. The sectarian bitterness of the time,
and hatred of the Protestant Church, were to
remain with Cardinal Paul Cullen all his life. His uncle, the Rev. James Maher,
became an active political priest.) At the end of 1831, the Government
appointed a Select Committee to examine the question of Irish tithes.
It
was estimated that 242 murders were committed during the period of the 'Tithe
War' as well as over a thousand robberies to steal arms. Since the previous
century, the abolition of tithes had been one of the proclaimed objectives of
the secret societies. The counties chiefly affected were Queen’s County,
Carlow, Kilkenny, and Tipperary, but disturbances were not confined to
these areas. These counties, along with Limerick and Clare usually figured in lists of proscribed
districts.) O'Connell and Doyle, in different ways, tried to reduce the
influence of the secret societies. O'Connell pinned his hope on winning the
people to peaceful agitation for Repeal. Doyle tried to persuade the Government
to do something quickly, and told the people that it was legitimate to resist
'passively' to demands for tithes, or even by such methods as hiding their
cattle. Dr. MacMahon, the Catholic bishop of Killaloe, whose diocese spread
over parts of Clare and Tipperary, issued a strongly-worded pastoral
letter against secret societies. He explained that the Church forbade such
societies and any member could not receive absolution even on his deathbed
unless he renounced the evil society. He warned them that the penalty even for
membership was transportation or even death. He warned them too that Government
spies and informers abounded, and that they can swear anything in court without
fear of contradiction. (The reason for this was that
obviously anyone who contradicted them would have to have been present and so
would incriminate themselves DEP 14
April 1831.)
Anglesey
put forward a plan to use Church property, which Conway of the Post, citing Lord Cloncurry, judged
could have worked if enacted promptly in 1831 (DEP 5 May 1840). There was a problem. Anglesey and Stanley, the Irish Secretary, were
not on speaking terms with each other, and each was making proposals separately
to the cabinet. Anglesey wished to use some of those revenues
of the Irish Church which were clearly superfluous for
public purposes, but Stanley disagreed. The cabinet did what
cabinets do; it set up a Parliamentary Committee to make recommendations. Doyle
was called as one of the principal witnesses. The result eventually was
Stanley’s Irish Church Temporalities Act
(1833) which satisfied nobody.
[Top]
Parliamentary Reform Introduced
Parliament returned
from its recess on 3rd February 1831. The Whigs, led by Earl Grey, determined
to tackle the question of the parliamentary reform first. They unsure how much
support they had in the Commons for this measure. A seat was found for Sheil in
a pocket borough belonging to the Earl of Anglesey, and Lord Duncannon was told
to try to patch up matters with O'Connell. The latter pledged his support. Grey
secured an arrest of judgement against O’Connell until May after
Stanley refused to withdraw the action. The
Bill became known to history as the 'Great Reform Bill' and Lord John Russell introduced
it into the Commons on 1 March 1831.
As Irish representation had been largely reformed at the time of the Act
of Union a different reform bill was introduced for Ireland. This issue was to dominate all others
in the country for the next year and a half. The Bill passed its Second Reading
by a single vote, 51 Irish MP's being in favour and 36 voting against. Grey
persuaded the king to hold a General Election (Brock) before proceeding any
further. The King attended Parliament on
22 April 1831 to dissolve the one-year old Parliament, having
been assured that Ireland was sufficiently quiet, and writs were
issued for another General Election. In the event there were no major
atrocities during the election in May, though the massacres at Castlepollard and
Newtown Barry occurred soon afterwards, and Special Commissions had to be sent
to Limerick, Clare, and Galway in June. In July, Stanley was to introduce a very severe Arms
Bill.
There was some
jockeying for positions in Irish constituencies during the General Election in
May 1831 but not as much as before, as there was a general wish among the Irish
Whigs to get the Bill passed, and the agitation for Repeal was suspended. In
Louth, Sir Patrick Bellew stood down in favour of Sheil, who was then returned along
with Alexander Dawson. The latter died almost immediately and Bellew was
elected. Lord Killeen was returned in Meath and Henry Grattan, Junior was
defeated. (Conway, who had known the older Grattan
thought that his son lacked ability and principles and was prepared to pledge
almost anything to get himself elected. He was thus useful to O'Connell.) As in Louth, a by-election soon occurred and
Grattan was returned. No place was ever found by anybody for the one genuine
democrat, Jack Lawless. But Lawless was a Radical Reformer, and so was excluded
from Grey's Whig-Tory coalition. O'Connell stood in Kerry where he was returned
along with the son of a Whig peer, the Hon. Frederick Mullins (Baron Ventry).
The long-time supporter of the Catholics, the Knight of Kerry, along with the
Hon. William Browne, was defeated. At O'Connell's request, Lord Duncannon was
unopposed. Thomas Wyse was elected in Tipperary, and Sir John Burke in Galway.
The
country returned a large majority in favour of reform. This Parliament sat from
14 June 1831 until 16 August 1832, convening on 140 days. The Freeman’s Journal estimated that 62
Irish members were pro-reform and 32 declared against (20
May 1831).
When opening Parliament the king noted that cholera was widespread in the Baltic states, and steps were being taken to prevent
it entering the United Kingdom. However by November it had reached England.
By
the time Parliament re-assembled on the 14 June 1831 after the election, the Whig
legislative programme was ready. The re-introduction of the Reform Bill took
place in June but the Second Reading was delayed until the autumn.
Stanley introduced an Arms Bill but this was
strongly opposed by Lord Althorpe and was withdrawn.
[Top]
Melbourne’s Administration as Home Secretary
Melbourne then introduced his Lord Lieutenant of
Counties Bill. The administration of Irish counties was made more like that in England with the appointment of lords
lieutenant of counties to act as the Government’s representative in the county
and keep it informed about matters in the county. In particular, they were to
notify the Lord Chancellor about who should be appointed magistrates. But Anglesey noted that as magistrates died with
the crown there was no need to remove existing magistrates even though the last
Lord Chancellor, Sir Anthony Hart had been unhappy about some he had appointed
under the old system. Some of the powers of the former governors of counties
were transferred to them, as was also the powers of the colonels of the county
militias to appoint officers in their regiments. Thirty two were appointed in
September.
Despite the local
disturbances, the third Census was held in the summer of 1831. The population
was found to have increased from 6,800.000 to 7,700,000 an increase of almost
14%. In 1831 the British and Irish Post Offices were amalgamated and this
resulted in an improved service (SNL
8 June 1836). Conway noted that posts between Irish country towns were
poor as the Irish Post Office had been considered chiefly as a source of
Government revenue. There were four routes for mail across the Irish Sea, through Holyhead, Liverpool, Portpatrick and Milford Haven. Five
Catholics were appointed sheriffs of counties. Orange parades were again
banned.
Ominously, food
scarcity was reported from Mayo as early as March. May and June were the
‘hungry months’ when last year’s crops were coming to an end and the new crops
were not ready for harvesting. O’Connell wrote to Doyle on 29 March saying that
Doyle’s pamphlet on the necessity of some state provision for the poor and
convinced him and that he wished to announce publicly his change of mind.
(Doyle was later to reproach him on his backsliding from his commitment; most
things for O’Connell were matters for political tactics.) To finance it he
suggested using either the tithes, or putting a double tax on absentee
landlords. These populist proposals were beside the point, for the Duke of
Leinster had at one time convincingly argued in the House of Lords that the
estates of absentees like himself were usually better managed than those of
resident landlords. The idea of using superfluous revenues of the Established
Church for the public good was a beguiling one, and was proposed on and off by
the Whigs until the end of the century. Dr MacHale wrote a pastoral letter
instructing the people to apply to their landlords for relief, and then to the
Government and Parliament. They should keep clear of all illegal organisations.
Almost unnoticed the Mulholland brothers in Belfast opened a power-driven factory for
spinning linen yarns in Belfast with 8,000 spindles. It was the
beginning of the rise of Belfast, not only as the world centre of the
linen industry, but as a great centre for the manufacture of machinery. Weaving
by powerloom did not commence until 1850.
The Board of Inland
Navigation and the Barrack Board (hitherto responsible for building barracks or
other public buildings) were re-organised as the Board of Works. (The duties
and powers of the boards for the Phoenix Park, Public Buildings, Public Roads
and Bridges, Dunmore and Kingstown Harbours, and for Irish Fisheries were also
transferred to the new Board (Dublin
Mercantile Advertizer 30 July 1832). John Fox Burgoyne, of the Royal
Engineers, and a veteran of the Peninsular War and siege of New Orleans, was appointed first chairman, and
served in the post for fifteen years. This Board was to have responsibility for
public buildings, canals, drainage, and so forth, and was to form the backbone
of public relief works during the Famine. As was beginning to be the custom,
qualifications or experience in such fields as engineering or surveying under
civilian (civil) or military engineers were required,
and adequate knowledge of accountancy or cost control. The organisation of relief
works was at times given to the Board as its officers were the only people the
Government could trust to spend the money and spend it properly. By the Public
Works Act (1831) loans to a total value of half a million pounds repayable over
twenty five years were made available.
Most of this was disbursed. Not
only during the Great Famine but also increasingly in the second half of the
century the Board of Works became an essential instrument of poor relief and
local development. It was to become the largest of all Government Boards, and
the conduit through which most Government initiatives for improvement were
channelled.
The Education Bill
(1831) to set up the Board of National Education to replace the Kildare Place
Society was ready in the autumn. It was to do much the same things, giving
support grants, providing suitable cheap schoolbooks and school materials,
training teachers, and inspecting the schools. Archbishop Magee had died
shortly before so the Government was able to appoint a liberal scholar from
Oxford, Dr Richard Whately, as archbishop of
Dublin. He was consecrated on 23
October 1831.
It was an inspired choice. Whately proved to be the most outstanding churchman
in Ireland in the nineteenth century. He brought fresh air
into the traditional provincial Church of Ireland and was detested for it. Though
limited in many ways, having no appreciation of art, music, poetry, or the
beauties of nature, he had an open mind with regard to questions of religion
and science. He realised that everything written in the Bible could not be
literally true, and tried to establish principles regarding what was essential
to believe. He wrote a brilliant satire of Hume’s scepticism, proving on Hume’s
own principles that Napoleon could not have existed. At the time of his
appointment to the archbishopric of Dublin, he was the professor of political
economy in Oxford University. Theologically he was anti-Erastian,
meaning he did not believe that the secular power should intervene in the
internal affairs of the Church. He was to modify his views when he had to
enforce the Church Temporalities Act (1833). He was consecrated archbishop in
one of Dublin’s two Protestant cathedrals and
enthroned in the other. He shortly afterwards established a chair of political
economy in Trinity College, Dublin. He quickly established a rapport with
Archbishop Murray his Catholic counterpart. He had a belief that all Ireland could quickly be converted to
Protestantism, merely through the enlightenment education would bring.
Murray believed that it would not, and that
education would strengthen religious belief. So, he was not worried if Whately
tried to sneak in parts of his own beliefs into the textbooks of the National
Board.
Archbishop Daniel
Murray was another remarkable figure. During his life, and after his death, he
was reviled and detested by many of his co-religionists who took the part of
Archbishop MacHale and Cardinal Cullen. One biographer of MacHale even doubted
his eternal salvation. He was not outstanding in any particular, but presided
over the enormous growth of the Catholic religion in the first half of the
century with ability and good-humoured tolerance. He was the son of a farmer in
county Wicklow, and studied for the Church in
Salamanca, where he took the degree of Doctor of
Divinity. Such degrees at that time did not imply any great learning. He was
pursued by the yeomanry in 1798 and escaped to Dublin where he came directly under
Archbishop Troy. Murray and Troy were figures from the eighteenth
century, cultivated, urbane, and tolerant. They were of the same mould as
Castlereagh and Wellington, and suffered from the same kind of abuse from
their more intolerant co-religionists. He was selected by Archbishop Troy as
his successor, and was consecrated as archbishop of Hierapolis in
partibus infidelium in 1809 as co-adjutor to Archbishop Troy with right of
succession. (Hieropolis was a long-defunct see, formerly in the eastern half of
the Roman
Empire, but
now in the Turkish
Empire. In
the Catholic Church, every bishop had to be a bishop of some place.) He
travelled to the Continent and to Rome several times on behalf of the
bishops. (Catholic bishops were among those who found the invention of
steam-ships and railways an enormous relief.) In 1823, he succeeded
Troy as archbishop. He was never the leader
of the Catholic Church in Ireland, that honour always going to the
archbishop of Armagh. However, as his diocese was the
largest and most important in Ireland, and closest to the seat of
government, he was the usual channel of communication between the Church and
the Government, which regarded him as the senior Catholic bishop in the whole United Kingdom. He always sought accommodation where
this was possible, and did not make mountains out of molehills. But he could be
rigorous and unbending if a principle was at stake, and could stand up even
against the Holy See if he thought they were acting on wrong information. He
was not a particularly learned man, and so relied on others for instruction. He
knew he could not compete in secular knowledge with Whately, nor did he try.
Though not outstanding in any particular way, he filled the office of
archbishop of Dublin in a way none of his successors could attain. He
was without doubt, the most outstanding Irish Catholic bishop in the nineteenth
century. One has only to compare him with his successor, the able, but
intensely narrow-minded and bigoted Cardinal Cullen, to see what rightly
constitutes a Christian bishop.
Top
The National Board of Education
Whately was made
the chief commissioner on the newly established Board of National Education, in
practice if not in law, recognising the right of the Established Church to
supervise education. Along with him were appointed Archbishop Murray to represent
the Catholic hierarchy, and the Rev. James Carlile DD to look after
Presbyterian interests. The Rev. James Carlile was made the sole, salaried,
Resident Commissioner. The other commissioners forming the Board were the Duke
of Leinster, Anthony Blake, the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin (Dr Francis
Sadleir), and Robert Holmes. The Synod of Ulster did not recognise the Board,
but Carlile was not censured for accepting the post. Holmes was a very
successful lawyer, having the largest practice in Ireland, but he refused all offices, not even
taking silk.
The Board itself was not to manage schools,
but was to consider applications for funding from local committees in
parishes. If there was more than one
application from a parish, the Board was to give preference to applications
from mixed Catholic and Protestant committees. It was also to provide the
inspectors, and carry out other duties that had been done by the Kildare Place
Society. The aim of the Government in establishing and supporting the Board was
to educate all Irish children together so that through meeting in the schools,
the children of the various denominations would meet together and centuries-old
prejudices and hatreds would be dissipated. The sectarian violence of the
‘Tithe War’ was at its height. The clergy fought this principle tooth-and-nail.
Most
of the Catholic bishops accepted the Government's scheme though it was less
than what they wished. Dr MacHale was absent on the Continent. He had to make
his ad limina visit to
Rome, the visit every Catholic bishop must
make to Rome. He, like Dr James Doyle, was largely
a self-taught man, but had not Doyle’s range of interests. Like most
self-taught persons there were gaps in his knowledge of which naturally he was
unaware. He never seems to have studied political economy though this was a
recognised field of knowledge since the time of Sir William Petty in the
seventeenth century. Bishop George Berkeley of Cloyne had developed it in the
preceding century. He was conscious that, having been educated only in
Maynooth, he would have to broaden his education. Wherefore he undertook an
extended tour on his way to Rome and so was absent for a considerable
time. (To him and Cullen could be applied the words of Horace, Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt They who cross the sea change skies
not minds.)
The bishops of the Established Church were
almost uniformly hostile to the Board, as no special rights had been accorded
to them. The regarded proselytism as a duty, even if they opposed unfair
methods like linking Bible reading with the distribution of food or clothing.
They objected to the presence of Catholic priests in the schools, even when
this was restricted to the periods of separate religious instruction. The Bill
was denounced in Parliament and outside. The leader of this attack was the
Irish Earl of Roden a noted Orange leader and member of several Protestant
Evangelising societies. They set up a Church Education Society and joined
forces with the Kildare Place Society, which was now deprived of all public
support. For these clergymen the return of a proper Tory administration without
Peel became an essential. In attacking the system of National Education they
had the full support of the anti-popery zealots of Exeter Hall. Earlier in the
year there was a meeting in Exeter Hall to promote scriptural education in Ireland.
Though less wealthy
than the Established Church the Presbyterians belonging to the Synod of Ulster
also rejected assistance from the Board as this would involve discontinuing the
use of the Bible as a compulsory schoolbook. The formidable Dr. Cooke led the
opposition. The dispute between the Presbyterians and the Board seems to have
been due partly to misunderstandings. When the matter was settled a few years
later, each side claimed that no compromise or concession had been made. But
the schools became in effect denominational when the Presbyterians secured an
agreement that a clergyman from another denomination should not be allowed to
enter their schools.
The
National Board took over the work of the Kildare Place Society and Government
funds for primary education were transferred to it. It was a national scheme in
as much that any parish in any county or barony could apply for assistance. The
Board provided funds, and a system of inspection, and other services like
teacher training, agricultural instruction, and the provision of schoolbooks
and teaching materials. Strict rules were made and enforced at any attempts at
proselytising either Catholic or Protestant children. The Board was to appoint
and pay the inspectors. Combined literary and moral instruction was to be
taught on four or five days, while separate denominational instruction could be
given by the local clergy on one day. Or the clergy could teach for one hour
every day, in the schoolhouse, outside school hours. The local committee was to
provide the site and appoint teachers. These however the Board could remove if
unsatisfactory. A basic salary was to be provided for each teacher by the local
committee, it being understood that the Board would add to it. (In 1870 the English Education Act on similar principles was
passed, but the education was to be provided by local boards who did not control Church schools, which received
some direct grants subject to Government inspection.)
Vested schools were
to be built by the Board of Works Two thirds of the cost of the school was to
be paid by the Board, but only if the school was vested with the Board, and not
used for any other purposes. If not vested the local committee was totally
responsible for all costs of building and maintenance. Most of the sites for
schools were donated by Protestant landlords (McNeill 104f). Having gained
recognition from the Board with their prospectus, a local priest might do
nothing for years. Buildings could remain as bad or
worse than in the days of the hedgeschools. As late as 1903, complaints were
made regarding the lack of proper seating and equipment in some schools, these
being the responsibility of the local management. About 1860, when Vere Foster
appointed himself as an inspector of national schools, he found numerous
examples of schools, with ‘damp clay floors...no privies…no teacher’s desk or
benches for the scholars…and scarcely any school requisites’ (ibid.).
Playgrounds or playing fields were unheard off. Foster spent much of his own
money trying to remedy these defects. One teacher who commenced teaching in
Tipperary in 1835 was given a thatched shed open
on three sides. The floor was gravelled and usually dry. Ten years later a
young curate secured a patch of ground and persuaded the farmers to cart stones
for a new building and built the school. The first desks were lengths of plank
laid on blocks of wood. But when his son took over from him 40 years later he
complained of the unceiled roof, the rickety old desks, broken floor, and
draughty windows. His father told him he was lucky (Irish School Weekly 25 May 1929). (In a Report in 1920, it was
stated that there were 7,947 national schools of which 3620 were vested and 4327
non-vested. The standards of the buildings and furnishings were still
appalling, with thatched roofs, clay floors and no toilets Irish School Weekly 5
August 1922.
The schools were soon afterwards transferred to Departments of Education in the
two new states. For many years afterwards few changes were made in non-adopted
schools.)
Though there was a requirement to provide
religious instruction, it was not stated that the master or mistress should
teach it. If they did not, however, they were liable to instant dismissal by
the clerical manager. Women teachers, especially, were often selected because
of their ability to play the church organ and teach the choir, and perform
other duties in the local church. (This practice was by no means confined to Ireland.) Women were not admitted to the
central training college until 1845. A basic training was given in the Model
Schools. However, if the textbooks supplied by the Board, and
mostly written by Archbishop Whately, dealt with the earth sciences like
geology or the history of the world conflict with champions of the Bible could
not be far off. (Lyell’s Principles
of Geology was published in 1830, and Whately incorporated elements of it
into a textbook, which produced an explosion from MacHale. Lyell’s principles
are now universally accepted, but are incompatible with a literal
interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis.) The books provided by the
Board were not compulsory, but the teachers for three reasons generally used
them. Firstly, they were cheap. Secondly, in practice they formed the
curriculum, and inspectors when examining expected the children to know what
was in them. Thirdly, they were excellent. Their content was wide-ranging,
going far beyond the simple Three R’s of the bible-based schools.
Inevitably, the sectarian divisions which had
flared to heights unseen in Ireland for centuries during the so-call
‘Tithe War’ wrought havoc with the system. Local clergymen of the various
denominations fought hard for the position of school manager. There were too
many small, and inadequately, staffed schools, largely because of rivalry
between denominations. Apart from the local clergy, there was little local
input into schools from gentlemen or businessmen. Local input and control was
supposed to be a central feature of the system, but the clergy kept out all
rivals. (Report in Weekly
Irish Times 19 March 1904). Parents were supposed to make a small
contribution, but there was no way of enforcing this. From this would appear to
derive the custom often referred to that each child had to bring a sod of turf
each day for the school fire. (Some religious orders ran ‘penny-a-week schools’
in the towns, so presumably that was the scale of the expected contribution.)
The basic idea of a large local input from gentlemen, farmers, manufacturers,
clergymen and other interested parties was totally ignored and blocked by the
local clergy, as Vere Foster was to find out. Attendance was very irregular.
Attendance was not made compulsory until the eighteen nineties. The inspectors were university graduates, and
had to take the view that any school was better than no school.
Teachers, male and
female, had to apply to the clergyman for a position,
they had to approach his house by the servants’ entrance, and could be dismissed
at an hour’s notice. Most teachers were men. Often they were former hedgeschool
masters and very good at their job. The starting salary offered could be
between £9 and £16 a year. (£5 a year was regarded as the basic subsistence
level.) Any attempt to meet for mutual instruction or to form a union could
lead to instant dismissal by the clerical manager. Though some inspectors
sympathised with the teachers and assisted them. Naturally, any criticism of
the school buildings would lead to dismissal. The teachers had no contracts of
employment, no house, and no pension. The Board made no contribution towards
teachers’ residences. Nor apparently were most committees willing to add to
their basic salary. The teachers’ over-riding concern was therefore to save enough
to get a lease on a small house and a small patch of land as a provision for
their old age. But many ended their days in the poor house. All these defects
were eventually remedied. The history of the Irish National Teachers’
Organisation, INTO, in the nineteenth century, is illuminating in this respect.
It was concerned above all with securing basic rights and conditions, taken for
granted in the following century. But the root cause of them was the reluctance
of the local clergy to collect any money except for themselves.
The clergy seem to have submitted to the Board for only two reasons, one to
keep out the other side, and two, to get the teachers’ salary paid.
However,
in the towns, where the religious orders had established schools, and the orders
accepted aid and criticism from the Board, by far the best results were
obtained.
Archbishop Murray encouraged the orders in his diocese to accept the Board. The
plan for national education, supported by the state, could have been of immense
benefit to Ireland. But from the very start it got bogged
down in trench warfare with the various churches. One religious order, the
Irish Christian Brothers, always refused to vest their schools, and so had to
pay full costs. But like all the other religious orders, they depended heavily
on the basic salary paid by the Board. By 1852, there were 4,875 national
schools with about half a million pupils. With regard to secondary education
the endowed schools were regulated under a different Act. Voluntary schools, such
as hedgeschools and the schools of the Education Societies,
were not regulated at all.
Whately was a
great believer in practical instruction, and the Board wished to see plots of
land attached to each school where a qualified master could instruct the boys
in the best agricultural practice. The Board also wished to introduce more
advanced or scientific courses. Oddly enough, a rule was made which negated the
basic principle of educating all Irish children together, and that was that
history could only be taught in the period of separate religious instruction.
As the Church of Ireland Gazette
later observed, one set of children revering the ‘pious, glorious and immortal
memory’ of William III, and the other regarded him as the greatest scoundrel
unhung. In practice history was not taught, and where it was, it was distorted
by bigotry (Church of Ireland Gazette 8 Feb 1901).
[Top]
Ireland under Anglesey and Stanley
[Autumn 1831] When the second Reform Bill was introduced in the
autumn of 1831, it was defeated in the Lords. Amid intense excitement in the
whole country the Whigs introduced a third Reform Bill, but this got bogged
down in Committee in the Lords. Parliament was prorogued on the 30
October 1831
and reconvened on the 6 December.
Shortly after the
General Election of 1831 and the lapse of the legislation against associations
the Trades’ Political Union began to hold regular weekly meetings. Marcus
Costello had political ambitions, so O'Connell tried to get the rules of the Union changed in order that he and his
followers could join. (Public meetings of gentlemen were held in mid-afternoon;
those of tradesmen when the day's work was finished, i.e. after 6 p.m.) When he failed in this he formed his
own National Political Union. The members of the Trades’ Political Union
undertook their original activity of registering voters. They also helped the
collect the O'Connell Tribute or Rent which was now amounting to over £30,000 a
year.
O’Connell’s
Association was modelled on the London and Birmingham Political Unions. It
could have branches all over Ireland seeking parliamentary reform, and
repeal of the Act of Union, but they would not correspond with each other.
(Shortly afterwards, the Birmingham Political Union was suppressed after it
advocated forming a militia to maintain law and order.) Originally, the
National Political Union and the Trades Political Union were envisaged as
complementary and O’Connell belonged to both. But he resigned from the Trades
Union in March 1832 as a protest against its decision to admit Jack Lawless.
Lawless then resigned from the National Union and was expelled from the other.
Once
again, the Orangemen began to organise themselves in opposition. A series of
great Protestant rallies was held towards the end of 1831. The collection of
the Protestant Rent and the registering of the voters in the constituencies
were resumed. Conway noted that the three groups, the trade unionists,
the Repealers, and the Orangemen, were united on one point: they were all
opposed to the Government.
In the autumn of
1831, the Government issued instructions with regard to dealing with the
cholera epidemic which had been spreading across western
Europe from Russia, and which was expected to reach Ireland at any time. In France, the new Government attacked religious
houses, and British citizens who were resident therein were told to leave the
country. In the Trappist or Cistercian monastery of Melleray in
Brittany, there were about seventy members of
the community who were British citizens, mostly from Ireland, and these were forced to leave the
country. After a period searching for a suitable property in Ireland on which to settle, the local
landlord, Sir Richard Keane gave them an extensive tract of mountainous boggy
land in County Waterford. They were to reclaim the boggy
mountains, and teach the local people best agricultural practice. They settled
there in June 1832 and called their monastery, Mount Melleray, and it remains to this day. Their
misfortunes were widely reported in the press, and no attempt was made to apply
the expulsion clauses in the Emancipation Act (1829) to them. O'Connell's patent of precedence was at last
granted in November 1831, giving him precedence in court after the serjeants.
[1832] Stanley’s Select Committee on Irish Tithes was
appointed in December 1831 and it reported in February 1832. Archbishop
Whately and Dr Doyle were among those examined. Doyle maintained that there
was no obligation in conscience on Catholics to pay tithes to those who were
not their own pastors. The Report was referred to a Committee of the whole
House. Stanley recounted the ineffectual efforts to
collect the tithes, and said some new measure must be brought in. He introduced
this Bill the following July. In fact, attempts to distrain goods, chiefly
cattle, to sell by public auction to pay the tithes were defeated by immense
hostile crowds gathering to intimidate any purchaser (Carlow Morning Post 28 May 1832).
Terrorist activity
was still rife, and Dr Doyle wrote to Anglesey thanking him for the Special Commission he had
sent to Queen’s County. Dr Kinsella of Ossory (Kilkenny) issued a strong
pastoral against those in his diocese engaged in agrarian disorders. No
absolution in confession was to be given to them until they had renounced the
evil secret society to which they belonged. Nor were they to be absolved until
they had made full restitution for all injuries done, or goods stolen or
destroyed. Nor was it to be given until a further twelve months had elapsed and
penance performed. These rules to apply to all who were
engaged in the illegal activity even if only by silence and consent, or those
who benefited from the unlawful activity. Rather unusually, the
terrorism spread to the Barrow Navigation. Horses were houghed or otherwise
maimed, boats burned or destroyed, and various other outrages committed to
prevent the use of horses to displace men from hauling the barges. It was the last river in Ireland on which hauling by men survived (DEP 24 March 1832).
On the other hand,
preparations for Ireland’s first railway were well advanced. A
Bill authorising its construction had been passed in 1832. These were private
member’s Bills and were the first big expense involved in the construction of a
railway. Alexander Nimmo was engaged to prepare the plans, and the English
standard gauge agreed on. On Nimmo’s death in 1832, Charles Vignoles was
appointed. The following year the contract for construction was awarded to
William Dargan from county Carlow. The six-mile track was completed and
opened in 1834.
The cholera reached
Ireland in March 1832. Among its victims was
the elderly Primate Curtis. Dr Kelly of Dromore was made archbishop, but he
died very young, and was succeeded by the liberal bishop of Down and Connor (Belfast) Dr William Crolly. Crolly worked
closely with Archbishop Murray until his death in 1849.
In April 1832
Stanley introduced an interim Bill to
authorise the advance from Government funds of sums not exceeding £500 in
individual cases or £60,000 in total to clergymen in financial distress. When
the Committee of Inquiry on Tithes reported, Stanley announced three Bills. The first would
make tithe commutation compulsory. The second would re-organise the finances of
the Established Church. The third would change the law on the holding of Church
lands. The first of these Acts, the Irish Tithe Act (1832) was passed in July
1832, making compositions permanent and compulsory. It provided that yearly
tenants and tenants at will should be exempt, and in all future leases the
landlord would pay the tithe. A reduction in the tithe of 15% was offered to
the landlords (DEP 5 Aug 1834). As
Conway observed, it came ten years too late.
Many Catholics had been led to expect the total abolition of tithes. The
Sub-letting Act (1826), which had caused so much distress
was emended. A Committee of Inquiry into Irish Church Revenues was set up. The
Irish Government and the cabinet were also considering measures relating to
Grand Juries, the police, a Poor Law or Labour Rate, the control of arms, and
the control of processions. All of these were eventually passed in the course
of the decade.
In May 1832, the
king asked Wellington to try to form a ministry that was prepared to
introduce a lesser measure of reform, but this proved impossible. William then
agreed to create fifty new peers, and the Tories in the Lords gave way. The
Reform Bill (1832) became law in June 1832.
The
Irish Reform Bill (1832) was then passed in May. As Stanley explained, its chief purpose was to
provide a sufficient number of electors in the boroughs. The number of electors
in Belfast was expected to go up from 13 to
2,300. Most of the rotten boroughs had disappeared at the Act of Union, while
the property qualification for voting had been established by the Catholic
Relief Act (1829). The Bill therefore was aimed at revoking the exclusive
rights of various people granted by the individual town charters, and to some
extent modifying the town boundaries.
The
entire Irish electorate (1832), after the Act, was estimated as being about
52,000. Of the counties, Antrim had 3,700 voters, Kerry 1158, Louth 862, and
Cork 4,012, to give a few examples (Carlow Morning Post 11 Feb 1833). These
county voters were nearly all £10 freeholders and custom demanded that they should
all be individually canvassed and their vote solicited. Their landlord's
permission had first to be obtained before they were canvassed. Failure to ask
the permission would result in a challenge to a duel. Priests could not be
challenged to fight duels, so O'Connell was always anxious to involve political
priests to secure their services at election time. This strengthened the
perception that an Irish Parliament would be over-run by Catholic priests. None
of the other candidates employed them so, between 1830 and 1850, when Catholic
priests were engaged in electioneering it was always for one of O'Connell's
candidates. Among the boroughs, Armagh city had 413 voters, Carlow town 276,
Cork city 4,285, and New Ross 132 (ibid.).
In
May 1832, O’Connell unveiled his plan for a federal constitution of the United Kingdom following the restoration of an Irish
parliament. Two separate parliaments, one for Ireland, and one for Britain, would meet simultaneously in
Dublin and London in October each year to deal with the
legislation for their respective spheres. Then each January, an Imperial
parliament would meet to deal with common affairs like war, peace, colonies,
and foreign relations. Ireland would have a fair representation in
such a parliament. It seems clear that at this point at least O’Connell
accepted Sharman Crawford’s argument that a simple repeal of the Act of Union,
and a simple return to the status in 1799 was no longer desirable. A mutual
antipathy made it impossible for them to co-operate. But once again we are left
wondering how serious O’Connell ever was regarding Repeal. By the end of the
century, for most Protestants a Catholic-controlled Irish Parliament was summed
up in two words ‘Tammany Hall’. This refers to the brutal, corrupt, and tyrannical
regimes of Irish Catholic Democrats in New York and other American cities. Though the
term did not exist at the time, we realise what Protestants and many Catholics
expected a restored Irish Parliament controlled by O’Connell’s henchmen to be
like.
The
Catholic Church, though not fully satisfied, accepted the plan of National
Education. In a synod in Leinster
the bishops of that province formally prohibited the use of sacred buildings
for profane purposes. Various other synods were being held at this time to
tighten up on discipline and to introduce necessary reforms. Doyle was the
driving spirit. On the whole he was privately in favour of Repeal, but with a
federal constitution. From this time onwards he was constantly in conflict with
both O'Connell and the leaders of the agrarian gangs. When he died in 1834 his
funeral was notable for its smallness. He was a very able thinker who never
spared himself when studying or investigating a subject. He was not invariably
right; on the question of the alleged historical fourfold division of the
tithes - one part to go to the poor - he was wrong as far as Irish law was
concerned. He was convinced that some form of state intervention in the form of
a Poor Law or Labour Rate was essential for the alleviation of the awful misery
of the very poor. Yet, like so many clergymen of the time he thought it wrong
to try to hinder young and improvident marriages.
The
clergy of the Established Churches in England and Ireland were disconcerted when the Whigs
managed to form a ministry. One of the Whigs, Lord Brougham, had founded
University College, London, a few years earlier without allowing
the clergy the slightest control. When Peel, while introducing the Emancipation
Bill in 1829, had re-contested his seat for Oxford University, unworldly dons like Dr John Keble and
Dr John Henry Newman did their best to prevent his return. When the Whig
'attack' on the Irish Church was announced, Keble preached a sermon
in July 1833 before the assize judge in Oxford on 'National Apostasy'. Keble and
Newman then studied the nature of the Church and this led to the Oxford Movement. The Protestant clergy in Ireland were not inclined to surrender any of
their traditional rights and privileges. They maintained, with reason, that
estimates of the income of the Irish Church were much exaggerated as the peculiar
laws regarding the tenancy of Church land made it impossible to get a proper
rent. Apart from a few individuals they were not personally bitter, and were
adverse to harsh measures. They were educated and cultivated men, now mostly
resident in their parishes, freely giving alms and conducting the services of
their Church reverently. The Church in the nineteenth century was seen as a
suitable career for a younger son of good family, and such normally had a
university education. The Protestant clergy in both countries were notable for
their contribution to literature, science, and rural development. They looked
after the poor and the working classes in a paternalistic fashion. There were a
few, like the Rev. Mortimer O'Sullivan, who were involved in an anti-Popery
campaign in conjunction with Exeter Hall. O'Sullivan resembled very closely a
Catholic priest, the Rev. James Maher. Both appealed to the prejudices of their
hearers, both told the truth as they saw it, but never the whole truth. Neither
took care to check their stories. James Maher was an uncle of Cardinal Cullen.
After
the passing of the Great Reform Act (1832) it was felt appropriate to call
another General Election so that a Parliament could be elected under the new
rules. Consequently, in August Parliament was first prorogued until October,
and then until December when it was dissolved. The meetings of the rival
political Unions continued. The Trades still strongly supported O’Connell.
Conway in the Post referred to them as the Upper House and Lower House. The
leaders of the Trades Political Union got themselves involved in the anti-tithe
campaign, were arrested and tried at a Special Commission for unlawfully
exciting resistance to the laws. They were sentenced to six months’
imprisonment. The Protestants started a Protestant Conservative Association to
oppose the other two. All were busy registering voters. The two Catholic
associations were trying to extract pledges regarding Repeal from candidates,
and Sir Francis Burdett denounced this. In his opinion this would drive capable
and honest men out of parliament, and allow in rash, ignorant, knavish,
reckless, and unprincipled persons. (The character of those who later were called
O’Connell’s Tail bore this out.)
The recently formed
Irish Zoological Society inspected a site in the
Phoenix Park for their proposed zoo. Cases of
cholera reported in Dublin now passed 10,000 in September, and
12,000 in October, but new cases were by then down to 20 a week. On 23
October 1832
there was a meeting of The Friends of Temperance held in the British and
Foreign schoolroom, Marlborough St. Dublin to promote total abstinence. The total
abstinence movement had lately arrived from America, and was to play a great role in both
Catholic and Protestant Churches in the British Isles over the next century. A meeting took
place in Dublin of the Board of Correspondence for the
Extinction of Colonial Slavery, and it issued an electoral address to the electors
of Ireland. William Wilberforce’s life-long campaign was
nearing its successful conclusion.
