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Home History of Ireland, 1689-1815 1689-1815; Part 7 |
1689-1815; Part 7After the Rebellion was over, Pitt felt that the only way to preserve the connection of Ireland with Great Britain, and to secure any harmony between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ireland itself, was by means of a Union between Great Britain and Ireland, similar to that between England and Scotland. Irish opinion was, however, against such a union. But lavish promises of peerages and honours - forty-one persons were either created peers or raised a step in the peerage - and very generous money compensation to those individuals who held "pocket boroughs" (Over £1,250,000 was expended in this fashion, and two peers received £52,000 and £45,000 respectively for their boroughs), won over part of the opposition. Moreover, though no explicit promise was made, the Roman Catholics were given to understand by the Government that Catholic emancipation would form a sequel to the passing of the Union. With the opposition thus, to some extent, conciliated, the Act of Union, despite Grattan's speeches against it, was finally passed through the Irish Parliament in 1800. By its terms four Irish bishops and twenty-eight peers, who were to be elected for life by the whole body of Irish peers, were to sit in the House of Lords, whilst Ireland was to contribute a hundred members to the House of Commons. Ireland was to keep her separate judicial system and her separate executive - dependent, of course, upon the British ministry. There was to be absolute free trade between Ireland and Great Britain, and Ireland was to contribute two-seventeenths to the revenue of the United Kingdom.Thus ended the Irish Independent Parliament after an existence of eighteen years. It had possessed some able speakers and statesmen; it had passed some useful laws; and, on the whole, considering the difficulties which it had to meet, it was not unsuccessful. The understanding about Catholic emancipation came, unfortunately, to nothing. George III became firmly convinced that the grant of such emancipation would be contrary to his coronation oath, and would not agree to it, and Pitt consequently resigned office in 1801 (It is reported that the king read the Coronation Oath to his family and said, "If I violate it I am no longer legal sovereign of this country, but it falls to the House of Savoy"). Our period consequently ends with Catholic emancipation still unsecured, with the Irish land question still unsolved, and the Irish consequently remaining a dissatisfied nation. |
Chronology |
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