The history of Ireland from 1691–1800 was marked by the dominance of the Protestant Ascendancy. These were Anglo-Irish families of the Anglican Church of Ireland, whose English and Scottish ancestors had settled Ireland in the wake of its conquest by England and colonisation in the Plantations of Ireland, and had taken control of most of the land. Many were absentee landlords based in England, but others lived full-time in Ireland and increasingly identified as Irish. (See Early Modern Ireland 1536-1691). During this time, Ireland was nominally an autonomous Kingdom with its own Parliament; in actuality it was a client state controlled by the King of Great Britain and supervised by his cabinet in London. The great majority of its population, Roman Catholics, were excluded from power and land ownership under the penal laws. The second-largest group, the Presbyterians in Ulster, owned land and businesses but could not vote and had no political power. The period begins with the defeat of the Catholic Jacobites in the Williamite War in Ireland in 1691 and ends with the Acts of Union 1800, which formally annexed Ireland in a United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 and dissolved the Irish Parliament.
Economic situation In the wake of the wars of conquest of the 17th century, completely deforested of timber for export (usually for the Royal Navy) and for a temporary iron industry in the course of the 17th century, Irish estates turned to the export of salt beef, pork, butter, and hard cheese through the slaughterhouse and port city of Cork, which supplied England, the British navy and the sugar islands of the West Indies. George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne wondered "how a foreigner could possibly conceive that half the inhabitants are dying of hunger in a country so abundant in foodstuffs?" These economic inequalities, combined with frequent bad harvests due to weather and disease, led to Ireland being in a constant state of food crisis of varying degrees, with estimates that the country endured at least eight subsistence crises and four famines throughout the 18th century, most famously the famine of 1740–1741 that killed about 400,000 people. In the 1780s, due to increased competition from salted-meat exporters in the Baltic and North America, the Anglo-Irish landowners rapidly switched to growing grain for export, while their impoverished tenants ate potatoes and groats.Cormac O Grada, Ireland: a new economic history 1780-1939 (1995).George O'Brien, An Economic History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (London and Dublin, 1918)Louis M. Cullen, "Problems in the interpretation and revision of eighteenth-century Irish economic history." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (Fifth Series) 17 (1967): 1-22.Christine Kinealy, Gerard Moran, and Jason King (eds.), The History of the Irish Famine, Volume 3: Ireland's Forgotten Famines, c. 1700-1900 (Routledge, 2018): 1-6.
Peasant secret societies became common in 18th century Ireland as the chief means of changing landlords' behaviour. These illegal formations called themselves names like the Whiteboys, the Rightboys, the Hearts of Oak and the Hearts of Steel. Issues that motivated them included high rents, evictions, enclosure of common lands and payment of tithes to the state church, the Anglican Church of Ireland. Methods used by the secret societies included the killing or maiming of livestock, tearing down of enclosure fences and occasionally violence against landlords, bailiffs and the militia. Rural discontent was exacerbated by the rapidly growing population – a trend that would continue until the Great Famine of the 1840s.William Edward Hartpole Lecky, History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (6 vol. 1892) vol 2, 1760-1789 pp 1-51 onlineGale E. Christianson, "Secret Societies and Agrarian Violence in Ireland, 1790-1840." Agricultural History (1972): 369-384. in JSTORJames S. Donnelly, "The Whiteboy movement, 1761-5." Irish Historical Studies (1978): 20-54. in JSTOR
Great economic disparities existed between different areas of the country, with the north and east being relatively highly developed, rich and involved in export of goods, whereas much of the west was roadless, hardly developed and had a cashless subsistence economy with a growing dependence on the potato as the main food supply.
Irish politics
The majority of the people of Ireland were Catholic peasants; they were very poor and largely impotent politically during the eighteenth century, as many of their leaders converted to Protestantism to avoid severe economic and political penalties. Nevertheless, there was a growing Catholic cultural awakening underway.Ian McBride, Eighteenth-Century Ireland: The Isle of Slaves - The Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland (2009 ch 6-7 There were two Protestant groups. The Presbyterians in Ulster in the north lived in better economic conditions, but had virtually no political power. Power was held by a small group of Anglo-Irish families, who followed the Anglican Church of Ireland. They owned the great bulk of the farmland, where the work was done by the Catholic peasants. Many of these families lived in England and were absentee landlords, whose loyalty was basically to England. Many of the Anglo-Irish who lived in Ireland became increasingly identified as Irish nationalists, and were resentful of the English control of their island. Their spokesmen, such as Jonathan Swift and Edmund Burke, sought more local control.R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (1988) pp 153-225
Ireland was a separate kingdom ruled by King George III of Britain. A declaration in 1720 stated that Ireland was dependent on Britain and that the British Parliament had power to make laws binding Ireland. The king set policy through his appointment of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland or viceroy. In practice, the viceroys lived in England and the affairs in the island were largely controlled by an elite group of Irish Protestants known as "undertakers." These men controlled the Irish Parliament and made themselves even wealthier through patronage and political corruption. A series of reform proposals culminated in a dramatic change in 1767, with the appointment of an English politician who became a very strong viceroy. George Townshend served from 1767–72 and, unlike his predecessors, was in full-time residence in Dublin Castle. Townshend had the strong support of both the king and the cabinet in London, so that all major decisions were basically made in London. He dismantled the undertaker system and centralized patronage and power. His "Castle party" took charge of the Irish House of Commons. In response, "patriot" opposition emerged to challenge the increasingly centralized, oligarchical government.David Lammey, "The Growth of the 'Patriot Opposition' in Ireland during the 1770," Parliamentary History (1988) 7#2 pp 257-281.R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (1988) pp 226-40
The Patriots, under the leadership of Henry Grattan, had been greatly strengthened by the American Revolution and demanded more and more self-rule. The so-called "Grattan's Parliament" forced the reversal of the mercantilist prohibitions against trade with other British colonies. The king and his cabinet in London could not risk another revolution on the American model, so they made a series of concessions to the Patriot faction in Dublin. Mostly Protestant "Volunteer" units of armed men were set up to protect against the possibility of an invasion from France. As happened in America, in Ireland the king no longer had a legal monopoly of violence.R. B. McDowell, Ireland in the age of imperialism and revolution, 1760–1801 (1979)
The result was a series of new laws that made the Irish Parliament a powerful institution that was independent of the British Parliament, although still under the supervision of the King and his Privy Council.Peter Jupp, "Earl Temple's Viceroyalty and the Renunciation Question, 1782-3," Irish Historical Studies (1971) 17#68 pp 499-520 These concessions, instead of satisfying the Irish Patriots, intensified their demands. The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was instigated by those impatient with the slow pace of reform, with French support. Britain suppressed the separatists, and legislated a complete union with Ireland in 1801, including the abolition of the Irish Parliament. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (1988) pp 259-86
The Penal Laws The Irish Parliament of this era was almost exclusively Protestant in composition. Catholics had been barred from holding office in the early 17th century, barred from sitting in Parliament by mid-century and finally disenfranchised in 1727. Jacobitism, support for the Stuart dynasty by Gaelic and Catholic Ireland, had been utterly defeated in the Williamite war in Ireland which ended in 1691. The defeat of the Catholic landed classes in this war meant that those who had fought for James II had their lands confiscated (until a pardon of 1710). The outcome of the war also meant that Catholics were excluded from political power. One reason for this was the conversion of Catholic gentry to Protestantism to keep their lands. Another reason was the Penal laws stipulation that Catholic owned land could not be passed on intact to a single heir. This made many Catholic landholdings unproductive and caused them to fall out of Catholic hands over several generations. This period of defeat and apparent hopelessness for Irish Catholics was referred to in Irish language poetry as the long briseadh – or "shipwreck". Protestant pamphlets emphasized the positive aspects of the Glorious Revolution; liberty from absolutism, the preservation of property and a degree of electoral power.
Presbyterians, who were concentrated in the northern province of Ulster and mostly descended from Scottish settlers, also suffered from the Penal Laws. They could sit in Parliament but not hold office. Both Catholics and Presbyterians were also barred from certain professions (such as law, the judiciary and the army) and had restrictions on inheriting land. Catholics could not bear arms or exercise their religion publicly.
In the early part of the 18th century, these Penal Laws were augmented and quite strictly enforced, as the Protestant elite were unsure of their position and threatened by the continued existence of Irish Catholic regiments in the French army committed to a restoration of the Jacobite dynasty. From time to time, these fears were exacerbated by the activities of Catholic bandits known as rapparees and by peasant secret societies such as the Whiteboys. However, after the demise of the Jacobite cause in Scotland at Culloden in 1746, and the Papacy's recognition of the Hanoverian dynasty in 1766, the threat to the Protestant Ascendancy eased and many Penal Laws were relaxed or lightly enforced. In addition, some Catholic gentry families got around the Penal Laws by making nominal conversions to Protestantism or by getting one family member to "convert" to hold land for the rest of his family, or to take a large mortgage on it.
From 1766 Catholics favoured reform of the existing state in Ireland. Their politics were represented by the "Catholic Committees" – a moderate organisation of Catholic gentry and Clergy in each county which advocated repeal of the Penal Laws and emphasised their loyalty. Reforms on land ownership then started in 1771 and 1778–79.
"Grattan's Parliament" and the Volunteers