The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

The same remarks will apply to the pamphlets of Dr. Lucas, which created so much interest at the time, and which Dr. Madden quotes at such length. Lucas, it will be remembered, was a violent anti-Catholic, and consequently anti-Irish partisan.

Yet the Catholic Association made all the use they could of the arguments of Molyneux and Lucas, because these possessed some vestige of the national spirit, inasmuch as they spoke for Ireland, whose very name was hated by the opposite party; and at that time the Association was perfectly right: but matters have altered since then.

It is certainly strange that, when serious attempts were made by Henry VIII. to introduce Protestantism into Ireland, not only were Anglo-Irish Catholics summoned to Parliament, but even native chieftains also, some of whom spoke nothing but Irish, so that their speeches required translating.

But, as was previously shown, this was nothing more nor less than a crafty device to make genuine Irishmen unconsciously confirm, by what was called their vote, former decrees in which the Act of Supremacy had been passed; to make it appear that they had abjured their religion, and were now good Protestants; and, worse still, to set in the statute-book, as acknowledged by all, the law of spiritual supremacy vested in the king, of abjuration of papal authority, of submission to all decrees passed in England with the purpose of effecting an entire change in the religion of the nation.

To such vile uses was the machinery of Parliament reduced. Thenceforth it became an engine for the issuing of decrees of persecution. Catholic members occasionally appeared in it when a lull in the execution of the laws occurred, and they could take their seats without being guilty of apostasy. But, by making close boroughs of his Protestant colonies, James I. secured, once for all, the majority of representatives on the side of the Protestants, and, as a natural consequence, nothing more grinding, sharp, piercing, and strong, could be imagined than this engine of law called the Irish Parliament, as it existed under the Stuarts. "Nothing" would be incorrect: there was something worse; it came in with the Revolution of 1688, and its results have been witnessed in a previous chapter.

Owing to the various oaths imposed upon members in the time of William of Orange, no Catholic could any longer sit in the Irish Parliament without abjuring his faith. And, thence-forth, the state institution sitting in Dublin became more than ever a persecuting and debasing power, intent only on making, altering, improving, and enforcing laws designed for the complete degradation of the people.

There came, however, a period of eighteen years, called "the Rise of the Irish Nation" by Sir Jonah Barrington. It would be a pleasure to set this down as a real exception to the whole previous or later history of Ireland; but such pleasure cannot be indulged in.

At the period referred to France had embraced the cause of the North American colonies of Great Britain, and the English vessels were not the only ones upon the seas. Large French fleets were conveying troops to their new allies, and in 1779 the English Government sent warning to Ireland that American or French privateers were to be expected on the Irish coast, and no troops could be dispatched for the protection of the island. Then arose the great volunteer movement. Every Irishman entitled to bear arms enrolled himself in some regiment raised with the ostensible design of opposing a hostile landing, but really intended by the patriots to force the repeal of Poyning's Act from England, to obtain for the Parliament in Dublin real independence of English dictation.

The result is well known. One hundred thousand Irishmen were soon under arms, who not only took the field as soldiers, and formed themselves into regiments of infantry, troops of horse, and artillery, but, strange to say, as citizens, sent delegates to conventions, and demanded with a loud voice that England should not only grant free trade to the sister isle, but likewise invest the Irish Parliament with independent powers.

This political open-air contest lasted two years, and, on the receipt of the news that the British army had capitulated at Yorktown, and that the American War had come to a successful termination on the side of the colonists, the Ulster volunteers decided to hold a national convention of delegates from every city in the province. On Friday, February 15, 1782, the meeting took place at Dungannon, County Tyrone, and there the delegates swore allegiance to a new and as yet unwritten charter, refusing to acknowledge "the claim of any body of men, other than the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, to make laws to bind this kingdom."