[1] See a quotation from the famous Irish song, "The Wearin' o' the Green," in the "Shan Van Vocht," in the "Heroic Ballads," published by Ginn and Company.
Then a devoted band of Catholics in the south of Ireland resolved to rise and, trusting to their own right arms, to strike for independence. A frightful rebellion broke out (1798), marked by all the intense hatred springing from rival races and rival creeds, and aggravated by the peasants' hatred of oppressive landlords. Both sides perpetuated horrible atrocities. The government employed a large force of Orangemen,[2] or extreme Protestants, to help suppress the insurrection. They did their work with remorseless cruelty.
[2] Orangemen: the Protestants of the north of Ireland, who had taken the side of William of Orange in the Revolution of 1688-1689 (S499). They wore an orange ribbon as their badge, to distinguish them from the Catholic party, who wore green badges.
562. Union of Great Britain and Ireland, 1800; Emmet.
Matters now came to a crisis. William Pitt, son of the late Earl of Chatham (S550), was Prime Minister. He believed that the best interests of both Ireland and England demanded their political union. He devoted all his energies to accomplishing the work. The result was that in the last year of the eighteenth century the English Government succeeded, by the most unscrupulous use of money, in gaining the desired end. Lord Cornwallis, acting as Pitt's agent, confessed with shame that he bought up a sufficient number of members of the Irish Parliament to secure a vote in favor of union with Great Britain. In 1800 the two countries were joined—in name at least—under the title of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland."[3]
[3] The first Parliament of the United Kingdom met in 1801.
Pitt used all his powerful influence to obtain for Ireland a full and fair representation in the united Parliament (1801). He urged that Catholics as well as Protestants should be eligible for election to that body. But the King positively refused to listen to his Prime Minister. He even declared that it would be a violation of his coronation oath for him to grant such a request. The consequence was that not a single Catholic was admitted to the Imperial Parliament until nearly thirty years later (S573).
Two years after the first Imperial Parliament met in London the Irish patriot, Robert Emmet, made a desperate effort to free his country (1803). To his mind the union of England with Ireland was simply "the union of the shark with its prey." He staked his life on the cause of independence; he lost, and paid the forfeit on the scaffold.
But notwithstanding Emmet's hatred of the union, it resulted advantageously to Ireland in at least two respects. First, more permanent peace was secured to that distracted and long-suffering country. Secondly, the Irish people made decided gains commercially. The duties on their farm products were removed, at least in large degree, and the English ports hitherto closed against them were thrown open. The duties on their manufactured goods seem to have been taken off at that time only in part.[1] Later, absolute freedom of trade was secured.
[1] See May's "Constitutional History of England," Lecky's "England in the Eighteenth Century"; but compare O'Connor Morris's work on "Ireland, from 1798 to 1898," p.58.