1847. Crime and Outrage Act.
1848-1849. Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, Crime and Outrage Act, Removal of Aliens Act.
Between 1842 and 1845 Ireland rang with the demand for repeal. Great meetings—monster meetings they were called—were held everywhere; and O'Connell, [pg 318] by a series of the most eloquent and vehement speeches ever addressed to public audiences, re-awakened the spirit of nationality and intensified the popular hatred of England. In the days of the Melbourne Ministry his policy was a policy of peace; but the English people would not accept the olive branch. His policy now was a policy of war. His case for repeal rested on two main propositions:
“(1) Ireland was fit for legislative independence in position, population, and natural advantages. Five independent kingdoms in Europe possessed less territory or people; and her station in the Atlantic, between the old world and the new, designed her to be the entrepôt of both, if the watchful jealousy of England had not rendered her natural advantages nugatory.
“(2) She was entitled to legislative independence; the Parliament of Ireland was as ancient as the Parliament of England, and had not derived its existence from any Charter of the British Crown, but sprang out of the natural rights of freedom. Its independence, long claimed, was finally recognised and confirmed by solemn compact between the two nations in 1782; that compact has since been shamefully violated, indeed, but no statute of limitation ran against the right of a nation.”[152]
The Government of Sir Robert Peel put forth its full strength to crush O'Connell, and the repeal movement. In 1844 O'Connell was tried by a packed bench and a packed jury for seditious conspiracy, found guilty, and sent to jail. His trial was one of the most scandalous incidents in the history of British rule in Ireland, during the nineteenth century.
“The most eminent Catholic in the Empire,” says Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, “a man whose name was familiar to every Catholic in the world, was placed upon his trial in the Catholic Metropolis of a Catholic country before four judges and twelve jurors, among whom there was not a single Catholic.”
It is well known that the condemnation of O'Connell by this tribunal was too much even for the House of [pg 319] Lords, which quashed the conviction and set O'Connell free.
In 1847 O'Connell died, and a terrible famine swept over the land decimating the people. Before the famine the population of Ireland was 8,175,124, three years afterwards it had sunk to 6,574,278. But that was not the end. The “Young Ireland” party had sprung out of the repeal movement. The “Young Irelanders” began as constitutional agitators. Like O'Connell himself they simply demanded the repeal of the Union. But they gradually became more extreme, and, ultimately, under the influence of the wave of revolution, which swept over Europe in 1848, drifted into insurrection. The rising of 1848 was quickly put down, and the “Young Ireland” leaders were banished beyond the seas. All seemed lost. Ireland was in despair. Yet the seed, sown by O'Connell and the “Young Irelanders,” took root. The fruit was gathered in our own day. Home Rule sprang out of the one movement, and Fenianism out of the other.
“The spirit of National Independence,” says Mr. Froude, “is like a fire, so long as a spark remains a conflagration can be kindled.”