216 Chapter X
The Arming of Ireland: “Grattan’s Parliament”
In both islands, during the later years of the American war, an organized force of
public opinion developed outside of Parliament and against it, a kind of anti-
Parliament, claiming to represent the people of the country better than Parliament
itself and thus to bring a rightful pressure upon it. Since the constitutional doc-
trine of the day recognized no power above or outside of Parliament (except pos-
sibly God and his laws), the claims of any such pressure groups were thought to be,
and in fact were, more or less extra- legal and more or less revolutionary in implica-
tion. In Ireland (as in Holland) this extra- legal organization took to arms. In En-
gland it remained purely civilian. But the arming of Ireland was hailed as a great
advantage by many English reformers.^1
There were two levels of conflict in Ireland: first, the desire of the Irish Parlia-
ment for emancipation from the British Parliament, and, second, the desire of
many people in Ireland to reform the Irish Parliament itself. It will come as no
surprise to readers of political history to learn that the Irish Parliament welcomed
extra- parliamentary or popular support in its struggle against Westminster, and
that, once emancipated from the Parliament of Great Britain, it tended to believe
that such extra- parliamentary activity was unnecessary and improper.
Ireland in the 1770’s had about 4,500,000 people, or over half as many as En-
gland. More than 3,000,000 were Catholics, who, somewhat like the “natives” of
Geneva, were legally debarred from political life, even from the vote, and from
most of the desirable or remunerative occupations. Somewhat under a million
were Presbyterians, most heavily concentrated in Ulster and laboring under the
same political disabilities as in England. They could vote, if they had the required
qualifications. They were legally debarred by religion from no occupation except
higher government service. Most of them were farmers on easily terminable leases.
Many also worked as linen weavers in their cottages. The remaining 450,000 were
Anglicans, concentrated in the east but found all over the island. Anglicans owned
five- sixths of the land, but there were a few Catholic peers, and a number of Cath-
olic gentry, for though the purchase of land by a Catholic had been forbidden, its
inheritance under certain restrictions was allowed. Few Presbyterians were upper
class; like the English Dissenters, they were thought to be susceptible to “republi-
canism.” Educated Catholics and Protestants had begun to get along with each
other peaceably, but such broad- mindedness had not yet spread very far through
society. Dublin was a cosmopolitan city, the administrative, commercial, legal, edu-
cational, and fashionable capital of the island, its articulate citizens mainly Angli-
can, graced by new parks and fine Georgian buildings, and rapidly growing, claim-
ing, with 150,000 people, to be the fifth largest city of Europe. Belfast was still a
small provincial town.
1 For Ireland at this time see R. B. McDowell, Irish Public Opinion 1750–1800 (London, 1943);
G. O’Brien, Economic History of Ireland in the 18th Century (Dublin and London, 1918); B. Inglis, The
Freedom of the Press in Ireland 1784–1841 (London, 1954); E. Curtis, History of Ireland (London, 1936).
Also, for connections between Irish and English reform movements, H. Butterfield, George III, Lord
North and the People (London, 1949).