After Emancipation
(April 1829 to October 1830)
Summary. Quite a lot happened in this brief period after the passing of
the Emancipation Act. Irish Catholic gentlemen with sufficient wealth began
considering a career in Parliament. O'Connell found politics more attractive
than a career in the courts. The king died, and the new king, as was customary,
called a general election. The Pope, unilaterally, decided on the appointment of
Catholic bishops.
***********************************************************************
Normal
Politics Resume
The Election of O’Connell
Revival of Ribbonism and Lawlessness
The Pope, the Bishops, and the Veto
Reign of William
IV
The General Election of 1830
***********************************************************************
Normal Politics Resume
[April 1829] This brief period extended from the passing of
the Emancipation Act in April 1829 when the Emancipation issue was settled, and
the first Parliament of William IV in October 1831 when Wellington resigned, the Whig Lord Grey took
office, and the issue of Parliamentary Reform came to the fore. It therefore
comprises the second part of Wellington’s period as Prime Minister. The
ordinary government of Ireland continued, and the Irish Government
was chiefly pre-occupied with suppressing any kind of Association that might
lead to a breach of the peace. The Irish Catholics adapted to the new situation
in various ways. Most of the Orangemen regarded Peel as the Great Betrayer and
were inclined to defy the Government. But now they were implacably opposed to a
Repeal of the Act of Union that became largely an issue for O’Connell and his
devoted band of followers. The Tories still had a majority in Parliament, and
also among Irish MPs. But die-hard ascendancy people were almost completely
weeded out from places in Government. William Gregory, the Under-Secretary, had
been removed by Canning who died before the change could be carried out.
Angelsey did this on his return in 1831. But by then his influence had
vanished.
At the end of December 1828 Wellington, at the king’s request, had recalled
the Earl of Anglesey and appointed the Duke of Northumberland in January 1829.
Northumberland had abstained on the Catholic vote in 1825 but supported
Wellington’s Bill. The rest of the Irish
Government remained unchanged. After consulting Wellington, Northumberland ignored ordinary
political meetings if their only purpose was to secure the return of a
particular candidate. In July 1829, and again in July 1830, there were massive Orange demonstrations accompanied in some
cases by rioting, so he suppressed these by proclamation. A letter was sent out
from the Castle calling the to attention of the
authorities in the counties that the Jesuits had to be expelled. (One can
perhaps discern the hand of William Gregory the Under-Secretary in this.) The
communication was ignored as the Whigs had foreseen. On the 28
April 1829 the
English Catholic peers took their seats in the House of Lords, some sitting on
the Tory side and some on the Whig side.
Despite the revolt
of the backbenchers over Emancipation Wellington and Peel kept their majority
in the House of Commons, and Government business proceeded
as usual. A Parliamentary Committee on Irish Education was continued. Plans for
setting up the new Board of National Education were almost complete. Some of
the anti-popery faction contested the annual Maynooth grant but Peel remarked
that even Spencer Perceval had not touched it. The Government pursued its
programme of useful measures for Ireland. Even in the Tory Party paternalism
and Government regulation were losing favour. The Fisheries Board with several
others were discontinued, and any necessary regulatory functions were
transferred to the Board of Inland Navigation. A Report of the Commissioners of
Irish Revenue noted that all the piers built with the assistance of the
Fisheries Board had withstood the storms, and where they were built prosperous
villages had sprung up, and fishing had replaced smuggling as the local
occupation. Money made available under the 1819 Act, together with money given
by the London Tavern Committee of 1822, had been used to start a continually
circulating loan fund, which would have to be continued. The Board of Inland
Navigation was shorn of responsibility for the Newry Navigation that was handed
back to a local committee. (The following year the Board was merged with the Board
of Works.)
In the budget Stamp
Duties were assimilated to those in Britain, which caused a considerable uproar
especially among newspaper editors as they claimed duty was being increased by
83%. In April, the proprietors of the principal newspapers met to consider what
action to take. Among them were James Magee owner of the Dublin Evening Post, J.D. Potts of Saunders’, Thomas Sheehan of the Evening Mail, Remy Sheehan of the Star of Brunswick,
Michael Staunton of the Morning Register, Richard Barrett of the Pilot, P. Lavelle of the Freeman’s Journal, William Stephens of
the Mercantile Advertiser, and
Nicholas Murray Mansfield of the Evening
Packet. (Lavelle became the sole proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal, and Frederick Conway, the proprietor of the Evening Post and the Mercantile Advertizer. Henry Grattan,
junior, who had married Philip Whitfield Harvey’s daughter, was the nominal
owner of the Freeman’s Journal, but took no interest in the
paper.) In February, Magee was indicted for incautious language regarding the
actions of the police, and he retained Sheil as his counsel, who advised him to
plead guilty. In May Sir John Newport chaired a meeting of 47 Irish MPs in
London to protest against the Stamp Duties.
Nine Catholics were appointed sheriffs. The Assistant Barristers were now
presiding at all Quarter Sessions.
On 7
May 1829, a
motion was proposed to debate the propriety of a Poor Law for Ireland. Spring Rice spoke strongly against
them. He recounted all the various Acts in force in Ireland for the benefit of the poor. Nearly
one tenth of the total taxation of Ireland was devoted towards assisting
education, the sick, the aged, and the lunatic poor. He was in favour however
of extending the principle of the commutation of tithes to the rates, and
making the landlord, not the tenant responsible. Leveson-Gower, supported by
Peel, moved the previous question thus ending the debate, on the grounds that a
motion should not be moved until there were plans ready for a remedy.
Conway in the Post noted that one of the articles in the Act of Union (1800) was
that the United Kingdom Parliament was, for a period of twenty years, to vote
for Irish charities annually a sum not less than had been voted annually by the
Irish Parliament. After the twenty years was expired, Parliament had extended
the time and increased the sum. But several of these like those to the Linen
Board, the Charter Schools, and the Board of First Fruits, had
been since discontinued. But others like those to the Dublin Police, to the
Records Commission, and to the Solicitor General for public prosecutions had
been added.
In October 1829
took place the famous Rainhill trials for locomotives on the Liverpool to Manchester Railway won by George
Stephenson’s Rocket. This was the
real start of the Railway Age that was to transform the world. In May 1830
Peel's father died and he inherited the title, Sir Robert Peel, by which he has
been known ever since.
[1830] By May 1830 the primary triangulation
of Ireland had been completed with six points from 90 to 100
miles apart. The Irish survey was also linked to a point on the Welsh coast 108
miles distant, so tying it in with the survey of Britain. To fix this point the surveyors had
to wait five weeks for a sufficiently clear day. In a debate on the Ordnance
Survey, Wellington replied that it was not sufficiently
advanced to be used as a basis for valuation. He added that there was Bill in
the other House to give it powers to fix the boundaries of parishes and
districts, a detail which obviously been omitted from the original Act. Nimmo
reported on his work in the Western District. A long road 60 miles long had
been built through Mayo, from Ballina to Belmullet peninsula on the coast. The
town of Belmullet, which did not exist four years ago now has seventy respectable houses. One merchant could not
purchase 100 tons of grain in 1823, but now can buy 2,000 tons. Another road
was built from Killala, through Ballina, Foxford, and Swinford, and another
from Newport as far as Achill Sound. The Achill islanders still had to carry their
produce on their backs as far as the sound. There was need of a coast road from
Broadhaven to Killala to prevent smuggling. Work was also proceeding on the
main Galway to Clifden road through Connemara, and also on a road along the coast
through Kilkieran (Pilot 13 July
1829).
[Top]
The Election of O’Connell
O'Connell had not
taken his seat at the end of the previous term, and it was considered
inadvisable for him to try to do so while the Emancipation Bill was before the
House. When the Act was safely past he was introduced by John Ponsonby (Lord
Duncannon son of the Irish Earl of Bessborough) and Lord Ebrington. Though it
seemed very petty and grudging to some, the Speaker ruled, and a vote in the
House confirmed, that O'Connell, who was elected before the Act was passed, was
obliged to take the old oath. When he refused a new writ was issued and the
election was appointed to take place in June. Another election in Clare was
necessary and meetings continued to be held in the Corn Exchange for this
purpose.
Nobody
knew if O'Connell's return would be opposed. The Forty-Shilling freeholders no
longer had the vote so both sides had to ensure that as many of their
supporters among the Ten Pound freeholders were validly registered. By a recent
law an Assistant Barrister for the county (a practising barrister appointed to
assist the lay magistrates) was responsible for the registering. Assessment of
the freehold was as follows. The Assistant Barristers were not allowed to
assess either in their native county or the county to which they were
appointed. Each applicant had to testify
under oath that his income from land, after all charges such as rents legally
levelled on it, equalled ten pounds a year. Rates, cesses, tithes, or other
property taxes were not counted. Dr Doyle issued a pastoral letter on perjury,
and stated clearly what exactly was meant by an annual value of ten pounds. The
Assistant Barrister in Clare and some of the landlords were surprised at who
was claiming an income of ten pounds from their holdings. The holding did not
have to be very large. Ten pounds a year would keep a family at subsistence
level, and could be derived by renting out three or four acres of freehold
land. But if the freeholder was himself paying £3 an acre and sub-letting at £4
he would need to have more than ten acres. He did not actually have to sub-let,
but only to swear that if he did sub-let he would obtain that sum. Freehold in Ireland was defined as the possession of a
lease for more than one life, regarded as equivalent to 31 years. Hence Dr Doyle's warnings against perjury. In the event
O'Connell was unopposed. The law was far from clear, and Assistant Barristers
in different counties interpreted differently. Stephen Woulfe now the assessor
in Galway took a large and liberal view; other
barristers took restricted and narrower views. On 6 August 1830 Dr Doyle issued a more detailed letter
on the subject of perjury, detailing exactly what could not be included. Some
of the affidavits prior to the General Election must have astounded him also.
The text of the oath, based on what became known as the ‘solvent tenant test’,
meant that a solvent and respectable tenant without collusion could afford to
pay a further ten pounds above the existing rent (Carlow Morning Post 9 August 1830).
To be elected to
Parliament the prospective MP had to have an income of £600 from land, assessed
in the same way as for the freehold. One hundred and fifty acres lettable at £4
an acre would suffice. So too would six hundred acres lettable at £1 an acre.
These could in theory be sublet at £2 an acre to qualify a second person,
sublet again at £3 to qualify a third. It is likely that O'Connell, who had
inherited considerable property in Kerry, used some such system to get his sons
returned. Jack Lawless, a bankrupt businessman, mistakenly thought he had the
support of a relative in Meath in 1830 at the general election when he
challenged Lord Killeen. Sheil married an heiress, and so had no problem. The
chief problem rose for O'Connell when he quarrelled with both the Whigs and the
Tories. Normally, prospective Catholic candidates had to try to find a
constituency where the local Protestant gentlemen would back them.
The
Orange Benevolent Society was wound up despite some resistance from its members
and re-merged with the Orange Order. Orangemen remained alarmed and it was
widely rumoured that they were arming. There were riots in connection with Orange marches in July and Northumberland
issued a proclamation forbidding further meetings of Orangemen. The Irish
Secretary, Francis Leveson-Gower, made clear that meetings for election
purposes were lawful so long as they were orderly.
[Top]
Revival of Ribbonism and Lawlessness
It had long been a
contention of the Catholic leaders that when Emancipation was conceded, and a
parliamentary remedy was readily available to deal with Catholic grievances
agrarian terrorism would cease. But on the contrary there were signs that the
Ribbonmen were recruiting and arming as well. Ribbonmen had always been
entrenched in the mixed Catholic/Protestant regions of south Ulster where agrarian bands were regarded as
a defence against the Orangemen, and vice versa. But the agrarian conspiracies
were not confined to Ulster. There was a serious outbreak of crime
in central Leinster in Dr Doyle's diocese. (The conspiracy
was centred on the industrial or 'colliery' district, which makes one suspect a
link between agrarian crime and the violent methods used by some trade
unionists.) Nobody at any time was able to say why there was an outbreak of
agrarian terrorism. The grievances were common all over Ireland, and most of them were common to
Catholics and Protestants. Yet outbreaks were always confined to particular
localized districts, though they were more common in some counties than in
others. There were probably local reasons in each case, but as the people
involved were largely illiterate the grievances were not aired either in the
local newspapers or in Parliament. Nor were the people involved likely to
identify themselves to their MPs. Police spies and informers quickly penetrated
most of the illegal societies but only general grievances were uncovered.
Barrett the editor of the Pilot gave
it as his opinion that the majority of outrages at this time were caused by
competition for land.
Doyle’s pastoral
letter to the deanery of Maryborough was forthright. He wrote that apart from some extreme cases
that need not be discussed here, combinations forbidden by law are not
justifiable. Where combinations were established they led to the most barbarous
of excesses. Drunkenness, theft, lewdness, murder, blasphemy, laws destructive
of property are enforced by cruelty. ‘This has been
the origin, the progress, and the end of every association such as yours which
has been formed in Ireland these last three hundred years’; ‘thieves,
plunderers, murdering the defenceless, oppressing the weak’. He quoted
O’Connell’s opinion that to be a secret society it was not necessary to be an
oath-bound one. He once again stressed that all those engaged in a conspiracy
were bound to make restitution to the full extent.
The
Government was pursuing its policy of withdrawing the army to barracks and
introducing civil policing. The police had strict instructions not to use
unnecessary violence, but rather good-humoured persuasion. The profession was
popular with many working-class Protestants and Catholics, for the policeman's
salary allowed them to marry. The police were accepted in most, but not all
Irish counties. Ireland was ahead of all other countries in
the 'free world' (i.e. countries without absolutist regimes) in the provision
of an effective civil police. In view of continuing sporadic attacks on the
police not everyone thought it wise to replace units of twenty armed soldiers
with smaller units of four or five policemen. But the Government persisted with
the experiment, believing that the number of policemen employed should be the
smallest possible consistent with enforcing the law. As the police were
systematically enforcing the law and carrying out writs and executing warrants
that nobody had bothered about before, it may be that the soldiers were
withdrawn too quickly.
One
incident among several occurred at Borris O'Kane in Tipperary the results of which had strange
ramifications. There was a faction fight on a fair day, and the police tried to
arrest one of the leaders. He may have been a Ribbon leader, for widespread
robberies of arms occurred shortly afterwards. The two factions stopped
fighting each other and attacked the group of policemen. Fearing for their
lives, and acting under the direction of a magistrate, the police first fired
blanks and then ball. A number of people were killed and the police were charged
with murder. It fell to the Solicitor General (John Doherty) according to law
to prosecute for the Government. The crown lawyers, knowing the slipshod
methods of the rural magistrates who usually accepted sworn affidavits without
cross-examination, habitually made enquiries of their own before the trial. The
local parish priest produced various witnesses who swore that the police fired
first, but the Solicitor General found another witness who was able to give a
complete account. (The Irish police then normally gave the witness a sum of
money to allow him to travel to one of the Colonies for his own safety.)
O'Connell, for some reason decided to take a hand in the trial. (He had just
applied to the Government to be made a King's Counsel and had been refused.)
The policemen were acquitted, it being found that they had acted under the
direction of a magistrate.
In Ireland, if nobody brought forward a
prosecution the Attorney General was empowered to act as prosecutor. The
Solicitor General (Doherty) was asked on what basis the crown selected cases to
prosecute. He replied that cases where the public peace was affected, but also
in recent years, where there was a chance of securing a conviction, but where
no one came forward to bring the case, but usually only in cases of murder or
similar outrage (SNL 3 August 1829).
The system was as follows. The crown solicitor on the circuit received copies
of all the informations sworn and lodged since the last assize. These were laid
before the Attorney General in Dublin, and he made the selection of those he
thought should be adopted for prosecution. Formerly, the cases only concerned
Whiteboys, but nowadays almost every serious felony was prosecuted by the
Solicitor General. Some however thought that this duty should be given to the
police who had the duty of arresting the accused, and protecting the witnesses.
There was more to
follow. About the same time a number of men were arrested in Cork and were charged with being involved
in the 'Doneraile Conspiracy' some time earlier. A magistrate had been shot. It
was sworn before local magistrates that shots had been fired previously at him
on two different occasions, on one of which his horse was killed. In a third
instance, no shots were fired because he was riding in company. Twenty men were
arrested. The chief witness was one of the alleged conspirators, by name
Patrick Daly. There was considerable scepticism in most circles in
Dublin about the existence of a conspiracy
because of the proneness of the country magistrates to exaggerate. But
affidavits had been sworn, so the Lord Chancellor (Hart) had to issue Special
Commissions to judges to proceed to Cork and try the cases. The charges were
brought under Acts of 1796 and 1798 to prove a conspiracy to murder. The trial
jury was composed of men who usually sat on grand juries. The Solicitor
General, Doherty, on his arrival in Cork, conducted his usual examinations and
noticed that there were some discrepancies between what was sworn before him
and before the magistrates. The points were minor but he called the attention
of the presiding judge to them, being unable himself as prosecutor to point
them out to the defence. O'Connell did not bother to turn up to the
disappointment of the defendants. The Commission judge, Baron Pennefather,
offered them the services of any barrister present for their defence. The
accused were tried in batches, and the first group was found guilty after the
jury had retired for five minutes. At this point, again for unknown reasons,
O'Connell intervened. A second jury was empanelled, the barristers acting for
the Government, challenging nine jurymen. He dashed into court, and the judge,
knowing that he had not read the affidavits called his attention to the minor
discrepancies. It was enough to work on. In the trial of the second batch,
three jurymen, one of the twelve jurymen, a magistrate, refused to believe the
witness in whose affidavits the discrepancies had appeared and in which that
was the sole evidence against the accused, so a verdict of ‘no verdict’ had to
be returned. There was some confusion caused by this, as one jury had convicted
and another jury refused to convict on the same evidence. The third batch, consisting of two prisoners, were acquitted by
another jury. The remaining trials were postponed until the following assizes
when some more were found guilty. (It is therefore reasonable to conclude that
some kind of conspiracy, and indeed O’Connell agreed, did exist, though whether
all those charged belonged to it was for the juries to decide.) O'Connell
affected to believe that he had foiled an Orange plot that involved the magistrates, the police,
and the Solicitor General. One newspaper considered that the barrister
defending the first batch was incompetent.
He
was unwise enough in Westminster to start throwing out insinuations
about alleged deliberate murders by the police and cover-ups by the Solicitor
General. The latter challenged him to bring forward any evidence he might have
in the form of a motion, but O'Connell always backed away. Finally Doherty gave
a complete and convincing account of the whole affair from the beginning (Evening Packet 22 May 1830, SNL 30 May 1830). Despite this O’Connell
returned again to the charges in 1833, accusing the local magistrates of
deliberately suppressing evidence, and Doherty of deliberately putting a man he
knew to be innocent in the first batch to have him hanged. Yet it was Doherty
who had first pointed out the discrepancies in the evidence. At the re-trial of
the second batch at the next assizes, Pennefather instructed the jury to ignore
the discrepancies if they considered they arose merely from ‘accident or
mistake’. One of the batch was found guilty of murder.
Conway in the Post noted at the time that neither Northumberland nor Leveson-Gower
had any particular interest in securing convictions. He too had doubts on the
reliability of the evidence of approvers, namely those who turn king’s evidence
to get a lighter sentence (DEP 29
Oct. 1829). In the event, one of those convicted in the first batch, John
Leary, appealed to the Lord Lieutenant, and all their death sentences were
commuted to transportation. Even the Evening
Packet recommended the commutation.
O’Connell was sufficiently convinced of his innocence to bring up the matter of
his pardon some years later.
Conway of the Evening Post remarked shortly after, and with considerable point,
that when O'Connell was defeated in debate by Doherty he began to long for a
Parliament of his own. He was an able debater, and well able to adapt his style
to Westminster; he just did not like it. Hard and
verifiable facts and a clear and concise exposition did not suit his style. He
was above all a Nisi prius lawyer who delighted in winning
over unsophisticated country juries by laughing and joking and then bewildering
them. The barrister got his money, his client got the verdict, and the jury
enjoyed themselves; pity about the poorer man who was actually in the right.
What was important about Borris O'Kane and Doneraile was not the actual facts
but what most people came to believe were the facts. It is symptomatic of the
way nationalist historians treated the sources that even a hundred and fifty
years later only O’Connell’s version was being reported, though Doherty’s reply
had been all the time in easily available sources. The 'Doneraile Conspiracy'
has the same place in Irish history as the 'Tolpuddle Martyrs' in British
history. (Lord Brougham, in contrast, though an extremely learned man, was a
failure as a Nisi prius lawyer because he disregarded the
effects of his words on jurors DNB.)
In
May 1830, in Parliament O’Connell moved for a return of the number of people
killed by the police since the passing of the Act 3 George IV. Doherty replied that the wording was
misleading, and if he meant murdered by the police he should use those words.
He went on to say that many sections of the press in Ireland were saying that Catholics were
excluded from juries, and that O’Connell was always threatening to apply for a
Parliamentary enquiry into the matter but never did so. He challenged him to
bring forward his motion now. He added that O’Connell was always making charges
against the Irish Government. Let him bring forward those charges so that they
could be refuted. O’Connell always refused to oblige, for his audience was back
at home. Doherty remarked sarcastically how he observed the manner in which a
skilled lawyer constructed the bridge over which he intended to retreat!
[Top]
The Pope, the Bishops, and the Veto
The Pope, when it
was disclosed that the British Government would not require securities, issued
his own Rescript Cum ad gravissimum (1829) regulating the appointment of Irish bishops.
It was confirmed that parish priests but not curates should elect of a
successor to a bishop. Though not bound by any statute or canon, the Irish
clergy, until the setting up of the Irish Free State, maintained the practice they had
pledged themselves to during the Veto controversy, namely, to recommend to the
Pope only British subjects of known loyalty to the crown. Advocating Repeal or
Home Rule was not considered disloyalty. The Irish Catholic bishops then set
about the task, which was to prove difficult, of preventing the clergy from
taking part in politics or using church buildings for political purposes. On 9
February all the bishops signed a pastoral address to the Irish people saying
that the clergy, during the great storm and crisis which had just passed had
added their labours to that of the laity. They rejoiced at the outcome, but now
that thankfully their task was finished they were withdrawing from politics to
follow their proper avocation (SNL 18
Feb 1830).
Now
that Catholics could be members of Parliament, a majority it would seem of the
gentlemen who had formed the Catholic Association was content to join the Whigs
in working for reforms. Sheil accepted an invitation to act as counsel for the
Tory Lord George Beresford in Waterford in February 1830, purely as a
professional engagement. Many Catholics who regarded his action as selling-out
to the enemy condemned him. The Beresfords had first approached O’Connell, but
though he declined the offer because of other engagements he acknowledged that
the Beresfords had always been generous towards himself. This was an important
acknowledgement because if rich Protestants did not engage a Catholic barrister
he would get very few important briefs. Current topics were the reform of
Parliament, the necessity or otherwise of an Irish Poor Law, the need to
reclaim bogland, and to improve Irish farmland in general.
With
regard to the Repeal of the Act of Union there occurred major shifts of
opinion, of which O'Connell in Munster was only dimly, if at all, aware. With
Emancipation, the old ascendancy faction switched overnight from advocating Repeal
to supporting the Union. No longer were the Orange corporations (guilds) of masters, and
trade unions of journeymen in favour of the protected markets that an
independent Parliament would allow. More importantly, Protestants in the middle
ground switched to defending the Union. This became noticeable in the change of
editorial comment in Saunder's Newsletter
and the Dublin
Evening Post.
Conway of the Post had been an outspoken advocate of Repeal. Now he became a
champion of the Union. When O'Connell launched what Lawless
described as an 'ill-timed experiment' to try to secure Repeal, few of the
important leaders of the Association joined him. Lawless noted that Lord
Killeen, Sheil, Thomas Wyse, Stephen Woulfe, and Purcell O'Gorman were not
among his supporters.
O'Connell at long
last was able to take his seat legally when the parliamentary session of 1830
began. There was no rush by the leaders of any party to court him. Lord Killeen
was elected unopposed shortly afterwards at a by-election in Meath caused by
the removal of Lord Bective to the House of Lords, and also took his seat.
Another Whig gentleman, Mr Naper of Loughcrew stood down so that he should be
unopposed. In Parliament, almost none of the leaders of the Catholic
Association, as one by one they were elected to Parliament, supported
O’Connell. Almost without exception they supported the Whigs. (In the second
half of the century many Catholics supported the Tories.) The Carlow Morning Post in May 1830 noted
that there were then four Catholic MPs: the Earl of Surrey, elected 9 May 1829, Daniel O’Connell elected 4
February 1830,
Lord Killeen elected 22 February 1830, and Daniel Callaghan elected in
Cork 26 April 1830 (CMP
6 May 1830). Lord Cloncurry established a Society for the Improvement of Ireland,
and this attracted most of the gentlemen who had been active in the Catholic
Association. O’Connell attacked it because it was not an ‘agitating society’.
Cloncurry later suspended its meetings, not as he said because its meetings
were illegal, but local magistrates might consider them so.
O’Connell opened
(January 1830) a Parliamentary Office in Dublin from which he could organise his
campaigns, and the government ignored it. Still hankering for a society of his own he formed one called the Anti-Union Society which the
Lord Lieutenant promptly suppressed. The Government continued to argue that if
O'Connell organised, the Orangemen would too. Then the Ribbonmen would start to
arm, and then the Orangemen would too. O'Connell always argued that if there
were associations that could successfully advocate peaceful change nobody would
need to arm, and if the Orangemen were outvoted and
did not like it the Government ought to repress them by force. The
counter-argument was that one already existed, namely the Whig party. And so
the argument continued. He entered into a rather childish duel with the
Government, setting up variously named societies that the Government promptly
squashed. He would never accept any blame, always insisting that it was the
fault of the Orangemen. The Whigs were trying to get some measure for
Parliamentary Reform passed. O'Connell seemed to be doing his best to wreck
their plans. On 28 May 1830 he rushed in ahead of them with a Bill
for radical reform without making any preparations, and got only thirteen
votes. Lord John Russell’s less sweeping proposal, to enfranchise the large new
towns like Birmingham and Manchester, was defeated by 213 votes to 117. It
may be that he was trying to show that reform was impossible in
Westminster. Or he may have just been trying to
grab the limelight. He could put any gloss he liked on his actions when he got
back to Ireland.
It
is worth quoting Frederick Conway's opinion of O'Connell in 1830 to show more
clearly how the Whig leaders saw him:
‘Had
he not been disqualified by that absorbing vanity, that recklessness of
purpose, and that appetite for vulgar applause which has reduced him from being
a senator and the interpreter of the nation's wishes to the position of a
political spouter and a scribbler of seditious trash . . .[In
Parliament] he could not play the first fiddle, nor even the second, or the
third, and he sighed for aggregates and the shouts of the mob’ (DEP 21 Oct 1830).
Again, in a letter to the editor of Saunders’ Newsletter he wrote:
‘It
is needless to say that Mr O’Connell is in the constant habit of vilifying the
motives of those who differ from him on any point however important or however
immaterial…That he has lost character by his reckless and unprincipled
Billingsgate he must feel himself - that he has made assertions he cannot prove
he must know. (SNL 21
Oct 1830;
Billingsgate was the vulgar abuse notoriously common in London’s fishmarket. The fishwives there were
proverbially known for their invective.)
Conway, though a Protestant, had been an
extremely active member of the Catholic Association, and boasted that he had
drawn up more documents for it than O’Connell himself. He had been brought into
the Post to rescue it after O’Connell
had involved the former editor John Magee in his own disputes with the
Government.
There
was once again a great scarcity of food in parts of Ireland, and the discussion of a Poor Law
again came to the fore. A meeting was held in the Mansion House in
Dublin to examine the question. Spring Rice proposed
a Select Committee of Parliament to enquire into the condition of the poor in Ireland and it was duly established. It sat
for 40 days and collected 1,000 pages of evidence. Dr. Doyle was among those
summoned to London to give evidence. A Bogs Drainage (Ireland) Act (1830) was passed.
[Top]
Reign of William IV
On 25
June 1830
George IV died, and the Duke of Clarence became king with the title of William
IV. The latter had served in the Royal Navy in his youth and had a number of
illegitimate children by an Irish actress. His two legitimate children died in
infancy, and so the heiress to the throne became his niece the twelve-year-old
Princess Victoria. Though not as intellectually brilliant as his older brothers
he was by no means stupid. He was good-natured and in favour of reform, but
just up to a point. Only with his assistance could the Whigs have passed their
legislation in the 'First Great Era of Reform'. All through his reign, the
Irish, already strongly entrenched in the building trade in London, continued
their work on the reconstruction of Buckingham House. When it was completed
William died and Victoria moved into it. The new king announced, as was
traditional, an early dissolution of Parliament so that his advisers would
reflect current feeling in the country. This election had been anticipated and
Sheil was already canvassing in Louth.
On
4 March 1830 Sir John Newport put forward a motion for the fairer distribution
of the revenues of the Irish Church and the reduction of pluralities and
unions. Leveson-Gower proposed an enquiry into the actual revenues of the
Church first. Peel considered that there was a great improvement brought about
by existing reforms. Sir Robert Inglis moved the previous question. In April a
barrister named Richard Radford Roe obtained a writ of error to bring his
appeal to the House of Lords, the first instance since the Union. Also, Sir
Jonah Barrington, a judge in the Irish court of Admiralty was removed from
office by votes of both houses of Parliament, the only way a judge could be
removed. This followed an enquiry into the administration of justice in
Ireland. He had mixed up some of his court’s money with his own. He is chiefly
famous however for his amusing ‘Personal Sketches.’ The removal of a judge by
Act of Parliament is an exceedingly rare event.
In the summer, just
fifteen years after the battle of Waterloo, the French decided to take the
problem of Algiers and the corsairs in hand. The British Royal navy had twice,
in 1816 and 1824 tried to prevent the corsairs from attacking shipping in the
Mediterranean. (The United States sent its little fleet to
Tripoli (1801-05) to discourage attacks on their trade.) This began the
great French expansion into North Africa that lasted for nearly a century and a
half. The Foreign Legion was formed in 1831. Wellington did not interfere. In
July came the news from France of the 'July Revolution' which brought a
constitutional monarchy and a Parliament to France. More importantly, in the
view of the Irish Repealers, was the revolution in Brussels in Belgium in
August 1830, by which the former Austrian Netherlands, forcibly united in 1815
to the Protestant kingdom of Holland, asserted its right to independence and
established a Catholic kingdom. The person chosen as king was Prince Leopold.
His sister, the Duchess of Kent (and Countess of Dublin), a Protestant and a
Whig, was the widowed mother of the Princess Victoria. The duchess's private
secretary was an Irishman named Captain John Conroy. Victoria disliked him. Her
State-appointed Governess was the Duchess of Northumberland. Victoria did not
grow up ignorant of Ireland. When Lord Melbourne became her mentor he could
tell tales about his Irish in-laws, the Ponsonby's.
Top
The General Election of 1830
When William IV
called a General Election in July 1830 there was a scramble by the Catholic
politicians to find seats. Because of political infighting in Clare O'Connell
withdrew and chose to contest Waterford which Thomas Wyse had been cultivating
for several years. O'Connell took a seat in Waterford, but Wyse got elected in
Tipperary. Sheil decided to stand in Louth, which the Bellews regarded as their own. Anglesey, who owned an estate at Carlingford,
was asked if he was putting forward a member of his family, Lord William Paget,
as a candidate. He replied that the decision rested with Lord William.
Alexander Dawson was re-elected, but both Sheil and Montesquieu Bellew (brother
of Sir Patrick) were defeated. (When the Whigs came into office Anglesey found Sheil a pocket borough.) There was some opposition to Lord
Killeen in Meath because he refused to give any 'pledges' on any topic. His
principles, he said, were well known, but a Member of Parliament, as Edmund
Burke had stressed, must be free to make up his own mind after listening to the debates in Parliament. O'Connell supported
Killeen on this occasion, while Lawless (with Sheil's help) opposed him.
Killeen was returned. Sir John Burke was returned for Galway, O'Gorman Mahon
for Clare, the Hon. William Browne (brother of the Earl of Kenmare) in Kerry,
O'Connor Don in Roscommon, and Richard More O'Ferrall in Kildare.
Urged by Lord Leveson-Gower the Irish Secretary, the Government
called several Catholic barristers to be King's Counsel that meant that the
crown could call on them to act for it in court. This is called ‘taking
silk’ for KCs were allowed to wear robes of silk in court. The first to be
called was William Bellew (brother of Sir Edward) who had been the first Irish
Catholic to be called to the outer bar in 1793. Also called were Richard Sheil,
Nicholas Ball, Michael O'Loughlin, and Richard More O'Ferrall. O’Connell,
rather pointedly, was not among those so honoured, doubtless because he was
outspoken about Repeal of the Act of Union. But he regarded it as a personal
insult. He never admitted to any negotiations with any Government regarding
public appointments. He was a very vain man, but no Government ever felt that
his support was worth the price he put on it. They might have made life easier
for themselves and more peaceful for Ireland if they had soothed his vanity.
Conway noted that it was Primate Boulter (died 1742) who excluded Catholics
from taking silk, or practising at the bar.
Leveson-Gower
was then given a ministerial appointment in Westminster and Sir Henry Hardinge
replaced him as Irish Secretary. Harding was an army officer who had served
with distinction under Wellington.
O’Connell typically denounced him as a ‘one-handed miscreant’. He wrote
a public letter to him listing twenty four reasons why he was unfit to be Irish
Secretary that shows that he was stung.
Before
going on deal with the exciting events which occurred after the Whigs took
office it worth looking at British and Irish society in 1830. In 1830 it was
generally expected that the Duke of Wellington would continue in office for a
long time, that the commercial prosperity now being restored after the banking
crisis would last, and the modest programme of reforms initiated by Peel would
continue.
The
Irish economy was prospering. The harvests were generally fine, and the price
of corn, though somewhat above the level of pre-War times, was not excessive.
Farmers were gradually changing to cattle-raising and took the fat cattle to
the nearest port without hawking them around the fairs. The Irish economy would
have to develop far more rapidly if the numbers in abject poverty were to be
reduced. Therefore there were general calls for the improvement of agriculture,
the drainage of land, and a Poor Law, i.e. paying for public works especially
of drainage. In Dublin the first steps were being taken towards the
construction of the first railway in Ireland, the Dublin to Kingstown line. The
Liverpool to Manchester line had been opened in September 1830, and William
Huskisson, the former President of the Board of Trade had been killed by an
engine on the opening day.
A
mild recession in Ireland early in 1830 caused very considerable distress, and
there were renewed calls for a repeal of the Act of Union especially among
tradesmen in Dublin. Not all agreed that this was the remedy. The trade of
Dublin was rapidly expanding, and some carpenters, for example, claimed that
more of their trade were at work than before the Union. Others, too, maintained
that losses of trade in Dublin were caused more by combinations of trade
unionists than by the Union. Shipbuilders on Tyneside, they said, had far lower
labour costs than Dublin shipbuilders.
The grain and potato harvest in the autumn of
1830 failed in many parts of Mayo. This part of Ireland had a shrinking economy
as it failed to adapt to new conditions, and also a rapidly growing population.
In many parts of Mayo one could find the typical stereotype of pre-Famine
Ireland: absentee landlords, few large farms, and innumerable Gaelic-speaking
squatters living an often in some ways, idyllic life, supported by the potato,
milk, butter and leather from the cow, wool from the sheep, and turf from the
bog, with singing and dancing at the crossroads and virtually no crime. It
seemed an easy-going life as long as the potato could be relied on. Whether in
fact it was idyllic may be doubted. (Thoreau was to show shortly afterwards
that one could survive by working only one day in seven instead of the usual six.)
But when the potato did fail there was no structure that could cope with the
distress. In the Highlands of Scotland, where a similar structure of population
and a similar culture could be found, the Kirk had maintained its strong parish
structure intact. As in 1822 collections for Famine relief were made as far
away as London. It is against this background that Dr MacHale's attacks on Earl
Grey must be read. His diocese was in the affected area.
Parts
of Ireland were again being swept by a wave of agrarian crime, but the wave
spread also to England. There was much distress in rural England as the
Speenhamland system was beginning to collapse. In 1795 the county magistrates
at Speenhamland in Berkshire began to impose a parish rate to top-up wages. As
the farmers were the rate-payers they retaliated by lowering wages. The workers
began to do less and less in order to claim more relief. At the same time
attempts were made to form trade unions (sometimes oathbound) among the farm
labourers. At Tolpuddle, in Dorset, some men were accused of being members of
an agrarian secret society, but they claimed to be only a legal trade union.
The jury, and on appeal, the Home Secretary (Melbourne who had experience in
Ireland) decided that they were guilty as charged, and they were transported.
In
Birmingham, a group of men, led by Thomas Attwood, formed the Birmingham 'Political
Union' and borrowed from O'Connell the idea of a penny-a-week subscription.
Another, called the Metropolitan Political Union, was formed in London, but
because of the laws passed at the beginning of the French Revolution they could
not communicate with each other.
In
Dublin, in the summer of 1830, a 'Trades Political Union' was established. Some
Catholic tradesmen were actively engaged in assisting Henry Grattan, Junior,
during the General Election, and they complained of police brutality.
(Protestants frequently complained of the lack of gentleness in the mobs that
surrounded O'Connell!). They felt that some better form of political organisation
was required. Led by a tradesman named John O'Brien they assembled to form the
'Liberal Mechanics and Trades Association'. (Liberal, at that period, meant
more or less Radical, but not necessarily Utilitarian.) In particular, they
wished for Repeal i.e. for Protection in trade. They wrote to O'Connell for
advice on how to from a legal association, and he replied from his home at
Derrynane, county Kerry, explaining the law. They changed their name to the
Trades Political Union and asked a barrister named Marcus Costello to be their
president.
Only
Catholic journeymen were involved. The Protestant journeymen could either form
their own unions, or be content with the trade guilds. These latter were
chiefly associations of masters for the regulation of the trade, but in former
times the journeymen and apprentices might put on plays for the Lord Mayor or
Lord Lieutenant. It was these Protestant guilds which failed to assemble and
march with their banners to greet the new Lord Lieutenant, Anglesey, in the traditional
way. The Trades Political Union did not march either.
Repeal
was not widely discussed in Ireland until the autumn of 1830 when the issue was
brought forward by a group of pro-Unionists led by the Duke of Leinster. He
wished to get as many people as possible to sign a declaration in favour of the
Union. Many people did; others declined. But its importance lay in the handle
it gave to O'Connell, after his quarrel with the Whigs to seize on an issue to
embarrass them.
On the 26 October 1830 William IV's first
Parliament assembled. The Whigs had made some gains, but Wellington and Peel
were still in office. On the 15 November Sir Henry Parnell introduced a motion
to refer the proposed Civil List to the scrutiny of a Select Committee. The
motion was passed, and Wellington resigned the following day. Wellington for
some time had been looking for an excuse to get out of the job of Prime
Minister that he detested.
