Dublin: Ascendancy and Sectarianism

16th century English clothing

16th century Irish Clothing

Women in the west of Ireland, 1930s

16th -17th c. ‘plantations’ in North America

1st Irish plantations 1450

The Second Plantation of Ireland: Ulster

View of Scotland from Ireland

Gaelic Highlands of Scotland

Project for Calvinist Plantation in Ulster

The Great Ulster Plantation: from 1610

Calvinist Planters in Ulster

• Were granted 12km2 of land if they promised to bring 48 British Protestant men and 20 British Protestant families to Ulster

• Were given bigger plots of land if they succeeded in eliminating all native Irish from the territory

• Were given bigger land if they built fortified settlements (castles etc.)• Were allowed lower rents if they only employed British (Protestant)

workers.• British military were now given land as a reward for service to the monarch• Trade companies, who were sold land in Ulster as a commercial venture –

with low rents and high income. • Mostly based around the ancient Irish city of Derry, which was re-named

‘London-Derry’

Religion in Northern Ireland Today

• The Irish penal laws: In effect from 1650 – 1829• Exclusion of Catholics and Dissenters from public office.

• Ban on intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants

• Catholics barred from holding firearms or serving in the armed forces

• Bar from membership in either the Parliament of Ireland or the Parliament of England

• Ban from voting

• Exclusion from the legal professions and the judiciary

• Education Act 1695 – ban on foreign education; repealed 1782.

• Bar to Catholics and Dissenters entering university

• On a death by a Catholic, his legatee could benefit by conversion to the Church of Ireland;

• Popery Act – Catholic inheritances of land were to be equally subdivided between all an owner's sons with the exception that if the eldest son and heir converted to Protestantism that he would become the one and only tenant of estate and portions for other children not to exceed one third of the estate. This "Gavelkind" system had previously been abolished by 1600.

• Ban on converting from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism on pain of Praemunire: forfeiting all property estates and legacy to the monarch of the time and remaining in prison at the monarch's pleasure. In addition, forfeiting the monarch's protection. No injury however atrocious could have any action brought against it or any reparation for such.

• Ban on Catholics buying land

• Ban on custody of orphans being granted to Catholics

• Ban on Catholics inheriting Protestant land

• Prohibition on Catholics owning a horse valued at over £5

• Roman Catholic lay priests had to register to preach under the Registration Act

• When allowed, new Catholic churches were to be built from wood, not stone, and away from main roads.

• Ban on Catholic teachers and education

• Any and all rewards not paid by the crown for alerting authorities of offences to be levied upon the Catholic populace within parish and county.

The Protestant Ascendancy

• Anglican colonial elite

• About 10-15% of the population

• Owned 95% of Irish land by 1800

• Status was based on religion and politics as well as social class

• Mostly centred around Dublin and the ‘Pale’.

• Controlled the Irish Parliament and most official positions

• Were often educated in England, had English accents, and spoke little or no Irish

Excerpt from the Speech of Theobald Wolfe Tone (Irish Nationalist leader)"To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country—these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissentions … To unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter under the common name of Irishmen in order break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, that was my aim … If the men of property will not support us, they must fall. Our strength shall come from that great and respectable class, the men of no property".

1801 Act of Union

• Ireland is inducted for the first time into the United Kingdom

• The Irish parliament is abolished, and Ireland is ruled directly by London

• Much of the Protestant Ascendancy leave Dublin, destroying the city’s economy

• Military fortifications are built around Ireland to prevent another rebellion or foreign invasion.