Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin – Emerald Archives

Archive: Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin

1830–1839 CE

O’Connell Takes His Seat

O’Connell’s admission did not mean that political equality had suddenly been achieved. The 1829 settlement allowed Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament and hold many civil offices, but it retained significant exclusions, particularly around the established church, the universities and certain great offices of state. Nor did it restore an Irish parliament: Irish representatives still travelled to Westminster under the Union of 1801. The importance of O’Connell’s seat was therefore symbolic as well as practical. It showed that the Catholic majority could no longer be wholly excluded from the legislature governing Ireland, while also concentrating hopes and grievances upon a small number of MPs in London.

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1820–1829 CE

1827 CE

Mercy House and Foyle Baseline

The central public question was the continuing exclusion of Roman Catholics from parliament and from a range of public offices. The Act of Union had joined Ireland to Great Britain in 1801, but it had not removed the oaths and tests that prevented Catholics from taking seats at Westminster. For a Catholic majority, this was not an abstract constitutional anomaly. It was bound up with access to authority, the position of the established Church of Ireland, local patronage and the security of Catholic voters and tenants.

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