Religious divisions in late eighteenth-century Ireland
The impact of the revolutions in America and France
The Irish House of Commons in College Green, c.1790
1. The power of the Protestant Ascendancy
Since the Plantations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the victory of the Protestant King William over the Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, Ireland had been under the rule of the British Crown. There was an Irish parliament in Dublin with limited powers over Irish affairs. This was controlled by the Protestant Ascendancy class – the wealthy land- owning minority – as only Church of Ireland members (Anglicans) could vote and become MPs (members of parliament). They owned 80% of the land but were only 15% of the population. Even though they controlled Ireland, some Anglicans resented the limited power they had in their own parliament and the unfair trading practices of the British government.
Effect of Cromwell on land ownership in Ireland
1641
0–24% Catholic 25–49% Catholic 50–100% Catholic
1703 10% 15% 75%
Catholics
Anglicans (Church of Ireland Protestants) Presbyterians (Dissenters)
Ireland’s population by religion
Land ownership by Catholics before and after the Cromwellian Plantations
