The revolutionary spirit in France in the summer of 1789 that would ultimate topple the monarchy infected Ireland soon after. Sentiment in favor of the revolution was very common among the dissenting Protestants, especially in Ulster, who, like liberal radicals in England, saw the agenda of liberty, equality, and fraternity as the appropriate corrective for their own society with its established church, hereditary aristocracy, inequitable representation in parliament, and substantial disabilities on religious nonconformists. The fact that the spearhead of the revolutionary enthusiasm appeared in France, which was the bete noire of Calvinist Protestantism—a Catholic society with an absolute monarchy and a powerful church—solidified their sympathy with it. Many of the Irish Patriots, particularly those who had desired a root and branch reform in the sense of equal constituencies and a broader franchise, shared the approbation of many English Whigs, such as Charles James Fox, for what was happening in France.
Significantly, the most celebrated Irish-born politician of the 18th century, Edmund Burke, broke with his Whig allies in parliament over the French Revolution, which he interpreted in his Reflections on the Revolution in France as the beginnings of an assault on the foundations of Western civilization. For the remainder of his life, he urged resistance against it. However, in Ireland, a book more widely read—it was reprinted in four Irish newspapers—was Tom Paine's Rights of Man, written specifically to counter Burke.
Paradoxically, even though the French Revolution was directed against His Most Catholic Majesty, the king of France, the historic patron and ally of the Irish Catholic cause, the revolution emboldened many Catholics in Ireland and their sympathizers to be more forthright in demanding relief of their disabilities. A more vigorous and middle-class group replaced the more conservative and aristocratic leaders of the Catholic Committee, who had tended to be more restrained in advancing their cause. The Catholic Committee engaged Wolfe Tone as an agent for their cause. Tone, a Dublin barrister, had written a pamphlet in 1791, primarily for Presbyterians, that urged the granting of rights to Catholics, who could then work in harmony with others in advancing reform of "the present despotism."
The more activist leadership, led by John Keogh, a Dublin tradesman, then decided to bypass the conventional manner of petitioning the lord lieutenant for relief of their grievances and instead organize a national convention, whose members would be selected in the various parishes, to present demands that would claim to speak for "Catholic Ireland." The resolutions of the convention, which met in Dublin in December 1792, were taken by a delegation directly to King George III, although they stopped first in Belfast where they were well received by Protestant sympathizers. Other champions of their cause in London, where the king graciously received them, were Burke and Grattan. Their efforts succeeded in many ways. In 1793, in response to the king's wish that the situation of his Catholic subjects be dealt with, a Catholic Enfranchisement Act was passed allowing Catholics to vote on the same terms as others. Catholics were also allowed to bear arms, become members of corporations (that is, town governments), act as grand jurors, take degrees at Trinity, hold minor offices, and take commissions in the army below the rank of general. However, they still could not serve in parliament.
For all the advances obtained, more radical elements still wished for a more thorough all around reform, rather than just the admission of Catholics to an unreformed system. On the other hand, the passage of Catholic relief coincided with the guillotining of the French monarch and increasing likelihood of Britain going to war with revolutionary France. The British government found itself increasingly in alliance with the Roman Catholic Church in opposing the forces of revolution and, accordingly, more understandably disposed toward its own Catholic subjects in England and Ireland.
Two years later conservative Whigs, sharing Burke's perspective and led by the Duke of Portland, joined William Pitt's government, which was committed to warring against revolutionary France. One of them, Lord William Fitzwilliam, was made lord lieutenant of Ireland. He had been instructed to act favorably toward Catholic emancipation, that is, the admission of Catholics to parliament, if such would be brought forward, but not to raise the matter himself. In fact, he began to take steps soon after his arrival early in 1795 to topple the Ascendancy junta that was the major barrier to Catholic emancipation by dismissing Beresford and proposing to dismiss Fitzgibbon and others from their public offices. But this was more than Pitt, whose governance of Ireland was dependent on the junta, could tolerate and Fitzwilliam was recalled and replaced by Lord Camden, with instructions to oppose emancipation.
However, the government was not averse to appeasing Catholics. To that end an endowment of state funds was made to facilitate the establishment of a Catholic seminary at Maynooth where Catholic clergy, unable now to be educated in revolutionary France, could be trained and hopefully prove well disposed toward the regime that supported them. Anticlerical Irish nationalists have argued that the antirevolutionary attitude of the Catholic Church in Ireland stems from this grant. However, the church has been historically antirevolutionary (as opposed to being antiseparatist or antinationalist). In fact, the education of most of the Irish clergy at home in Ireland probably made them more sympathetic to nationalist attitudes than would have been the case if their training had been at the hands of conservative continental churchmen.
World History
