Protestant Ascendancy. 1702-1760.

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CHAPTER X***

Protestant Ascendancy and Commercial Restriction*

1702-1760

“O! it is excellent

To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.” - Shakespeare.

The** **angry passions of the Jacobite wars soon died away in Dublin, and a reconciliation might have taken place had the victors shown the slightest disposition towards such a policy. Unfortunately the triumphant Williamites seemed to have taken as their motto, “to the victor the spoils.”

Roman Catholics were ejected from every post of honour or profit in the municipality. Even the humble office of charwoman in the Tholsel was taken from its papist holder and bestowed on a Protestant. None of that persecuted religion had vote or voice in the affairs of his native town. Three-fourths of the people of Ireland were reduced by the penal laws to the position of the Gibeonites, “hewers of wood and drawers of water to a dominant minority.

But a Nemesis was at hand for the oppressors themselves. The Irish Protestants, though they were encouraged to ride roughshod over their theological opponents, were treated with bitter injustice whenever their trade prospered sufficiently to excite the jealousy of London.

The handicaps on commerce were numerous and vexatious. Tariffs, embargoes, Navigation Acts, restrictions of all kinds, were imposed on the unfortunate Irish merchant, who was almost always a Protestant and a Loyalist, sometimes by the English parliament, where he was unrepresented, sometimes by his own assembly in a fit of timid subservience. There was no possibility of retaliation, for Poynings’ Act made English approval a necessary preliminary to the passing of an Irish statute.

The false colonial policy of the day treated the population of dependencies as mere ciphers in comparison with the home country, not as men of British birth, with a right to be consulted in all measures affecting their happiness, freedom and prosperity. The result was that America was lost for ever, and Ireland alienated for centuries.

In 1703 a petition was forwarded from Dublin, praying for a complete union of the two countries on the lines afterwards adopted in 1801. The authorities in London rejected the proposal, preferring, it would seem, an arbitrary domination to a fair partnership. Union would necessarily have meant the removal of all obstruction to a free commerce between the countries, and the elevation of Ireland from the Cinderella-like position she was forced to occupy.

The administration was conducted in the same spirit, regarding English interests rather than Irish welfare, which, after all, was really the greatest of English interests. The body politic of the British Isles could not be healthy so long as one member was chafing and inflamed. Lord Lieutenants were appointed who spent most of their time out of the country they were supposed to govern. The great patronage at their disposal was used to fill every office in Dublin with place-hunters from Great Britain, men of a needy, avaricious type knowing little and caring less about the needs of Ireland.

The hierarchy itself, the head of which was usually called on to govern the country during the viceroy’s frequent absences, was largely composed of such undesirable importations. Swift’s jibe at the Irish bishops is well known. He said that, of course, Englishmen of character and piety were appointed, but, by some mischance, were always murdered on the way to their Irish sees by the highwaymen of Hounslow Heath, who travelled on to Dublin and presented themselves there with the credentials of their victims.

In 1719 the supremacy of the English parliament reached its height. In that year it passed an Act affirming positively its power to bind Ireland by its decrees. This is the statute known to history as the Sixth of George I. In 1723 Walpole’s government gave to the Duchess of Kendal, a mistress of the King, a patent for supplying Ireland with copper coinage. She sold her concession to William Wood, an iron-master of Birmingham.

It was apparently an ordinary piece of jobbery, conducted throughout with the usual carelessness of Irish feeling. But the ministry had gone too far this time. The country was both alarmed and indignant. It had a keen remembrance of the suffering caused by the debased money of James II. There was no regular mint in Dublin, and no guarantee could be had for the goodness of the new pence and halfpence. The small change of the whole nation, affecting as it did the daily life of the very poorest classes, seemed handed over to the tender mercies of a commercial speculator.

The general discontent soon found a voice. Jonathan Swift, dean of S. Patrick’s, had long cherished a grudge against a government, which had withheld from him the bishopric, that seemed a fit reward for his talents. With all the ardour and bitterness of his temperament he flung himself into the fray on the popular side, and launched a series of pamphlets, the famous Drapier Letters, against Wood and his money.

For the nonce he assumed the style of an honest, unpretentious city draper, a character which successfully masked the real fury and exaggeration of Swift’s attacks. In the same simple, direct language, that carries off the traveller’s tales of Gulliver, he draws pictures of ladies going shopping with a cartload of Wood’s copper, of a poor man giving 36 halfpence for a quart of ale, of the ruin even of the beggars, for to give a mendicant such a coin would “do him no more service than if I should give him three pins out of my sleeve.”

Every word went home. The money which was not nearly so bad as Swift represented, was universally refused. Although the authorship of the letters was an open secret, the government dared not molest the dean. The printer was arrested, but the grand jury refused to return him for trial, afterwards ranging itself still more definitely on the side of ” W. B. Drapier” by presenting as criminals all who took the money in payments. The obnoxious halfpence were eventually withdrawn, and the party of Irish autonomy secured its first victory. Swift had given an impetus to the movement started by Molyneux.

The fortunes of Ireland. were now all centred in the parliamentary struggles at the seat of government, not, as of old, in the gallant unavailing resistance of chiefs and leaders in remote provinces. The focus of Irish politics is no longer at Benburb, Kinsale, Athlone, or Limerick, but at College Green, Dublin.

The result was a great influx of the aristocracy into the capital. The effects of this immigration on the life of the city were manifold. There was a further expansion towards the north and south east. Whole streets of tall stately houses were erected on the north bank of the Liffey, nearer the sea than the suburb built in Ormond’s time. This was the most fashionable quarter, rising gently as it does from the river and looking towards the midday sun and the distant blue ridge of the mountains.

It is now the home of a poor and swarming population. The grand entrances, wide stairs, and decorated ceilings of the Georgian period may still be seen falling to decay in the tenement houses of Great Britain, Dorset, Dominick and Henrietta Streets. The southern extension has fared better, and is still inhabited by the classes for whom it was first intended. It lies around Merrion Square, Dawson Street and Stephen’s Green.

The greater nobles built themselves huge town houses in both districts, vieing with one another in the luxury and splendour of their new mansions. Most of these, after some vicissitudes, have now become government offices. Dublin society of the 18th century was brilliant with an almost feverish energy and restlessness. Theatres and music halls were found in almost every street, and were better patronised than they are in the present city, which has thrice the population. Handel chose Dublin for the first performance of his masterpiece. “The Messiah” was produced at a concert hall in Fishamble Street by the joint choirs of the cathedrals.

Many of the aristocracy threw themselves into the struggle for self-government. Others, disliking and distrusting the tainted politics of the time, devoted themselves to encouraging Irish industries in every possible manner. In 1731 the Dublin Society was formed, a band of zealous amateurs, who set themselves each to study some particular branch of manufacture and the best method of fostering it. Prizes were offered for clever inventions and good workmanship. Irish art, as well as commerce, was developed by similar means.

The Society’s efforts were crowned with success. The little association of 1731 has now a revenue of £25,000 yearly, all spent in the furtherance of the ends indicated by the original founders. Its great annual Horse Show in August has spread far and wide the fame of that clever and courageous animal, the Irish hunter.

The improvement of the port became a subject of concern to the corporation. They obtained permission to control the harbour and set up a Ballast Office for its regulation. The channel was walled as far as Ringsend, and a breakwater, now called the South Wall, was commenced. In 1726, a Linen Hall had been erected for the sale of that commodity, the only Irish manufacture which did not enter into competition with English productions and was therefore secure from crippling legislation. Charity was housed as well as industry. Steevens’ and Mercer’s Hospitals were founded. A workhouse was built to accommodate the indigent poor, and a Foundling Home added later.

But there was a dark side to all this progress. The newborn vigour of the upper classes turned itself sometimes into evil channels. Dublin had its distinctive vices. It became noted for a peculiar recklessness, which heeded neither God nor man. Drinking, gambling, and even duelling may be passed over. They are the commonplaces of the social history of the period in every capital in Europe.

But legends are rife of Irish gentlemen of birth and breeding delivering themselves over to a blasphemy and indecency, which recall Sedley and Rochester, of Hellfire Clubs mocking Heaven and worshipping the Evil One, of great lords exhibiting themselves naked and unashamed to the public gaze.

The libertines of the day, unfortunately, did not confine themselves to invoking shame and damnation on their own heads. The Hellfire Club is a vague and rather shadowy tradition. But the abductions and forced marriages of Irish history are well authenticated, and show singular heartlessness and brutality in their perpetrators.

Some rake, whose patrimony had vanished at the gaming-table, would mark out an heiress for his prey, lie in ambush near her house and carry her off to some obscure nook in the mountains, where a degraded parson or priest would be in readiness to perform the ceremony. The victim would refuse at first, but would be frightened into compliance by the threat of dishonour. Some, stubborn to the end, were submitted to that last of outrages, and, seeking in their shame “to be made honest women again ” were joined to their persecutors in what must have proved a hideous mockery of “Holy Matrimony.” The culprit’s family connections usually secured him against any serious punishment; as a rule, he came off scot-free, with a second fortune to squander as he pleased. The country was the usual scene of these outrages, but they happened not infrequently in the city and suburbs.

The populace had been corrupted by bad example, and admired these villains as bold, dashing fellows. It imitated from afar the practices of its superiors. The city was rent by the continual broils of local factions as purposeless and bloody as the feuds of Montague and Capulet or the circus riots of Byzantium. The weavers of the Earl of Meath’s Liberty around S. Patrick’s, calling themselves the Liberty Boys, fought desperate battles along the bridges and quays with the Ormond Boys, the butchers in Ormond Market on the opposite side of the river.

One source of discontent in Dublin had been removed by the building of the Royal Barracks, commenced in 1704. Before that date soldiers had been billeted on the citizens, who found their presence and their maintenance a great domestic evil. The Crown commenced to collect its troops all over Ireland into large structures specially constructed for their reception. This, like other concessions to the subject, proved the forerunner of many more.

There was no legal provision for regularly calling a parliament in Ireland. Only financial needs compelled its assembly. If the government could manage on its revenues without imposing fresh taxes, no parliament need be summoned for an indefinite period. The drain caused by the barrack establishments necessitated a session at least every second year. In 1729, after the defeat of Wood, the Lords and Commons of Ireland determined to assert themselves by the erection of a splendid new Parliament House. The style adopted was the semi-classic, for which Irish architects still have a distinct preference. The building was very successful, well-proportioned and full of graceful lines. Though now merely a bank premises, it still adorns College Green, as in the days when Grattan thundered inside the house, instead of standing, as he now does, with hand upraised in mute appeal amid the turmoil of the traffic outside.

A party was formed to resist English authority by constitutional means. It received the name of “The Patriots,” and was in perpetual opposition to the Anglicising Ministry. In 1731 the government sought to remove a certain grant from popular control by vesting it in the Crown for 21 years. The Opposition resisted strenuously. On a division the votes were equal, when Colonel Tottenham, mud-splashed and top-booted from a long ride, hurried into the chamber and turned the scale against the government. “Tottenham in his boots” was long a toast in Dublin.

In 1745** **there was a welcome break in the long succession of absentee and *fainéant *viceroys. The authorities in London, fearing a Jacobite rising in Ireland as well as Scotland, sent over the Earl of Chesterfield, with instructions to practise moderation. The new governor, who is known to literary history as the would-be patron of Samuel Johnson, was a man of cultivated tastes and polished manners. His tact kept the country perfectly quiet during the all but successful campaigns of Prince Charlie.

Chesterfield saw that the laws against Catholics were a senseless oppression of a harmless class, and relaxed the severity of the code; so far as he could. He was aided in his designs by an accident, which had deeply impressed many of the Protestant citizens. Mass was being celebrated in the usual furtive way in a private house, when the beam supporting the floor gave way under the weight of the people. The officiating priest and several of the congregation were killed outright, while most of those present were injured.

Chesterfield, while the tragedy was still fresh in the public mind, conceded full freedom of worship, when and where they pleased, to the suffering party. His advisers were full of forebodings, but the viceroy laughed them away with the remark that the beautiful Catholic lady, Miss Ambrose, the reigning toast of Dublin, was the only “dangerous papist” he had met in Ireland. After a subjugation of 50 years, the Catholics began to enjoy some of the rights of the subject.

The Phoenix Park possesses a memorial of this conciliatory ruler. In its very centre he erected on a pillar a representation of the fabled classical bird, from which, according to one account, the park derives its name. The fierce westerly gales, that sweep across the wide uplands in winter, have not quite destroyed an avenue of elms planted by his directions in the same neighbourhood. Chesterfield was recalled after a term of office all too brief. The old gang were restored to power, but they found it difficult to undo the past. The Opposition was led with great ability by Malone, Lucas, and the young Earl of Kildare. Lucas was driven into exile for a while, but soon returned as member for the city of Dublin. In 1753**, **the parliament asserted its rights to dispose of a surplus without reference to the King.

Some of the Catholics, long so timid, began to lift their heads and claim an equality with Protestants before the law. But the days of O’Connell were not yet come. The leaders of the movement found their co-religionists dazed and hardly venturing to trust their newly-gained toleration. However, a “Catholic Committee” was appointed in Dublin to watch the course of events, and educate the people to a perception of their rights as British subjects.

The reign of George II. ended in tumults directed against the ministry. A theatre was wrecked by a mob irritated at the prohibition of a certain speech in “Mahomet,” which might be construed as a reflection on the viceroy of the day. The English connection had become odious on account of the misgovernment of its chief supporters. In 1703** **Ireland had petitioned for a closer union with England.

In 1759**, **on rumours of such a project being noised abroad, the mob of Dublin got out of hand, burst into the Parliament House, and searched for the journals, in order to burn the record of some obnoxious proceedings. An old woman was seated on the throne in mockery of the Duke of Bedford, who was Lord Lieutenant. The rioters set up a gallows to hang one of their enemies, but he was fortunate enough to escape. Every member they encountered was compelled to swear hostility to a union. Despite the exertions of the troops, peace was not restored till a late hour. No doubt, local feeling, as well as national patriotism, had a good deal to do with the resistance of the citizens on this occasion. Dublin was afraid of becoming a mere provincial town again. But the incident is significant of the new attitude of the greater part of the Irish Protestants to the British government. Twenty years later the same class won independence by open preparation for rebellion, at a time when England was entangled in a great war, and the country was denuded of British troops.

Volunteers, United Irishmen. 1760-1803. To Chart Index.