Protestant Ascendancy
Encyclopedia
The Protestant Ascendancy, usually known in Ireland simply as the Ascendancy, is a phrase used when referring to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland
by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church (the Church of Ireland
and Church of England
, both being the State Church
es) during the 17th through 19th centuries and, in a portion of the island, into the 20th century. The sense of Ascendancy is seen as excluding primarily Roman Catholics, as they have comprised the majority of the Irish
population island-wide, but this can be misleading, as members of the Presbyterians and other Protestant denominations, along with non-Christians, were also excluded politically and socially. Even the majority of Protestants were effectively excluded from the ascendancy, being too poor to vote. In general, the privileges of the Ascendancy were resented by Irish Catholics, who remained the majority of the population.
in a speech to the Irish Parliament on 20 February 1782. George Ogle MP used it on 6 February 1786 in a debate on falling land values:
Then on 20 January 1792 Dublin Corporation
approved by majority vote a resolution to George III that included:
The Corporation's resolution was a part of the debate over Catholic Emancipation
. In the event, Catholics were allowed to vote again in 1793, but could not sit in parliament until 1829.
The phrase therefore was seen to apply across classes to rural landowners as well as city merchants. The Dublin resolution was disapproved of by a wide range of commentators, such as the Marquess of Abercorn
, who called it "silly", and William Drennan
who said it was "actuated by the most monopolising spirit".
The phrase became popularised outside Ireland by Edmund Burke
, another liberal Protestant, and his ironic
comment in 1792 was then used by Catholics seeking further political reforms:
onwards. Unsuccessful revolts against English
rule in 1595–1603 and 1641–1653 and then the 1689-91 Williamite Wars
caused much Irish land to be confiscated by the Crown
, and then sold to people who were thought loyal, most of whom were English and Protestant. English soldiers and traders became the new ruling class
, as its richer members were elevated to the Irish House of Lords
and eventually controlled the Irish House of Commons
(see Plantations of Ireland
).
This process was facilitated and formalized in the legal system after 1691 by the passing of various Penal Laws
, which discriminated against the property rights of the leading families of the majority Roman Catholic population, and the non-conforming ("Dissenter
") Protestant denominations such as Presbyterians, where they :
However, those protected by the Treaty were still excluded from public political life.
The situation was confused by the policy of the Tory party in England and Ireland after 1688. They were Protestants who generally supported the Catholic Jacobite
claim, and came to power briefly in London in 1710-14. Also in 1750 the main Catholic Jacobite heir and claimant to the three thrones, Charles Edward Stuart
("Bonny Prince Charlie"), converted to Anglicanism for a time, but had reverted to Roman Catholicism again by his father's death in 1766.
The son of James VII, James Francis Edward Stuart
(the Old Pretender), was recognised by the Holy See
as the legitimate monarch of the Kingdom of England
, Kingdom of Scotland
, and the separate Kingdom of Ireland
until his death in January 1766, and Roman Catholics were morally obliged to support him. This provided the main political excuse for the new laws, but it was not entirely exclusive as there was no law against anyone converting to Protestantism. Thousands did so, as recorded on the "Convert Rolls", and this allowed for the successful careers of Irishmen such as that of William Conolly
, but the majority decided not to convert.
From 1766 onwards the Papacy did not object to the fact of an established Anglican church, as Roman Catholicism was the established church in countries such as Spain
until 1931 and Austria
until 1918. It did, however, push for reforms allowing equality within the system.
Among the forms of discrimination faced by Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters under the Penal Laws were:
As a result, political, legal, and economic power resided with the Ascendancy to the extent that by the mid-eighteenth century, though a small fraction of the population, 95% of the land of Ireland was calculated to be under minority Protestant
control. Some 9% of this land belonged to formerly-Catholic landlords who had converted to the state religion
.
Reform, though not complete, came in three main stages and was effected over 50 years:
Patriot Party
. The formation of the Irish Volunteers
to defend Ireland from French invasion during the American Revolution
effectively gave Grattan a military force, and he was able to force Britain to concede a greater amount of self-rule to the Ascendancy.
The parliament repealed most of the Penal Laws
in 1771–1793 but did not abolish them. Grattan sought Catholic Emancipation
for the catholic middle classes from the 1780s, but could not persuade a majority of the Irish MPs to support him. Following the forced recall of the liberal Lord Fitzwilliam
in 1795 by conservatives, parliament was effectively abandoned as a vehicle for change, giving rise to the United Irishmen - liberal elements across religious, ethnic, and class lines who began to plan for armed rebellion. The resulting and often Protestant-led rebellion
was crushed with vicious brutality; the Act of Union
of 1801 was passed partly in response to a perception that the bloodshed was provoked by the misrule of the Ascendancy, and partly from the expense involved.
In the opinion of professional historians, the Ascendancy ended with the closing of the Dublin parliament in 1801, but it became a convenient expression to denote areas of life where a small minority of Church of Ireland members still had unique legal advantages, such as sitting in the London parliament (until 1829) or the tithe
support for their church which was levied on most landowners.
, which increased the number of absentee landlord
s. The reduction of legalized discrimination with the passage of Catholic Emancipation
in 1829 meant that the Ascendancy now faced competition from prosperous Catholics in parliament and in the higher-level professional ranks such as the judiciary
and the army
that were needed in the growing British Empire
. From 1840 corporations running towns and cities in Ireland became more democratically elected; previously they were dominated until 1793 by guild
members who had to be Protestants.
s whose agents were shipping locally produced food overseas, protected by the British establishment, while much of the population starved. Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the famine. About 20% to 25% of the population died or emigrated. The Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 was passed to allow landlords to sell mortgaged land, where a sale would be restricted because the land was "entailed"
. Many landlords went bankrupt as their tenants could not pay any rent due to the famine. Some 5,000,000 over-mortgaged acre
s were sold to new landlords by 1857, some of whom were Catholic merchants. This represents a quarter of the entire land area of Ireland, which is just over 20 million acres (80,937.2 km²). One example was the Browne family which lost over 50000 acres (202.3 km²) in County Mayo
.
by the Irish Church Act 1869, and finally the Irish Land Acts
, which legally allowed the sitting tenants to buy their land. Some typical "Ascendancy" land-owning families like the Marquess of Headfort
and the Earl of Granard
had by then converted to Catholicism, and a considerable number of Protestant Nationalist
s had already taken their part in Irish history. A survey of the 4,000 largest landlords in 1872 revealed that already 43% were Roman Catholics, 48% were Church of Ireland, 7% were Presbyterians, and 2% unknown.
Arguably the term "Protestant Ascendancy" was used from 1879-90 in the Land War
and the Plan of Campaign
as an emotive term in what was really an economic dispute. The government-sponsored Land Commission then bought up a further 13 million acres (52,609.2 km²) of farmland between 1885 and 1920 where the freehold was assigned under mortgage to tenant farmers and farm workers. Given the violent aspects of the Land war most remaining landowners were glad to sell up unless they were active farmers.
, passing many local powers to councillors who were usually supportive of nationalism. Formerly landlords had controlled the grand jury
system, where membership was based on being a large ratepayer
, and therefore from owning large amounts of land locally. The final phase of the decline of the Ascendancy occurred during the Anglo-Irish War, when some of the remaining Protestant landlords were either assassinated and/or had their country homes burned down by the Irish Republican Army
. Nearly 300 stately homes of the old landed class were burned down, tenants who remained loyal to the landowners and many of whom collaborated with the British were killed, and Protestant landlords were assassinated. The campaign was stepped up by the Anti-Treaty IRA during the subsequent Irish Civil War
(1922–23), who targeted some remaining wealthy and influential Protestants who had accepted nominations as Senators in the new Seanad
of the Irish Free State
.
earned semi-autonomy as a dominion within the British Empire
in December 1922, while the British Government had already, in 1920, partitioned Northern Ireland
from the rest of Ireland. The Parliament of Northern Ireland
voted to remain within the United Kingdom in 1922. There, the newly elected ruling class included many of the Protestant landed gentry
, despite the area having an industrial economy. This gave the term 'ascendancy' a continuing role well into the twentieth century. The remainder of Ireland gained complete independence in 1949 as the Republic of Ireland
.
s. By now their involvement had passed to literary and artistic matters, with Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats
starting the influential Celtic Revival
movement, and followed by authors such as Somerville and Ross
, Hubert Butler
and Elizabeth Bowen
. Ballerina Dame Ninette de Valois
, Nobel prize-winning author Samuel Beckett
and the artist Sir William Orpen
came from the same social background. Chris de Burgh
and the rock concert promoter Lord Conyngham (formerly Lord Mount Charles) are high-profile descendants of the Ascendancy in Ireland today.
Their later role was portrayed in the 1980s book "Twilight of the Ascendancy" by Mark Bence-Jones
.
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church (the Church of Ireland
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
and Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, both being the State Church
State church
State churches are organizational bodies within a Christian denomination which are given official status or operated by a state.State churches are not necessarily national churches in the ethnic sense of the term, but the two concepts may overlap in the case of a nation state where the state...
es) during the 17th through 19th centuries and, in a portion of the island, into the 20th century. The sense of Ascendancy is seen as excluding primarily Roman Catholics, as they have comprised the majority of the Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
population island-wide, but this can be misleading, as members of the Presbyterians and other Protestant denominations, along with non-Christians, were also excluded politically and socially. Even the majority of Protestants were effectively excluded from the ascendancy, being too poor to vote. In general, the privileges of the Ascendancy were resented by Irish Catholics, who remained the majority of the population.
Origin of term
The phrase was first used in passing by Sir Boyle RocheBoyle Roche
Sir Boyle Roche, 1st Baronet was an Irish politician. After a distinguished career in North America with the British Army, Roche became a member of the Irish House of Commons in 1775, generally acting in support of the viceregal government...
in a speech to the Irish Parliament on 20 February 1782. George Ogle MP used it on 6 February 1786 in a debate on falling land values:
- ...When the landed property of the Kingdom, when the Protestant Ascendancy is at stake, I cannot remain silent.
Then on 20 January 1792 Dublin Corporation
Dublin Corporation
Dublin Corporation , known by generations of Dubliners simply as The Corpo, is the former name given to the city government and its administrative organisation in Dublin between 1661 and 1 January 2002...
approved by majority vote a resolution to George III that included:
- We feel ourselves peculiarly called upon to stand forward in the crisis to pray your majesty to preserve the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland inviolate...
The Corporation's resolution was a part of the debate over Catholic Emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...
. In the event, Catholics were allowed to vote again in 1793, but could not sit in parliament until 1829.
The phrase therefore was seen to apply across classes to rural landowners as well as city merchants. The Dublin resolution was disapproved of by a wide range of commentators, such as the Marquess of Abercorn
John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn
John James Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn KG, PC was an Irish peer and politician.-Background:He was the son of Captain Hon. John Hamilton and grandson of James Hamilton, 7th Earl of Abercorn. He was educated at Harrow and Pembroke College, Cambridge...
, who called it "silly", and William Drennan
William Drennan
William Drennan ,a physician, poet, educationalist and political radical, was one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen...
who said it was "actuated by the most monopolising spirit".
The phrase became popularised outside Ireland by Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, another liberal Protestant, and his ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
comment in 1792 was then used by Catholics seeking further political reforms:
- A word has been lately struck in the mint of the castle of Dublin; thence it was conveyed to the Tholsel, or city-hall, where, having passed the touch of the corporation, so respectably stamped and vouched, it soon became current in parliament, and was carried back by the Speaker of the House of Commons in great pomp as an offering of homage from whence it came. The word is Ascendancy.
Duality of use
From the 1790s the phrase became used by the main two identities in Ireland:- Catholics, who were mostly nationalists, who used the phrase as a "focus of resentment" and
- Protestants, who were mostly unionists, for whom it gave a "compensating image of lost greatness".
Background
The gradual dispossession of large holdings belonging to several hundred native landowners in Ireland took place in various stages from the reigns of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary and her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth IElizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
onwards. Unsuccessful revolts against English
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
rule in 1595–1603 and 1641–1653 and then the 1689-91 Williamite Wars
Williamite war in Ireland
The Williamite War in Ireland—also called the Jacobite War in Ireland, the Williamite-Jacobite War in Ireland and in Irish as Cogadh an Dá Rí —was a conflict between Catholic King James II and Protestant King William of Orange over who would be King of England, Scotland and Ireland...
caused much Irish land to be confiscated by the Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
, and then sold to people who were thought loyal, most of whom were English and Protestant. English soldiers and traders became the new ruling class
Ruling class
The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that society's political policy - assuming there is one such particular class in the given society....
, as its richer members were elevated to the Irish House of Lords
Irish House of Lords
The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from mediaeval times until 1800. It was abolished along with the Irish House of Commons by the Act of Union.-Function:...
and eventually controlled the Irish House of Commons
Irish House of Commons
The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland, that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords...
(see Plantations of Ireland
Plantations of Ireland
Plantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland were the confiscation of land by the English crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from England and the Scottish Lowlands....
).
This process was facilitated and formalized in the legal system after 1691 by the passing of various Penal Laws
Penal Laws (Ireland)
The term Penal Laws in Ireland were a series of laws imposed under English and later British rule that sought to discriminate against Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters in favour of members of the established Church of Ireland....
, which discriminated against the property rights of the leading families of the majority Roman Catholic population, and the non-conforming ("Dissenter
Dissenter
The term dissenter , labels one who disagrees in matters of opinion, belief, etc. In the social and religious history of England and Wales, however, it refers particularly to a member of a religious body who has, for one reason or another, separated from the Established Church.Originally, the term...
") Protestant denominations such as Presbyterians, where they :
- had revolted against the government and
- had not sworn allegiance to William and MaryWilliam and MaryThe phrase William and Mary usually refers to the coregency over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, of King William III & II and Queen Mary II...
under the 1691 Treaty of LimerickTreaty of LimerickThe Treaty of Limerick ended the Williamite war in Ireland between the Jacobites and the supporters of William of Orange. It concluded the Siege of Limerick. The treaty really consisted of two treaties which were signed on 3 October 1691. Reputedly they were signed on the Treaty Stone, an...
.
However, those protected by the Treaty were still excluded from public political life.
The situation was confused by the policy of the Tory party in England and Ireland after 1688. They were Protestants who generally supported the Catholic Jacobite
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
claim, and came to power briefly in London in 1710-14. Also in 1750 the main Catholic Jacobite heir and claimant to the three thrones, Charles Edward Stuart
Charles Edward Stuart
Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of Great Britain , and Ireland...
("Bonny Prince Charlie"), converted to Anglicanism for a time, but had reverted to Roman Catholicism again by his father's death in 1766.
The son of James VII, James Francis Edward Stuart
James Francis Edward Stuart
James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales was the son of the deposed James II of England...
(the Old Pretender), was recognised by the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
as the legitimate monarch of the Kingdom of England
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
, Kingdom of Scotland
Kingdom of Scotland
The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...
, and the separate Kingdom of Ireland
Kingdom of Ireland
The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...
until his death in January 1766, and Roman Catholics were morally obliged to support him. This provided the main political excuse for the new laws, but it was not entirely exclusive as there was no law against anyone converting to Protestantism. Thousands did so, as recorded on the "Convert Rolls", and this allowed for the successful careers of Irishmen such as that of William Conolly
William Conolly
William Conolly , also known as Speaker Conolly, was an Irish politician, Commissioner of Revenue, lawyer and landowner.-Career:...
, but the majority decided not to convert.
From 1766 onwards the Papacy did not object to the fact of an established Anglican church, as Roman Catholicism was the established church in countries such as Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
until 1931 and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
until 1918. It did, however, push for reforms allowing equality within the system.
Among the forms of discrimination faced by Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters under the Penal Laws were:
- Exclusion of Roman Catholics from most public offices (since 1607), Presbyterians were also barred from public office from 1707.
- Ban on intermarriage with Protestants (repealed 1778)
- Presbyterian marriages were not legally recognised by the state
- Roman Catholics barred from holding firearms or serving in the armed forces (rescinded by Militia Act of 1793)
- Bar from membership in either the Parliament of IrelandParliament of IrelandThe Parliament of Ireland was a legislature that existed in Dublin from 1297 until 1800. In its early mediaeval period during the Lordship of Ireland it consisted of either two or three chambers: the House of Commons, elected by a very restricted suffrage, the House of Lords in which the lords...
or the Parliament of Great BritainParliament of Great BritainThe Parliament of Great Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland...
from 1652; rescinded 1662-1691; renewed 1691-1829. - Disenfranchising ActDisenfranchising ActThe Disenfranchising Act was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Ireland passed in 1727, one of a series of penal laws, prohibiting all Roman Catholics from voting...
1728, exclusion from voting until 1793; - Exclusion from the legal professions and the judiciary; repealed (respectively) 1793 and 1829.
- Education Act 1695Education Act 1695The Education Act 1695 , was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland, one of a series of penal laws, prohibiting Catholics from sending their children to be educated abroad. Its long title is "An Act to restrain Foreign Education"....
- ban on foreign education; repealed 1782. - Bar to Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters entering Trinity College Dublin; repealed 1793
- On a death by a Roman Catholic, a legatee could benefit by conversion to the Church of IrelandChurch of IrelandThe Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
- Popery ActPopery ActAn Act to prevent the further Growth of Poperty was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Ireland passed in 1703 and amended in 1709, one of a series of penal laws against Roman Catholics....
- Roman Catholic inheritances of land were to be equally subdivided between all an owner's sons - Ban on converting from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism
- Ban on Roman Catholics buying land under a lease of more than 31 years; repealed 1778.
- Ban on custody of orphans being granted to Roman Catholics
- Ban on Roman Catholics' inheriting Protestant land
- Prohibition on Roman Catholics' owning a horse valued at over £5 (in order to keep horses suitable for military activity out of the majority's hands)
- Roman Catholic lay priests had to register to preach under the Registration ActRegistration ActThe Registration Act was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Ireland passed in 1704, one of a series of Penal laws. Its long title is An Act for registering the Popish Clergy and its citation is 2 Ann c.7...
1704, but seminary priests and bishops were not able to do so until the 1770s. - When allowed, new Roman Catholic churches were to be built from wood, not stone, and away from main roads.
- 'No person of the popish religion shall publicly or in private houses teach school, or instruct youth in learning within this realm'; repealed in 1782. http://www.irish-society.org/Hedgemaster%20Archives/hedge_schools.htm
As a result, political, legal, and economic power resided with the Ascendancy to the extent that by the mid-eighteenth century, though a small fraction of the population, 95% of the land of Ireland was calculated to be under minority Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
control. Some 9% of this land belonged to formerly-Catholic landlords who had converted to the state religion
State religion
A state religion is a religious body or creed officially endorsed by the state...
.
Reform, though not complete, came in three main stages and was effected over 50 years:
- Reform of religious disabilities in 1778-82, allowing bishops, schools and convents.
- Reform of restrictions on property ownership and voting in 1778-93.
- Restoration of political, professional and office-holding rights in 1793-1829.
Act of Union
The confidence of the Ascendancy was manifested towards the end of the 18th century by its adoption of a nationalist Irish, though still exclusively Protestant, identity, and the formation in the 1770s of Henry Grattan'sHenry Grattan
Henry Grattan was an Irish politician and member of the Irish House of Commons and a campaigner for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century. He opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain.-Early life:Grattan was born at...
Patriot Party
Irish Patriot Party
The Irish Patriot Party was the name of a number of different political groupings in Ireland throughout the 18th century. They were primarily supportive of Whig concepts of personal liberty combined with an Irish identity that rejected full independence, but advocated strong self-government within...
. The formation of the Irish Volunteers
Irish Volunteers (18th century)
The Irish Volunteers were a militia in late 18th century Ireland. The Volunteers were founded in Belfast in 1778 to defend Ireland from the threat of foreign invasion when regular British soldiers were withdrawn from Ireland to fight across the globe during the American War of Independence...
to defend Ireland from French invasion during the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
effectively gave Grattan a military force, and he was able to force Britain to concede a greater amount of self-rule to the Ascendancy.
The parliament repealed most of the Penal Laws
Penal Laws (Ireland)
The term Penal Laws in Ireland were a series of laws imposed under English and later British rule that sought to discriminate against Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters in favour of members of the established Church of Ireland....
in 1771–1793 but did not abolish them. Grattan sought Catholic Emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...
for the catholic middle classes from the 1780s, but could not persuade a majority of the Irish MPs to support him. Following the forced recall of the liberal Lord Fitzwilliam
William FitzWilliam, 4th Earl FitzWilliam
William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam PC , styled Viscount Milton until 1756, was a British Whig statesman of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1782 he inherited his uncle Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham's estates, making him one of the richest people in...
in 1795 by conservatives, parliament was effectively abandoned as a vehicle for change, giving rise to the United Irishmen - liberal elements across religious, ethnic, and class lines who began to plan for armed rebellion. The resulting and often Protestant-led rebellion
Irish Rebellion of 1798
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 , also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion , was an uprising in 1798, lasting several months, against British rule in Ireland...
was crushed with vicious brutality; the Act of Union
Act of Union 1800
The Acts of Union 1800 describe two complementary Acts, namely:* the Union with Ireland Act 1800 , an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, and...
of 1801 was passed partly in response to a perception that the bloodshed was provoked by the misrule of the Ascendancy, and partly from the expense involved.
In the opinion of professional historians, the Ascendancy ended with the closing of the Dublin parliament in 1801, but it became a convenient expression to denote areas of life where a small minority of Church of Ireland members still had unique legal advantages, such as sitting in the London parliament (until 1829) or the tithe
Tithe
A tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes were required and paid in kind, such as agricultural products...
support for their church which was levied on most landowners.
Decline
The abolition of the Irish Parliament was followed by economic decline in Ireland, and widespread emigration from among the ruling class to the new centre of power in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, which increased the number of absentee landlord
Absentee landlord
Absentee landlord is an economic term for a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. This practice is problematic for that region because absentee landlords drain local wealth into their home country, particularly that...
s. The reduction of legalized discrimination with the passage of Catholic Emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...
in 1829 meant that the Ascendancy now faced competition from prosperous Catholics in parliament and in the higher-level professional ranks such as the judiciary
Judiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
and the army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
that were needed in the growing British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
. From 1840 corporations running towns and cities in Ireland became more democratically elected; previously they were dominated until 1793 by guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
members who had to be Protestants.
Great famine 1845-52
The festering sense of native grievance was magnified by the horrors of the Great Irish Famine of 1845-52, with many of the Ascendancy reviled as absentee landlordAbsentee landlord
Absentee landlord is an economic term for a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. This practice is problematic for that region because absentee landlords drain local wealth into their home country, particularly that...
s whose agents were shipping locally produced food overseas, protected by the British establishment, while much of the population starved. Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the famine. About 20% to 25% of the population died or emigrated. The Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 was passed to allow landlords to sell mortgaged land, where a sale would be restricted because the land was "entailed"
Fee tail
At common law, fee tail or entail is an estate of inheritance in real property which cannot be sold, devised by will, or otherwise alienated by the owner, but which passes by operation of law to the owner's heirs upon his death...
. Many landlords went bankrupt as their tenants could not pay any rent due to the famine. Some 5,000,000 over-mortgaged acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s were sold to new landlords by 1857, some of whom were Catholic merchants. This represents a quarter of the entire land area of Ireland, which is just over 20 million acres (80,937.2 km²). One example was the Browne family which lost over 50000 acres (202.3 km²) in County Mayo
County Mayo
County Mayo is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the village of Mayo, which is now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county is 130,552...
.
Land War
As a consequence, the remnants of the Ascendancy were gradually displaced during the 19th and early 20th centuries through impoverishment, bankruptcy, the disestablishment of the Church of IrelandChurch of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
by the Irish Church Act 1869, and finally the Irish Land Acts
Irish Land Acts
The Land Acts were a series of measures to deal with the question of peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by the government of the United Kingdom between 1870 and 1909...
, which legally allowed the sitting tenants to buy their land. Some typical "Ascendancy" land-owning families like the Marquess of Headfort
Marquess of Headfort
Marquess of Headfort is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1800 for Thomas Taylor, 2nd Earl of Bective. Despite the official title, the family unfailingly use the alternative rendering Marquis of Headfort, and this is the spelling more commonly encountered in references to family...
and the Earl of Granard
Earl of Granard
Earl of Granard is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1684 for Arthur Forbes, 1st Viscount Granard. He was a Lieutenant-General in the army and served as Marshal of the Army in Ireland after The Restoration and was later Lord Justice of Ireland...
had by then converted to Catholicism, and a considerable number of Protestant Nationalist
Protestant Nationalist
Irish nationalism has been chiefly associated with Roman Catholics. However, historically this is not an entirely accurate picture. Protestant nationalists were also influential supporters of the political independence the island of Ireland from the island of Great Britain and leaders of national...
s had already taken their part in Irish history. A survey of the 4,000 largest landlords in 1872 revealed that already 43% were Roman Catholics, 48% were Church of Ireland, 7% were Presbyterians, and 2% unknown.
Arguably the term "Protestant Ascendancy" was used from 1879-90 in the Land War
Land War
The Land War in Irish history was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The agitation was led by the Irish National Land League and was dedicated to bettering the position of tenant farmers and ultimately to a redistribution of land to tenants from...
and the Plan of Campaign
Plan of Campaign
The Plan of Campaign was a stratagem adopted in Ireland between 1886 and 1891, co-ordinated by Irish politicians for the benefit of tenant farmers, against mainly absentee and rack-rent landlords. It was launched to counter agricultural distress caused by the continual depression in prices of dairy...
as an emotive term in what was really an economic dispute. The government-sponsored Land Commission then bought up a further 13 million acres (52,609.2 km²) of farmland between 1885 and 1920 where the freehold was assigned under mortgage to tenant farmers and farm workers. Given the violent aspects of the Land war most remaining landowners were glad to sell up unless they were active farmers.
Nationalist movement
With the Protestant yeoman class now driven out by a newly rising "Catholic Ascendancy", the dozens of remaining Protestant large landowners were left isolated within the Catholic population without the benefit of the legal and social conventions once used to prop them up. Local government was democratised by the Act of 1898Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
The Local Government Act 1898 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, Wales and Scotland by legislation in 1888 and 1889...
, passing many local powers to councillors who were usually supportive of nationalism. Formerly landlords had controlled the grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
system, where membership was based on being a large ratepayer
Rates (tax)
Rates are a type of property tax system in the United Kingdom, and in places with systems deriving from the British one, the proceeds of which are used to fund local government...
, and therefore from owning large amounts of land locally. The final phase of the decline of the Ascendancy occurred during the Anglo-Irish War, when some of the remaining Protestant landlords were either assassinated and/or had their country homes burned down by the Irish Republican Army
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
. Nearly 300 stately homes of the old landed class were burned down, tenants who remained loyal to the landowners and many of whom collaborated with the British were killed, and Protestant landlords were assassinated. The campaign was stepped up by the Anti-Treaty IRA during the subsequent Irish Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....
(1922–23), who targeted some remaining wealthy and influential Protestants who had accepted nominations as Senators in the new Seanad
Seanad Éireann (Irish Free State)
Seanad Éireann was the upper house of the Oireachtas of the Irish Free State from 1922–1936. It has also been known simply as the Senate, or as the First Seanad. The Senate was established under the 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State but a number of constitutional amendments were...
of the Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
.
Northern Ireland
The Irish Free StateIrish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
earned semi-autonomy as a dominion within the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
in December 1922, while the British Government had already, in 1920, partitioned Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
from the rest of Ireland. The Parliament of Northern Ireland
Parliament of Northern Ireland
The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended...
voted to remain within the United Kingdom in 1922. There, the newly elected ruling class included many of the Protestant landed gentry
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
, despite the area having an industrial economy. This gave the term 'ascendancy' a continuing role well into the twentieth century. The remainder of Ireland gained complete independence in 1949 as the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
.
Artistic and cultural role
Long before the independence of most of Ireland in 1922, the formerly-landed Ascendancy had lost any real political influence and those who remained comprised a small, isolated, landed minority in their own land; most supported the Irish Unionist Alliance though some were Protestant NationalistProtestant Nationalist
Irish nationalism has been chiefly associated with Roman Catholics. However, historically this is not an entirely accurate picture. Protestant nationalists were also influential supporters of the political independence the island of Ireland from the island of Great Britain and leaders of national...
s. By now their involvement had passed to literary and artistic matters, with Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
starting the influential Celtic Revival
Celtic Revival
Celtic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, which drew on the traditions of Celtic literature and Celtic art, or in fact more often what art historians call Insular art...
movement, and followed by authors such as Somerville and Ross
Somerville and Ross
Somerville and Ross were an Anglo-Irish writing team, perhaps most famous for their series of books that were made into the TV series The Irish R.M.....
, Hubert Butler
Hubert Butler
Hubert Marshal Butler was an Irish essayist who wrote on a wide-range of topics, from local history and archaeology to the political and religious affairs of eastern Europe before and during World War II.-Early life:...
and Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen, CBE was an Irish novelist and short story writer.-Life:Elizabeth Bowen was born on 7 June 1899 at 15 Herbert Place in Dublin, Ireland and was baptized in the nearby St Stephen's Church on Upper Mount Street...
. Ballerina Dame Ninette de Valois
Ninette de Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois, OM, CH, DBE, FRAD, FISTD was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer and director of classical ballet...
, Nobel prize-winning author Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
and the artist Sir William Orpen
William Orpen
Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, KBE, RA, RHA was an Irish portrait painter, who worked mainly in London...
came from the same social background. Chris de Burgh
Chris de Burgh
Chris de Burgh is a British/Irish singer-songwriter. He is most famous for his 1986 love song "The Lady in Red".-Early life:...
and the rock concert promoter Lord Conyngham (formerly Lord Mount Charles) are high-profile descendants of the Ascendancy in Ireland today.
Their later role was portrayed in the 1980s book "Twilight of the Ascendancy" by Mark Bence-Jones
Mark Bence-Jones
Mark Adayre Bence-Jones was a British writer, noted mainly for his books on Irish architecture, the British aristocracy and the British Raj...
.
See also
- Orange InstitutionOrange InstitutionThe Orange Institution is a Protestant fraternal organisation based mainly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, though it has lodges throughout the Commonwealth and United States. The Institution was founded in 1796 near the village of Loughgall in County Armagh, Ireland...
- Plantations of IrelandPlantations of IrelandPlantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland were the confiscation of land by the English crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from England and the Scottish Lowlands....
- Anglo-IrishAnglo-IrishAnglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...
- WilliamiteWilliamiteWilliamite refers to the followers of King William III of England who deposed King James II in the Glorious Revolution. William, the Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, replaced James with the support of English Whigs....
- Suffrage#Religion
- Aristocracy (class)Aristocracy (class)The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
Further reading
- Claydon, Tony and McBride, Ian (Editors). Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650-c. 1850. Cambridge University Press, January 1, 1999. ISBN 0-521620775
- Gregg, Reverend Tresham Dames. Protestant Ascendancy vindicated, and national regeneration, through the instrumentality of national religion, urged; in a series of letters to the Corporation of Dublin. 1840.
- McCormack, W. J. The Dublin Paper War of 1786-1788: A Bibliographical and Critical Inquiry Including an Account of the Origins of Protestant Ascendancy and Its 'Baptism’ in 1792. Irish Academic Press, December 1993. ISBN 0-716525054