Alpha Book

[Sidenote: Ireland]
A few words should be said in explanation of the political status of
Ireland under the British crown. The English kings had begun their
conquests in that island as far back as the twelfth century; and by
dint of much bloodshed and many efforts they had long maintained
possession. In the seventeenth century Oliver Cromwell had put down a
bitter revolt and had encouraged Protestant English and Scotch
immigrants to settle in the north and east, taking the land from the
native Irishmen, who were Roman Catholics. An Irish parliament had
existed since the middle ages, but from the close of the fifteenth
century its acts to be valid required the approval of the English Privy
Council, and from the middle of the seventeenth century Roman Catholics
were debarred from it. In 1782, however, while Great Britain was
engaged in the War of American Independence, the Protestants in Ireland
secured the right to make most of their own laws, and ten years later
the Catholic disqualifications were removed.


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