Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland

During the eighteenth century, the majority of Ireland's population were impoverished Catholic peasants, politically inactive due to severe economic and political penalties that led many of their leaders to convert to Protestantism. Despite this, a cultural awakening among Catholics was beginning to stir. The Protestant population in Ireland was divided into two main groups: the Presbyterians in Ulster, who, despite better economic conditions, held little political power, and the Anglo-Irish, who were members of the Anglican Church of Ireland and held significant power, controlling most of the farmland worked by Catholic peasants. Many Anglo-Irish were absentee landlords loyal to England, but those who resided in Ireland increasingly identified as Irish nationalists and resented English control, with figures like Jonathan Swift and Edmund Burke advocating for more local autonomy.

The Jacobite resistance in Ireland ended with the Battle of Aughrim in July 1691. In the aftermath, the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy enforced the Penal Laws more rigorously to prevent future Catholic uprisings. This Protestant minority, about 5% of the population, controlled major sectors of the Irish economy, the legal system, local government, and held a strong majority in the Irish Parliament. Distrusting both the Presbyterians and Catholics, they relied on the British government to maintain their dominance.

Ireland's economy suffered under absentee landlords who managed estates poorly, focusing on export rather than local consumption. Severe winters during the Little Ice Age led to the famine of 1740-1741, killing around 400,000 people and causing 150,000 to emigrate. The Navigation Acts imposed tariffs on Irish goods, further straining the economy, although the century was relatively peaceful compared to previous ones, and the population doubled to over four million.

By the eighteenth century, the Anglo-Irish ruling class saw Ireland as their native country. Led by Henry Grattan, they sought better trading terms with Britain and greater legislative independence for the Irish Parliament. While some reforms were achieved, more radical proposals for Catholic enfranchisement stalled. Catholics gained the right to vote in 1793 but could not yet sit in Parliament or hold government positions. Influenced by the French Revolution, some Irish Catholics sought more militant solutions.

Ireland was a separate kingdom ruled by the British monarch through the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. From 1767, a strong Viceroy, George Townshend, centralized control, with major decisions made in London. The Irish Ascendancy secured laws in the 1780s making the Irish Parliament more effective and independent, though still under the king's supervision. Presbyterians and other dissenters also faced persecution, leading to the formation of the Society of the United Irishmen in 1791. Initially seeking parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, they later pursued a non-sectarian republic through force. This culminated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, which was brutally suppressed and prompted the Acts of Union 1800, abolishing the Irish Parliament and integrating Ireland into the United Kingdom from January 1801.

The period from 1691 to 1801, often called "the long peace," was relatively free of political violence compared to the previous two centuries. However, the era began and ended with conflict. By its end, the Protestant Ascendancy's dominance was challenged by a more assertive Catholic population. The Acts of Union 1800 marked the end of Irish self-government, creating the United Kingdom. The violence of the 1790s shattered hopes of overcoming sectarian divisions, with Presbyterians distancing themselves from Catholic and radical alliances. Under Daniel O'Connell, Irish nationalism became more exclusively Catholic, while many Protestants, seeing their status tied to the Union with Britain, became staunch unionists.