To Hell or Connacht

Country Life in 18^th Century Ireland

By: H. Daniel Ropp

The 18^th Century cast a dark shadow over Catholic Ireland. The upheaval in land ownership which took place during the previous century had a major effect throughout the country.

As a result of the confiscations of land owned by Irish and “old English” families, only one-seventh of Irish land was in Catholic hands by 1702. The difficulties of the surviving Catholic proprietors were considerable. By law, they could not buy land; upon the death of the father, lands were divided equally among the sons, unless one turned Protestant, then he automatically became the heir of the total property. Catholics were forbidden to purchase land, but could lease as much as two acres of land for up to 31 years, as long as the land was not worth more than 30 shillings rent per year. Catholics were forbidden to own a horse of a value greater than 5£. A Protestant was legally entitled to take possession of any horse owned by a Catholic, simply by paying 5£, whether the Catholic liked it or not. They could not vote, hold public office, and serve in the military and above all were forbidden to practice their Catholic religion and were compelled to attend Protestant worship. Priests and Catholic school masters were banned and hunted with bloodhounds.

These “Penal Laws,” originally enacted during the reign of Henry VIII, and re-enacted after the Siege of Limerick, were a determined effort by the English to subdue and subject the Irish and to finally crush Catholicism.

The poverty of the “mere Irish” at the beginning of the 18^th Century is almost indescribable. Penal laws forbid Catholics from living in a corporate town or within five miles thereof. The majority of the Irish Catholics existed as cottiers, or tenants-at-will, with no rights or security. Cottiers were the manual labor force of the country side. Their employers were farmers, large and small. Their standard of living was the lowest in Ireland, their diet being the potato. An enquiry made for the period for tax purposes, recorded that of 184,000 houses in Ireland, only 24,000 had a chimney or two---the rest had none. Cottiers lived in dwellings which were crude mud shacks with roofs of thatched straw.

The Irish lived in a perverted atmosphere where the economic level was probably the lowest in Europe. Dean Swift, writing in 1727, speaks of “the miserable dress and diet and dwelling of the people---the families of farmers who pay high rents, living in filth upon sour milk and potatoes, not a shoe or stocking to their feet, or a home so convenient as an English hog sty to receive them.”

The legal discrimination against Catholics was complex. The cottiers had to pay heavy rents for their small plots furthermore they were taxed. They had to pay a hearth tax as well as tithes to the Established (Anglican) Church. They were forced to contribute to the support of Protestant parsons, whose religious teachings they often died to resist rather than accept. After a generation or two of intense persecution, the Penal Laws were gradually modified removing most of the civil and some of the political restrictions against Catholics. In 1778, Catholics were allowed to hold long leases and in 1782, to purchase land. In 1793, the professions were opened and Catholics acquired the right to vote, although not the right to hold public office.

Complete freedom did not come to Irish Catholics until 1829 with the enactment of Catholic Emancipation.