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“As far, then, as the Colonial trade was concerned, Ireland at this time gained nothing whatever by her connection with England. To other countries, however, her ports were still open, and in time of peace a foreign commerce was unrestricted. When forbidden to export their cattle to England, the Irish turned their land chiefly into sheep-walks, and proceeded energetically to manufacture the wool. Some faint traces of this manufacture may be detected from an early period, and Lord Strafford, when governing Ireland, had mentioned it with a characteristic comment. Speaking of the Irish he says, ‘There was little or no manufactures amongst them, but some small beginnings towards a cloth trade, which I had and so should still discourage all I could, unless otherwise directed by His Majesty and their Lordships. It might be feared that they would beat us out of the trade itself by underselling us, which they were able to do.’ With the exception, however, of an abortive effort by this governor, the Irish wool manufacture was in no degree impeded, and was indeed mentioned with special favour in many Acts of Parliament; and it was in a great degree on the faith of this long-continued legislative sanction that it was so greatly expanded. The poverty of Ireland, the low state of civilization of a large proportion of its inhabitants, the effects of the civil wars which had so recently convulsed it, and the exclusion of its products from the English Colonies, were doubtless great obstacles to manufacturing enterprise; but, on the other hand, Irish wool was very good, living was cheaper, taxes were lighter than in England, a spirit of real industrial energy began to pervade the country, and a considerable number of English manufacturers came over to colonize it. There appeared for a time every probability that the Irish would become an industrial nation, and, had manufactures arisen, their whole social, political, and economical condition would have been changed. But English jealousy again interposed. By an Act of crushing and unprecedented severity, which was introduced in 1698 and carried in 1699, the export of the Irish woollen manufactures, not only to England, but also to all other countries, was absolutely forbidden.

“The effects of this measure were terrible almost beyond conception. The main industry of the country was at a blow completely and irretrievably annihilated. A vast population was thrown into a condition of utter destitution. Several thousands of manufacturers left the country, and carried their skill and enterprise to Germany, France, and Spain. The western and southern districts of Ireland are said to have been nearly depopulated. Emigration to America began on a large scale, and the blow was so severe that long after, a kind of chronic famine prevailed.”[33]

Mr. Lecky relates with pride how the penal code was relaxed, and the commercial restrictions were removed, while the Irish Parliament, essentially a Protestant and landlord body, still existed, and shows how the cause of Catholic Emancipation was retarded by the Union.

“The Relief Bill of ’93 naturally suggests a consideration of the question so often agitated in Ireland, whether the Union was really a benefit to the Roman Catholic cause. It has been argued that Catholic Emancipation was an impossibility as long as the Irish Parliament lasted; for in a country where the great majority were Roman Catholics, it would be folly to expect the members of the dominant creed to surrender a monopoly on which their ascendency depended. The arguments against this view are, I believe, overwhelming. The injustice of the disqualification was far more striking before the Union than after it. In the one case, the Roman Catholics were excluded from the Parliament of a nation of which they were the great majority; in the other, they were excluded from the Parliament of an empire in which they were a small minority. Grattan, Plunket, Curran, Burrowes, and Ponsonby were the great supporters of Catholic Emancipation, and the great opponents of the Union. Clare and Duigenan were the two great opponents of emancipation, and the great supporters of the Union. At a time when scarcely any public opinion existed in Ireland, when the Roman Catholics were nearly quiescent, and when the leaning of Government was generally liberal, the Irish Protestants admitted their fellow-subjects to the magistracy, to the jury-box, and to the franchise. By this last measure they gave them an amount of political power which necessarily implied complete emancipation. Even if no leader of genius had arisen in the Roman Catholic ranks, and if no spirit of enthusiasm had animated their councils, the influence possessed by a body who formed three fourths of the population, who were rapidly rising in wealth, and who could send their representatives to Parliament, would have been sufficient to ensure their triumph. If the Irish Legislature had continued, it would have been found impossible to resist the demand for reform; and every reform, by diminishing the overgrown power of a few Protestant landholders, would have increased that of the Roman Catholics. The concession accorded in 1793 was, in fact, far greater and more important than that accorded in 1829, and it placed the Roman Catholics, in a great measure, above the mercy of Protestants. But this was not all. The sympathies of the Protestants were being rapidly enlisted in their behalf. The generation to which Charlemont and Flood belonged had passed away, and all the leading intellects of the country, almost all the Opposition, and several conspicuous members of the Government, were warmly in favour of emancipation. The rancour which at present exists between the members of the two creeds appears then to have been almost unknown, and the real obstacle to emancipation was not the feelings of the people, but the policy of the Government. The Bar may be considered on most subjects a very fair exponent of the educated opinion of the nation; and Wolf Tone observed, in 1792, that it was almost unanimous in favour of the Catholics; and it is not without importance, as showing the tendencies of the rising generation, that a large body of the students of Dublin University in 1795 presented an address to Grattan, thanking him for his labours in the cause. The Roman Catholics were rapidly gaining the public opinion of Ireland, when the Union arrayed against them another public opinion which was deeply prejudiced against their faith, and almost entirely removed from their influence. Compare the twenty years before the Union with the twenty years that followed it, and the change is sufficiently manifest. There can scarcely be a question that if Lord Fitzwilliam had remained in office the Irish Parliament would readily have given emancipation. In the United Parliament for many years it was obstinately rejected, and if O’Connell had never arisen it would probably never have been granted unqualified by the veto. In 1828 when the question was brought forward in Parliament, sixty-one out of ninety-three Irish members, forty-five out of sixty-one Irish county members, voted in its favour. Year after year Grattan and Plunket brought forward the case of their fellow-countrymen with an eloquence and a perseverance worthy of their great cause; but year after year they were defeated. It was not till the great tribune had arisen, till he had moulded his co-religionists into one compact and threatening mass, and had brought the country to the verge of revolution, that the tardy boon was conceded. Eloquence and argument proved alike unavailing when unaccompanied by menace, and Catholic Emancipation was confessedly granted because to withhold it would be to produce a rebellion.”[34]