Prepared by Parade Historian: Gary Duncan
History of Ireland in the 18th Century that the object of the Penal Laws was fourfold:
1. To deprive the Catholics of all civil life
2. To reduce them to a condition of most extreme and brutal ignorance
3. To dissociate them from the soil
4. To expirate (cause to expire) the Race.
The Irish Catholic was forbidden the exercise of his religion.
He was forbidden to receive education,
He was forbidden to enter a profession.
He was forbidden to hold public office.
He was forbidden to engage in trade or commerce.
He was forbidden to live in a corporate town or within five miles thereof.
He was forbidden to own a horse of greater value than five pounds.
He was forbidden to purchase land.
He was forbidden to lease land.
He was forbidden to accept a mortgage on land in security for a loan.
He was forbidden to vote.
He was forbidden to keep any arms for his protection.
He was forbidden to hold a life annuity.
He was forbidden to buy land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to receive a gift of land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to inherit land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to inherit anything from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to rent any land that was worth more than thirty shillings a year.
He was forbidden to reap from his land any profit exceeding a third of the rent.
He could not be guardian to a child.
He could not, when dying, leave his infant children under Catholic guardianship.
He could not attend Catholic worship.
He was compelled by law to attend Protestant worship.
He could not himself educate his child.
He could not send his child to a Catholic teacher.
He could not employ a Catholic teacher to come to his child.
He could not send his child abroad to receive education.
With 80% of Ireland being Catholic, the Penal laws were put into place to degrade the Irish so severely that they would never again be in a position to seriously threaten Protestant Rule. In 1600, Protestants owned just 10% of the land. By 1778, Protestants owned 95%of the land. Various Penal Laws remained in effect for 140 yrs until Catholic pation quickly.
‘Gentlemen, you may soon have the alternative to live as slaves or die as free men,” from his speech in Mallow, Cork, Ireland 1843
Why Do We March? We march because we can, because there was a time, not so very long ago, when we could not!
Emancipation occurred in 1829, largely through the efforts of The Liberator, and, “The Great Emancipator,” Daniel O’Connell. In 1823, O’Connell founded the Catholic Association, whose aim was to use all legal means available to secure emanci