The Catholic Emancipation Crisis in Ireland, 1823-1829.

224 Pages·1970·13.207 MB·English

by  James A. Reynolds

roe o
THE CATHOLIC
EMANCIPATION CRISIS
IN IRELAND, 1823-1829
BY JAMES A. REYNOLDS
S
GREENWOOD PRESS, PUBLISHERS
WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT
Theology Library
SCHOOE TOHEOLL C ay
AT CLAREMONT
California
Copyright 1954 by Yale University Press
Reprinted with the permission
of Yale University Press
First Greenwood Reprinting 1970
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 74-95134
SBN 8371-3141-3
Printed in the United States of America
DOMINO EMINENTI
ESTRONGQUE BENIGNO
FRANCISCO CARDINALI SPELLMAN
D. Dz. OD.
AUCTOR

Preface
Fw political movements have exercised such profound influence
on the history of modern Ireland or, indeed, on the constitutional
and political development of 19th-century England as the Irish
struggle for Catholic Emancipation in the years 1823-29. This
judgment, first a surmise engendered by my reading of late Brit-
__ ish history, assumed increased validity in the course of researches
in Ireland and in England into the activities of Daniel O’Connell
and the Catholic Association. I think it warrants exposition. The
study in hand, therefore, is an attempt to show how a pressure
group, of surprising proportions and clamor, not only forced from
a reluctant British government a major constitutional reform
but also, and perhaps more significantly, became the prototype
for subsequent agitations in Ireland.
My gratitude in the first instance, for his understanding and
generosity in affording me leisure to pursue this investigation, is
due my ordinary, Francis Cardinal Spellman, archbishop of New
York. More proximate to the historical problem is Professor Lewis
Curtis of Yale. He first suggested the research, was its inspiration
in labor, sponsored its baptism as a doctoral dissertation, and has
seen its confirmation as a book. Others who have made constructive
criticism of the manuscript are Professors William Dunham,
Archibald Foord, and Basil Henning, all of Yale, and John Kelle-
her of Harvard.
_ Farther afield my thanks go to the archbishop of Dublin, the
* Most Reverend John McQuaid, for permission to search among
the collections of “Catholic Proceedings” in the Dublin archdio-
cesan archives, to Professor John Wardell, late of Trinity College,
Dublin, for use of the journal of G. E. Ross-Lewin, to Professor
R. B. McDowell, also of Trinity, and to Mr. Maurice O’Connell.
The staffs of the following institutions have also given gracious
assistance: the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale, the Irish State
Paper Office, the National Library of Ireland, the Royal Irish
viii CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION CRISIS IN IRELAND
Academy, the library of University College, Dublin, the British
Museum, the Public Record Office, London, and the archives of the
Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, Rome.
For permission to reprint material from their copyright books
I am indebted to E. P. Dutton and Co., publishers of Sir Herbert
Maxwell, ed., T'he Creevey Papers, and to Methuen and Co., Ltd.,
publishers of Edmund Curtis and R. B. McDowell, eds., Irish
Historical Documents, 1172-1922.
Finally I am grateful to the editorial board of the Yale His-
torical Publications, to members of the Yale University Press, and
in particular to Miss Ella Holliday for her painstaking work in
styling the manuscript.
J. A. R.