ABSTRACT
FROM R. M. SIBBETT, Orangeism in Ireland and throughout the Empire, revised edition, London, 1939, vol. II, pp. 29–31. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in April 1828, and the famous victory of O’Connell in the Clare election of July in the same year—the first an example of religious concession, the second leading to a huge increase in the Irish agitation for Catholic Emancipation—prompted the ‘conversions’ of Wellington and Peel to the solution of introducing a government Relief Bill to Parliament. It was not until January, 1829, that Wellington actually laid the matter before the cabinet, but the events in Ireland had by then already inspired the formation of the Brunswick clubs and the revival of Orangeism in all parts of the United Kingdom. In November 1828, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland issued the following Address ‘to the Protestants of Great Britain’.
