ABSTRACT
It is natural to shrink from the task before us, of contemplating Ireland at the commencement and during the term of Lord Mulgrave’s (presently Lord Normanby’s) Administration. Under the hourly pressing sense of what Ireland is now, – under the bitter and humbling disappointment of all hopes, and the visitation of new fears which are but too like despair, – it is natural to look into the past with shrinking and pain. When it appeared that Catholic emancipation had not tranquillized Ireland, the opponents of that emancipation were occupied with their triumph, and with their preparations to keep down the Catholics by all means, political and social, yet left in their power; but the advocates of the emancipation were driven to consider why it was that the measure appeared to have done so little. Some believed gross political corruption to be the chief curse, and proposed a registration of voters as a means for the discouragement of political profligacy.
