ABSTRACT
The Whig government were prepared to try to restore order in Ireland, but in 1833 they passed an act to remodel the Church in Ireland and to reduce the number of its bishoprics. To many churchmen this was sacrilege for it meant that a secular body, Parliament, was mangling the consecrated order of an ecclesiastical body. The fact that such a bitterly resented grievance as the imposition of a compulsory church rate should remain a possibility till after 1867 is eloquent testimony to the real location of power between the Reform Acts. The political results of the Reform Act had been to loosen the ties between Church and State. A number of people felt that the admission of Roman Catholics to Parliament was a betrayal of the moral basis of the British constitution which till that date had been based on the identity of Church and State.
