Introduction

The project for a legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland was brought forward, at the end of the eighteenth century, primarily as a means of strengthening the British connection at a time when French revolutionary principles appeared to be making progress in Ireland. Concessions to the Catholics need not endanger the Protestant character of the constitution. The massive power of patronage and political influence was brought skilfully into play and the Irish Parliament, after an initial resistance, agreed to its own extinction. In Ireland, the eighteen-forties were characterised, in political terms, by a body with specifically Irish aims, the Loyal National Repeal Association, which sought the repeal of the legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland and the restoration of an Irish Parliament under the Crown. The landlord most certainly had a place in O’Connell’s world and indeed in that of the great majority of his associates, including the Young Irelanders.