The Irish Jacobites defeated
James II, who acceded to the throne upon the death of his brother Charles II in 1685 was a Catholic. He took steps towards easing the plight of his coreligionists with the promulgation of two Declarations of Indulgence on 4 and 27 April 1688. Such acts, which granted liberty of conscience and of religion to all his subjects, exasperated the Protestants who saw in it a first step towards the re-establishment of “papism”, abhorred throughout the country. When on 10 June his queen, Mary of Modena[1] gave birth to a Catholic male heir, James Francis Edward, some Anglican bishops, nobles and officers promptly got in touch with William III of Orange[2] Stadtholder[3] of the United Provinces who, to their way of thinking, enjoyed the twin assets of being James' son in law and a Protestant. William came to the rescue, disembarking in the south of England on 16 November 1688 ; he marched into London as James sought refuge in France, accepted the Declaration of Rights voted by parliament on 24 February1689 that confirmed him as the new king of England. These events make up what in English historiography is referred to as the Glorious Revolution.
Catholic Ireland, in fear of Calvinist William, stood by James II. Accordingly, she served as the base whence the deposed monarch hoped to regain a foothold in Great Britain. James II landed in Kinsale in March 1689, confident in the support of the Lord Deputy, Richard Talbot[4], Earl of Tyrconnell. His partisans, known as the Jacobites, took over the Island where the Protestants hung on to only two cities : Enniskillen and Londonderry, unsuccessfully besieged until the beginning of the summer of 1689. They faced the Williamite force which landed two contingents, one urged on by Schomberg and the other led by William himself. The Catholic and Protestant armies clashed on the banks of the Boyne on 12 July 1690 and fought a battle each camp accepted as Divine Judgment: 36,000 Williamites crushed 25,000 Jacobite loyalists. This victory bestowed on the new English regime a robust legitimacy. Demoralised Jacobites fell back :they lost Cork and Kinsale during the autumn of 1690 and the last combatants retreated west of the Shanon where they were defeated on 12 July 1691 at Aughrim Hill. Their last strongholds capitulated shortly thereafter, Galway on 21 July and Limerick in October. The Williamites had the upper hand to conclude the Treaty of Limerick (October 1691). They conceded religious tolerance for the Catholics and allowed some 12.000 loyalist soldiers to leave Ireland along with 10,000 women and children and go and settle in France. These exiles, who became known as the Wild Geese, are to be added to the 4/5,000 Jacobite soldiers the French enrolled in the Irish Brigade that would serve the Bourbon kings until 1791.
The Catholics remaining in Ireland are once again subjected to the victor's law. They are excluded from the Irish Parliament as they had been from 1652 to 1662 – and as are Catholics in England since 1678. They are the target of an Anglican missionary drive. Starting from 1695, the Penal Laws single out Catholic leaders, not for the purpose of religious unification but for that of political and social domination, potentially leading to a growth in Protestant adherence. These laws forbid these leading families to send their children abroad to study (1695), and seek to deprive the Irish from their church leadership. They officially prohibit, from 1697 and for close on a century bishops and Clerks Regular – that is priests belonging to a religious order, e.g the Jesuits – tolerating no more than one priest per parish. In principle as the churches are the preserve of the Anglican Church alone, masses are said in make-shift chapels, private homes, indeed in the open air. However the bishops returned in secret and Irish priests would still be trained in seminaries in Douai, Lille, Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux. Poyning's Law was upheld and the 1704 Test Act[5] excluded Catholics and Dissenters from the army, the militia, central and local administrations and the bench. The Whig[6] government who ruled England directly after the Glorious Revolution was intent on keeping the papists and non Anglican Protestants they called Dissenters off public office. In the field of trade, the English keep a close eye on potential competition from Ireland. In 1699, Parliament forbids Irish cloth producers to export their wares anywhere but in England where they are charged prohibitive tariffs.
The measures adopted did not affect the Catholics alone, they also applied to Ulster Presbyterians. The great beneficiaries of this legislation are the Anglo-Irish land owners, Anglicans for the most part who form the Protestant Ascendancy[7]. Thus, the Anglo-Irish reinforced their power. Further land confiscation and a fresh Irish exodus caused a fall in Catholic land ownership : it fell to 14% in 1703 then to 5% in 1776. After 1688, London quit organising plantations, but the tens of thousands of Scots forced by famine from their native Lowlands come to settle in Ulster. It is in this period that the Protestants, Presbyterians for the most part, became the main community in Ulster. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), some 10,000 Huguenots moved to Ireland, mostly Dublin. Thus was Irish society then divided in three communities : the Anglican and English speaking Protestant Ascendency – a minority group that wields economic and political power – the Ulster Presbyterians and the Catholic Gaelic majority.
