So passed the greater part of the eighteenth century; and the unhappy country seemed as far off from progress and prosperity as ever.

CHAPTER VI.

The earlier part of the reign of George III.  The acquisition of independence by the Irish parliament.

When we come to the reign of George III we have arrived at a specially interesting period of Irish history.  For we are no longer dealing with a state of society that has wholly passed away; the great events that occurred towards the close of the eighteenth century are continually referred to as bearing, at least by analogy, on the questions of the present day.  It is for the honest historian to examine how far that analogy is real, and how far it is delusive.

For some time after the accession of George III, the state of Ireland was almost as miserable as before.  Trade and manufactures being nearly crushed out, want of employment brought the people in the towns to the brink of starvation.  In the country, although the middle classes were on the whole becoming more prosperous, the condition of the labourers and cottiers was wretched in the extreme.  It is not to be wondered at therefore that we now hear of the commencement of two movements which were destined later on to play so important a part in the history of Ireland—­the agitation against the payment of tithes and the rise of secret societies.  Few men at the present day could be found who would attempt to justify the tithe system as it prevailed in the eighteenth century.  It was not merely that the starving peasantry were forced to contribute towards the maintenance of a religion in which they did not believe, but the whole manner of levying and collecting the tithes was bad; and what made them still more annoying was the fact that the clergy never thought of performing the duties for which tithes were supposed to exist; the large majority of the rectors did not even reside in their parishes.  The principal secret societies were the Oakboys and the Steelboys of the north, and the Whiteboys of the south.  The northern societies soon came to an end; but the organization of the Whiteboys continued to spread, and for a time it assumed alarming proportions.  Commencing as a war against tithe proctors, the enclosure of commons, and the substitution of grazing land for tillage, they went on to commit outrages of various sorts, and something like a reign of terror spread over a large tract of country.  But it may safely be said that generally speaking their conduct was not nearly so violent as that of other secret societies of a later date; and the evidence of any foreign influence being at work, or of religious animosity being connected with the movement, is slight.

It is interesting to observe that, whenever there was a violent and abnormal outbreak of crime, the Irish Parliament did not hesitate to pass special laws to meet the case.  Such measures as the Whiteboy Act of 1787, or the Insurrection Act and the Habeas Corpus Suppression Act of 1796, which were readily passed whilst the Irish Parliament was completely independent, are frequently referred to by modern agitators as amongst the brutal Coercion Acts which the tyranny of England has forced on an innocent people.