The Impact of the American Revolution on Ireland - Term Paper Example

The Impact of the American Revolution on Ireland Introduction For hundreds of years, Ireland suffered the religious, economic and territorial oppression of England. Great Britain claimed Ireland as its internal colony and had imposed upon it measures that encroached upon the latter’s inherent rights to sovereignty and self-determination. Worse, the British marginalised the majority of the Irish people by forcing its own secular preference over them through oppressive measures meant to compel the Irish to switch and embrace British religious preference. Even those who were forced to subsequently embrace the secular desire of the British and the English settlers eventually realised the oppressive and tyrannical rule of the Crown. Chief among the issues leveled against British were lack of legislative and economic freedom. In the mid 1770s, a group of people similarly situated in another continent initiated a revolution that made an impact on Ireland and the Irish. A series of events in the American colonies, driven by a chain of legislations issued by the British Parliament, gave birth to the American Revolution, a movement that ultimately aimed to seek complete independence from British rule. The American Revolution was significant to the Irish protests at home because of the parallelisms posed by the situation of the thirteen colonies and the Irish. The Revolution served as an inspiration, a form of leverage and an opportunity to the Irish patriots to compel the British to give in to their demands for legislative and economic freedom. Anglo-Irish Relations Before the American Revolution In 1171, the Anglo-Irish connection was formally established when King Henry II of England personally came to Ireland, although contact between them began earlier. Ireland, thereafter, was bestowed to the English Crown and immediately after English settlers began to trickle into the Irish territory to settle into the Crown’s new acquisition bringing with them their culture, institutions, laws and other influences. There was a subsequent grant of lordships from kings to sons with a constant stipulation of Ireland being a part of England until in 1521; King Henry IV adopted the title “King of Ireland.” Ireland was a source of wealth, and exploited as such by England. 1 By the time Henry VIII took over, Ireland was brought totally under the control of the English Crown, which subsequent monarchs reinforced it by introducing systems that further strengthened English’s hold on Ireland like doling out parcels of lands to English settlers and replacing Catholicism with Protestantism. English and Scottish Protestants streamed into Ireland in large numbers as a result that by the 18th century, the Irish Catholics were left with only one-seventh of the nation’s land to own. 2 The territorial and religious incursion by the English into Ireland sowed the seeds of Irish resentment against English dominion. There was a palpable underlying strain in Irish and English relations. Irish priests encouraged the people to resist the English and the latter retaliated by dissolving monasteries and selling the lands to sympathetic followers. Mary went to the extent of having English troops removed natives from their lands and giving the lands to English settlers. 3 The English rule over Ireland was punctuated by periodic revolts, which became symptomatic of the general Irish resistance of English dominion. Even the Irish Protestants, much like the American colonists, resented English rule. Irish desire for freedom had been simmering during much of the Anglo-Norman rule in Ireland. 4 In 1598, an English colony in Ireland was attacked by the Irish and was destroyed. In 1642, another Irish uprising erupted and went on until 1649 when Oliver Cromwell, a commander of the Royal Army, came into Ireland and brutally crushed it. He sent local settlers to the poor part of the country and gave their lands to the English soldiers. 5 When William of Holland succeeded the English throne after his marriage to the daughter of James II, a Catholic, in 1688, things turned for the worse. Ruthless laws were passed that were meant to marginalise the Catholics and Catholicism and compelled the Irish Catholics to convert to Protestantism. They were prohibited from owning guns, lands and big forces, getting education, and involving in politics. A conversion to Protestantism meant enjoying things that were deprived of the Catholics. The Irish Catholics reacted in three different ways: some gave in, others left Ireland and still others resisted. 6 The American Revolution and Its Origin Meanwhile, in another part of the world, a brewing rebellion against Great Britain was shaping up. Tension was building up in England’s colonies in the America as a result of a series of measures adopted by England to raise revenues. Great Britain had just ended the Seven Years War with France and although, together with its allies, had been victorious, England found itself in financial disarray as a result of the costs of the war. These measures were: Proclamation 1763 issued in October 7, 1763 which prohibited settlers from going beyond west of the Appalachian Mountains for the purpose of cutting costs in defending the territory as well as stabilising relationships with the American Indians; the writs of assistance, which empowered the conduct of raids on warehouses, homes, and ships of the colonists suspected of violating the Navigation Acts; the Sugar Act, which placed a tax on every gallon of molasses exported to Britain; the Currency Act, which prohibited the further printing of money; the Quartering Act called for colonial citizens to shoulder the board and lodging of British troops; the Stamp Act, which proposed to affix a stamp on every paper good sold within the colony; the Townshend Act, which levied import duties on certain specific goods; the so-called Intolerable Acts consisting of the Boston Port Act, which closed the Boston port to shipping, the Massachusetts Government Act, which empowered the Crown to appoint all Massachusetts officials, the Administration of Justice Act, which moved the trial of officers involved in the Boston Massacre to another colony, a new Quartering Act, and the Quebec Act, which expanded the Canadian colony into the American colonies. 7 These measures paved the way for open acts of defiance against Britain like an attack against an admiralty court, looting of a court of justice’s home, attacks on British troops guarding a customs house in Boston resulting in their massacre, and an attack against the Royal Navy chasing a boat suspected of engaging in smuggling. The colonists convened on September 5, 1774. Attended by 12 of the 13 colonies, the representatives decided to impose a boycott on all British goods, and West Indies goods if they did not stop importing to Britain, and threatened to stop exporting altogether to Britain if the Intolerable Acts were not revoked. There was a considerable decrease in importation of British goods. In 1775, the Royal Governor assigned in Boston ordered a series raid of raids against colonial militias to disarm them but colonial forces resisted and engaged them in a battle. Thus, the American Revolution, to last for eight years, culminated. 8 The Impact of the American Revolution on Ireland The American Revolution had a significant impact on Ireland and the Irish people. This was not surprising considering that there were parallelisms between conditions in Ireland and the American colonies, except for the fact that the oppression in Ireland not only preceded but also exceeded that of the latter. Both were mired in a state of destabilisation in the 1760s. In that decade, both had seen tremendous economic growth albeit intermittently; both experienced unbridled population increase; both went through significant emigration movement after the British-French war; both experienced the growth of participative politics and the emergence of an identifiable public perspective, and; both were being underpinned by simmering social dissent. 9 There were however, deeper reasons that bound the Irish to the colonists. Thousands of Irish immigrants had settled in the American colonies before the revolution broke out. In addition, the American dissenters had previously cultivated warm relations with the Irish. Irishmen were in the forefront of the American Revolution. Success of Irish migration to the colonies before 1750 had encouraged many more to sail for the Americas in 1754-1755, numbering about a quarter of a million from the northern part of the country and a lesser of that number from the south. These Irish immigrants brought with them their hatred for the British government and during the revolution of the 13 colonies, actively participated and formed the backbone of George Washington’s Army. 10 The presence of their compatriots in the colonies, made the Irish at home “overwhelmingly pro-American.” 11 The long years of British oppression on Ireland naturally built up deep-seated resentment against the British. When the American Revolution broke out, the Irish sympathy unsurprisingly was with the American colonies. The Irish, like the colonists, had also been deprived of legislating, in accordance with the Poyning’s Law, since 300 years earlier. The resistance against the Stamp Act of 1975, for example, found sympathy in Ireland. Its subsequent revocation through the Declaratory Act in 1766, which contained and reiterated British Parliamentary supremacy over the American colonies, was a word-for-word copy of the 1719 Declaratory Act passed by the British Parliament and imposed against Ireland. 12 From the time the British had imposed the Stamp Tax on the American colonies, Ireland grew wary that the tax measure was also a precursor to an imposition of a similar measure in their territory. After all, the British had quite made it clear that the supremacy of the British Parliament over the American colonies was similar to its power over the Irish Parliament. Thus, the Irish public had followed the developments in America closely from day one, albeit quietly and dispassionately. 13 Like the Americans, the Irish rejected the supremacy of the Crown in the Parliament although their stand was deemed to be more radical than that of the Americans. While the colonists subscribed to the idea that the British Parliament cannot impose on them without their own representatives in the said Parliament, the Irish believed that the Irish Parliament itself should have limited powers, and that Great Britain and Ireland were kingdoms that were separate and equal.14 To the American colonists, Ireland itself represented a strategic importance. It was “at once a precedent and a political convert, a diplomatic diversion and a military decoy, a target of economic pressure to exert pressure in its turn on Britain and a most favored nation embodying hope of future commercial profit.” 15 To illustrate this importance, the American colonists adopted John Adams’ People of Ireland address in July 1775, an address that failed to elucidate which sector of Ireland, viz. the Irish Catholics or the Irish Protestants, it was intended for. Thus, the Irish interpreted it in accordance to the situation they were at that time. The Irish Protestants were the most rabid defenders of the American Revolution because George III and the Prime Minister, Lord North were seen as soft on the Irish Catholics and prolonging their reign might mean the easing of penal laws against the Catholics. In addition, the Quebec Act which prohibited the movement of colonists west of the Appalachian Mountains meant property loss to those that hoped to be granted land rights in the Americas. To the Irish Catholics, the American Revolution was welcome because they were dissatisfied with the Irish Constitution, which favored the Protestants and oppressed them. In this sense, the American Revolution to the Irish was about sectarianism and religion. 16 The American Revolution became leverage for the Irish to call for the readjustment of constitutional relationship between Ireland and Great Britain as well as an opportunity to make significant amendments in the relationship between the Irish Parliament and the Irish people. The success of the American Revolution was an inspiration that emboldened that Irish spirit so that the toast “A fourth and fourteenth July to Ireland: we will die to achieve them” became the favorite of the Irish patriots. They took advantage of the situation by demanding the changes they had all been fighting for hundreds of years. The first of such opportunity came when the Irish regiment was pulled out of Ireland by the British and sent to America to help resist the American Revolution. Their pull out resulted in fewer resources that could prevent and ward off incidents like the one in 1778 where a privateer broke-in into Belfast Lough and took a Royal Navy ship. The inability of the viceroy to provide protection to the people and the restlessness of the public who persistently clamoured for changes forced the British to consider ceding to some of them. 17 In 1779, the Irish began to glimpse victory. The movement for change was led by a group called the Irish Volunteers, a militia spearheaded by Henry Grattan, Henry Flood and the earl of Charlemont, all Anglican Irish Parliamentarians. The group drew forty thousand volunteer members within a year that fanned themselves out to the public to educate and inform them. Finally, King George III gave in to many of the demands by lifting many restrictions imposed on Irish trade, relaxing many provisions of the Penal Law, allowing the Catholics to own lands after a century of prohibition through the Gardiner’s Act of 1778, repealing the Test Act, which prohibited political dissenters from participating in political exercises, revoking the much-detested Poyning’s Law and the 1719 Declaratory Act, two of the primary demands of the Irish patriots, and in 1783, giving up completely British prerogative to legislate for Ireland through the Renunciation Act. 18 Despite the political victory of the Irish catalysed by the American Revolution, not all of Ireland was in high spirits. The victory was won by the Protestant Ascendancy, constituted by the large landowners, Irish professionals, and the Protestant clergy, who, with the exception of Grattan, refused to share the rights they gained to the Catholics and other dissenters who were not members of their group. It would take another rebellion for Irish Catholics and other dissenters to gain certain rights and freedoms in the late 18th century. 19 The area in the Irish life upon which the American Revolution impacted more greatly, however, was the economy. As earlier discussed, the British had imposed restrictions on Irish trade to ensure that custom taxes went properly to the British coffers. Irish export trade, prior to the American Revolution, was in a severe slump because of the reevaluation of the Irish currency due to causes like war, harvest failures, and the steady drop in foreign trade. There was only one trade going for the Irish and it was the linen trade and such products as beef and butter which had high demand in the colonies. In 1776, the British government imposed a general embargo on the provision trade except to Britain itself, which made Ireland entirely dependent on Britain. 20 The embargo extended to linen, cattle and all other trade significant to the Irish and was specifically imposed on exports to France and the Americas. Although, most provisions like beef and pork were successfully smuggled, the linen trade which made up a quarter of the Irish trade greatly suffered. The embargo so affected the Irish economy that it temporarily replaced, from 1777 to 1778, religious discussions and politics, as the favorite subject of the Irish. 21 In the same manner that the Volunteers pressed for the repeals of various laws pertaining to the legislative encroachment of the British on Irish sovereignty, the group also lobbied successfully for the lifting of the embargo and allowing free trade. Pressured externally by the ongoing battle in the American colonies and the persistent clamour nearby, the British government was forced to cede important economic terms in favor of Ireland. 22 Conclusion The American Revolution served as an inspiration, a form of leverage and an opportunity for the Irish patriots to get the attention of the British and cede to their primary demands. Working on the theory that the British cannot successfully wage a war on two fronts, the Irish patriots took advantage of the temporary weakness of the British brought about by the demands of the revolution in the other continent to pressure it to repeal the hideous Poyning’s Law, which subsumed the Irish Parliament under the authority and power of the English Parliament. The group also successfully pressured Britain to repeal the 1719 Declaratory Act, which made Ireland subordinate to the British Crown. Albeit the political concessions granted to the Irish patriots did not make the entire Irish people happy considering that the patriots were made up mostly of the Protestant ascendancy, these concessions, nevertheless, were the beginnings of genuine reforms that will ultimately lead to more significant and meaningful ones as the years and centuries progressed. In addition, the American Revolution was pivotal in freeing the economic trade of Ireland as the pre-occupation of the British with the war overseas had made them more susceptible to the pressure from the Irish patriots to liberate economic trade in Ireland. References Aptheker, Herbert. The American Revolution, 1763-1783: A History of the American People: An interpretation. International Publishers Co, 1960. Barlett, Thomas & Jeffrey, Keith. A Military History of Ireland. Cambridge University Press, 1997. Barnard, Toby Christopher. Cromwellian Ireland: English Government and Reform in Ireland 1649-1660. 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