tholics belong in general to the poorer classes. The ownership of nearly the entire land of Ireland is in the hands of Protestants; even in those parts of the country where nearly the entire population is Roman Catholic.

The system of penal laws against Catholicism, established in Ireland after the Revolution, appears to have had no effect in diminishing the numbers of the Roman Catholics as compared with those of the Protestants. Sir W. Petty, in the reign of Charles II., estimated the ratio of Protestants to Roman Catholics at three to eight; and the same proportion appears in the returns of the hearth-money collectors for 1732-3*. The general impression in Ireland, at the end of the last century, seems to have been, that the ratio of Protestants to Roman Catholics was nearly the same as at the end of the previous century. Thus Wolfe Tone (Life, p. 53), in speaking of the events of 1790, reckons the members of the Established Church as one-tenth of the population, the Protestant Dissenters at least twice as numerous as the members of the Established Church, while the Catholics "were above two-thirds of the nation, and formed perhaps a still greater proportion;" that is, Protestants were about three-tenths, and Catholics about seven-tenths of the community, or Protestants were to Catholics as three to seven. In an interview with Carnot (p. 143), Tone stated that the Catholics were 3,000,000, and the Dissenters 900,000; the latter of which numbers is a palpable exaggeration, inasmuch as the number of Presbyterians returned by the Commissioners for the past

* See Newenham's Inquiry into the Population of Ireland, sect. 16, and Edinburgh Review, No. cxxiv. p. 514.

year is under 650,000. The Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry, in a reply to an Address of the Volunteers in 1784, reckons the Protestants at 1,000,000, and the Catholics at only 2,000,000*. The population of Ireland in 1791 is estimated by Dr. Beaufort at 4,088,000 †; and we shall probably not be mistaken in supposing that the Protestants were at this time about 1,000,000, that is, one-fourth, and that consequently the Catholics were about three-fourths of this number. The ratio of Catholics to Protestants in Ireland has therefore gone on regularly increasing from the period of the Revolution at the beginning of the last century it was as eight to three; at the end of the century as three to one, or as nine to three; and in 1834 it was as four to one, or as twelve to three.

Although there may in some cases have been conversions to Catholicism, and small Protestant colonies may, through the neglect of their pastors, have merged into the surrounding Catholic population‡, yet the main

*"1,000,000 of divided Protestants can never, in the scale of human government, be a counterpoise against 2,000,000 of united Catholics."Plowden's Hist. Review, vol. ii. part i. p. 321. The political nullity of the Catholics at this period naturally led to the underrating of their numerical force. Arthur Young, Part II. p. 35, speaks, in 1780, of “an aristocracy of five hundred thousand Protestants crushing the industry of two millions of poor Catholics." He probably does not here include Presbyterians under Protestants, as he says elsewhere that “the common idea is that there are something under three millions in Ireland.”—Ib. p. 62.

Mr. M'Culloch thinks 374,700 a more probable number.-H. C. Report on State of Ireland, 1825, p. 808.

See Newenham's Inquiry into the Population of Ireland, p. 314.— Sir John Newport also makes a statement to the same effect to the Lords' Committee on the State of Ireland in 1825 :-" I am quite sure (he sas) that the Catholic population has increased with very great rapidity, as contradistinguished from the Protestant, in the country parts of Ireland with which I am best acquainted; and I believe that, at this

cause of this disproportionate increase of the two persuasions is doubtless to be sought in the circumstances above mentioned, as determining the different rates of multiplication for the upper and lower classes. The Catholic agricultural population, made reckless by the law, were exempt from the operation of those moral considerations which are the great checks to population, and which never ceased to act with considerable force on the Protestant part of the population. The influence of the Roman Catholic clergy is likewise supposed to have been strongly exerted to encourage early marriages; partly, it is said, on account of their fees on baptisms and weddings; partly for the sake of pre

moment, the difference between the one and the other would be infinitely greater than it is, were it not that the Protestant population is kept up in some degree in the towns. I could point out whole districts of country in which there were, within my memory, persons who were engaged in the cultivation of land, who were Protestants, but who have become Catholics; and that to a degree at an earlier period. It is not the case so much now, for a considerable number of churches have been built; but while the churches were placed at a distance from the farming population, it was quite manifest their families would go over by degrees, and become Catholics; and that I know to have taken place to this extent, that between the house where I live and the town of Ross, I recollect several Protestant families in that district; and there is not one single Protestant family in it, with the exception of two gentlemen immediately adjoining to me, who are at one extremity of that district. In it there is not one place of Protestant worship; the churches which were there have fallen to ruins, and the livings have been united with other livings; and the consequence is, that the people being at a distance from their place of worship, their families have gone over to the Catholic communion. This takes place more especially where they have occasion to call for the assistance of a clergyman in case of sickness and approaching death; the Protestant clergyman not being at hand to give them the benefits of religious instruction and consolation, the servants about them immediately recommended to them to get the priest; they naturally cling to some assistance; and the whole family have, in consequence of such circumstances, become Catholic, from having been Protestant."-H. L., 1825, p. 285.

venting incontinence and its effects, in which they are much assisted by the revelations of the confessional; and partly, perhaps, from a systematic desire to increase the numbers of the adherents of their church*. While these causes have conspired to favour the increase of the Catholics, the number of the Protestants has been constantly drained by emigration. It has been observed for some years, that emigration took place in a much greater degree among the Protestants than the Catholics; and this was attributed (as most things in Ireland are attributed) to a false cause; viz., the persecution of the Protestants by the Catholics. In truth, however, many Protestants and many Catholics were equally desirous to emigrate; but the former had the means, while the latter had not. The former were able, in some of the northern counties, to sell their small freeholds, when their families became too numerous for the property; or, if they were tenants, they were enabled, by the sale of the good-will of the

* It is very questionable whether the common opinion as to the influence of the Irish Catholic clergy in promoting early marriages is not altogether erroneous, or at least greatly exaggerated. The age of marrying differs widely in different parts of the country: in the more uncivilized parts, as Kerry, girls sometimes marry at the age of twelve and thirteen (Irish Poor Report, App. A. p. 447); in the more advanced parts of the country such early ages for marriage are unknown (Ib., p. 455). If, however, the influence of the priest determined the age of marrying, we might expect to find it uniform in all parts of the country. The following statements, on this point, occur in the Report of the Assistant Commissioners for a parish in the county of Cork:-" The marriage-money, or fee to the clergyman for performing the ceremony, is stated to be generally 25s. or 30s., and never less than 20s. Several marriages are delayed from the inability of the parties to make up the marriage-money." If there was no fee paid on marriage, it is thought that the number of early marriages would greatly increase. Butler says, Half the country would run to get married if there was no marriagemoney.'-(Ib., p. 432.)

farm, and of their stock and furniture, to raise a sufficient sum to enable them to emigrate. The Catholics, however, belonging in general to a poorer class, and not being able to obtain sufficient funds for the purposes of emigration, were forced to remain as they were, at home; it may, moreover, be added, that they had, for the most part, less feeling of independence*, and were less anxious, by a vigorous movement, to prevent the degradation which, in Ireland, befalls a family when its members become too numerous for their inheritance. This opinion as to the causes of the greater relative increase of the Roman Catholics than of the Protestants, is confirmed by the consideration, that, although the former may have increased at a more rapid rate, the increase of the latter has also been considerable. In the first quarter of the last century, the Protestants seem to have been about 500,000†. In the latter quarter of the century they are rated, in round numbers, at 1,000,000, and now they are upwards of 1,500,000; they have therefore tripled their numbers in a century, which is by no means a slow advance of population. In 1790, Wolfe Tone reckoned the members of the Established Church as a tenth of the population; they are now between a ninth and a tenth. Even if Tone's conjecture was somewhat below the truth, we cannot believe that the proportion has much varied in the last fifty years.

From the time of the Reformation in Ireland, the tithes and bishops' lands, and all the revenues which had theretofore belonged to the Established Roman

*See Note (E) at the end.

The Hearth-money Returns for 1732-3 give 105,494 Protestant families for all Ireland.