1976/04/01 by Robert White Linker · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Irish and British Studies
paper · doi:10.1017/s0022046900052970
openalex publication_date 1976/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Discussions of the ‘Catholic Question’ of the early nineteenth century have concentrated almost exclusively upon developments in Ireland, where demagogues, priests, and peasants cleverly contrived to extort Emancipation from a protestant parliament. The historian's choice of focus scarcely requires explanation, what with the purport of Irish events and the relentless logic with which the O'Connellites had organised their following. And yet, despite the emphases of scholarship, the concessions of 1829 actually represented a triumph on both sides of St. George's Channel. The Catholic Saxon as well as the Catholic Celt, each in his own way, had contributed to the joyous outcome, and quite possibly neither would have succeeded without the other.