Catholic emancipation

Catholic emancipation The granting of full political and civil liberties to British and Irish Roman Catholics. Partial religious toleration had been achieved in Britain by the late 17th century, but the TEST ACTS limited holders of public office to communicant Anglicans and placed additional disabilities on members of other churches. Until 1745 the JACOBITE threat seemed to justify continued discrimination against Roman Catholics and fears of Catholic emancipation led to the GORDON RIOTS in 1780. By the late 18th century many reformists were agitating for total religious freedom. In Ireland, where a majority were Catholics, concessions were made from 1778 onwards, culminating in the Relief Act of 1793, passed by the Irish Parliament and giving liberty of religious practice and the right to vote in elections, but not to sit in Parliament or hold public office. William PITT had become convinced of the need for full Catholic emancipation by 1798 and promises were made to the Irish Parliament when it agreed to the Act of UNION in 1800. Protestant landlords, as well as George III, resisted emancipation and Pitt resigned. Daniel O'CONNELL took up the cause for emancipation and founded the Catholic Association in 1823, dedicated to peaceful agitation. In 1828 O'Connell won a parliamentary election for County Clare, but as a Catholic could not take his seat. The Prime Minister, WELLINGTON, reluctantly introduced a Relief Bill to avoid civil war. The 1829 Act removed most civil restrictions; the only one to survive to the present is that no British monarch may be a Roman Catholic.