Reform and War
Attempts at reform came as early as 1828 when Thomas Greene, a Member of Parliament, introduced a bill that would have replaced the tithes with corn rents, a proposal that failed.Lord Althorp attempted the same measure in 1833, which also failed. His bill the following year also did not pass, despite severe emendation. Many reforms were lost among other bills in Parliament and never came to fruition.
During the period from 1831 to 1836, Irish peasants rebelled and refused to pay the tithes, sometimes violently persecuting those who did pay the tithes. The government found it hard to enforce the law, due to the popularity of the rebels' cause. The Irish believed the tithes were simply another form of English abuse, and the rebellion took on an apparent aura of nationalism, or at least the feeling of a religious war against the persecution of the faithful.
Read more about this topic: Composition For Tithes (Ireland) Act 1823
Famous quotes containing the words reform and/or war:
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“... when there is a war the years are longer that is to say the days are longer the months are longer the years are much longer but the weeks are shorter that is what makes a war.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)