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:
“Undoubtedly if we were to reform this outward life truly and thoroughly, we should find no duty of the inner omitted. It would be employment for our whole nature.... But a moral reform must take place first, and then the necessity of the other will be superseded, and we shall sail and plow by its force alone.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He was ... a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I’ll show you a loser, show me a hero and I’ll show you a corpse.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)