Penal Laws (Ireland) - Final Repeal of Remaining Penal Laws

Final Repeal of Remaining Penal Laws

Section 5(2) of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 repealed in Ireland 'any existing enactment by which any penalty, disadvantage, or disability is imposed on account of religious belief or on a member of any religious order'.

As a result, in tandem with Section 37(1), Roman Catholics became eligible to occupy the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the British monarch's representative in Ireland. Within months of this legislation passing, Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent became in April 1921 the first Roman Catholic Lord Lieutenant of Ireland since the penal laws forbade such appointments in 1685. With the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the altered constitutional relationship between Ireland and the United Kingdom, FitzAlan was also the last Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Read more about this topic:  Penal Laws (Ireland)

Famous quotes containing the words final, repeal, remaining, penal and/or laws:

    There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits the evidences of large property, as if after all it needed apology. But the Englishman has pure pride in his wealth, and esteems it a final certificate. A coarse logic rules throughout all English souls: if you have merit, can you not show it by your good clothes and coach and horses?
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
    Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885)

    Babies are necessary to grown-ups. A new baby is like the beginning of all things—wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities. In a world that is cutting down its trees to build highways, losing its earth to concrete ... babies are almost the only remaining link with nature, with the natural world of living things from which we spring.
    Eda Le Shan (b. 1922)

    Him the Almighty Power
    Hurld headlong flaming from th’ Ethereal Skie
    With hideous ruine and combustion down
    To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
    In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
    Who durst defie th’ Omnipotent to Arms.
    Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night
    To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
    Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    The laws of Caesar are one thing, those of Christ, another. Papinianus judges one way, our Paul another.
    Jerome (c. 340–420)