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Section 5(2) of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 repealed in Ireland 'any existing enactment by which any penalty, disadvantage, or disability is imposed on account of religious belief or on a member of any religious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

    Fine art, that exists for itself alone, is art in a final state of impotence. If nobody, including the artist, acknowledges art as a means of knowing the world, then art is relegated to a kind of rumpus room of the mind and the irresponsibility of the artist and the irrelevance of art to actual living becomes part and parcel of the practice of art.
    Angela Carter (1940–1992)

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

    Unfortunately, I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.
    Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)

    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)

    It is dangerous to tell the people that the laws are unjust; for they obey them only because they think them just. Therefore it is necessary to tell them at the same time that they must obey them because they are laws, just as they must obey superiors, not because they are just, but because they are superiors. In this way all sedition is prevented.
    Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)