of Independence. Many returned, introducing into Ireland the new philosophy of “The Rights of Man.” They played a prominent role in the establishment of the Irish Republican movement and in the first major uprising in one hundred years against the English administration in 1798.

The English administration’s answer to the demand for freedom was to curtail the Irish nation even more. On January 1, 1801, the colonial parliament (a body elected by the colonists in Ireland) was merged into the English parliament and the state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland came into being. Even the colonists had to be heavily bribed to vote for the abolition of their Dublin parliament.

Abortive uprisings against the English administration also took place in 1803, 1848, and 1867. In the period 1844–1848, Ireland lost 2.5 million of its inhabitants, by death and migration, due to an artificially induced famine caused when absentee English landlords insisted on the exportation of grain, cattle, and sheep out of the country at a time when the potato crops had failed. This feudal system of landlordism was overthrown by the “Land War” of 1879–1882.

With the failure of the uprising of 1867, the Irish people turned to the “constitutional path” opened for them by the gradual repeal of the Penal Laws, by the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, and by the Parliamentary Reform Act. An Irish Party was established to achieve self-government. From 1870 for the next forty years they held four-fifths of all Irish seats within the British Parliament. Yet the majority of English representatives refused to accept the democratically expressed wish of the Irish people. In 1910 the Irish Party held 84 seats out of the 105 seats, but attempts to secure self-government were thwarted and shelved by the start of World War I.

On April 24, 1916, the Irish rose again and declared an independent republic. This was militarily suppressed by England. In December 1918, the last all-Ireland general election ever held, of the 105 seats, 73 went to Sinn Féin, the Irish Republican party, 6 to the old Irish Party, and 26 to the Unionists. In January 1919, Ireland issued a Declaration of Independence. English troops were sent in and the elected Republican representatives were arrested when found. Thus began the War of Independence 1919–1921. The British government finally entered into negotiations and