and the opening of the twentieth were, in reality, in spite of a
certain amount of agrarian crime, organised and subsidised from abroad,
a period of much greater peace and more widespread prosperity than the
bloodstained years that marked the close of the eighteenth century--and
of the Irish Parliament.

Another fiction regarding the Union may perhaps be worth notice. It has
sometimes been suggested that it was carried by a venal oligarchy in
opposition to the will of the great mass of the population, of the Roman
Catholic population in particular. This is precisely the reverse of the
truth. The oligarchy controlled the Parliament, and it therefore
followed that the uniformly corrupt traditions of the Irish Parliament
had to be observed in carrying the Union as in carrying every other
Government Bill throughout the century. But, so far from the Act of
Union being carried by landowners and Protestants against the will of
the Catholics, it was, as a matter of fact, carried with the ardent and
unanimous assent and support of the Catholic hierarchy, and against the
embittered opposition of the old ascendancy leaders, who feared the loss
of their influence of power.

The evidence on this point is documentary and precise. Indeed, no one
thought of doubting or challenging it at the time; Grattan contented
himself with denouncing the Catholic Bishops as "a band of prostituted
men." Dr. Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, was, as his correspondence shows,
a warm, consistent and active supporter of the Union. Dr. Dillon,
Archbishop of Tuam, wrote in September, 1799, that he had had an
opportunity during his recent visitation "of acquiring the strongest
conviction that this measure alone can restore harmony and happiness to
our unhappy country." His neighbour, Dr. Bodkin, Bishop Galway, wrote
that the Union was the only measure to save "poor infatuated Ireland"
from "ruin and destruction." Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, was equally
emphatic. "I am perfectly satisfied," he says, "that it is impossible to
extinguish the feuds and animosities which disgrace this Kingdom, nor
give it the advantages of its natural local situation, without a Union
with Great Britain. God grant that it may soon take place!"

As for the feeling of the rank and file of the electors--under a very
widely extended franchise--two examples will suffice. In two cases--in
the County of Kerry and the borough of Newry--both open
constituencies--by-elections occurred during