The nineteenth century

Abstract

Relations between Ireland and England in the nineteenth century were affected by land tenure, religion and a desire for self-government. Emmet’s forlorn rebellion took place in 1803 and, according to the historian Edmund Curtis, there were only four or five years of normal government between 1796 and 1823. It was a period of Coercion Acts and agrarian discontent, particularly when prices slumped after the Napoleonic Wars, and landlords gained greater power to eject tenants for non-payment of rent.