Irish Coercion Acts

The Coercion Acts, formally Protection of Person and Property Acts were Acts of Parliament to respond with force to popular discontent and disorder.

In December 1816, a mass meeting took place at Spa Fields near London. The Coercion Act of 1817 was an act of Parliament that suspended Habeas Corpus and extended existing laws against seditious gatherings in Britain. The Coercion Act was the result of this mass meeting.

The total number of "Coercion Acts" relating to Ireland is a matter of definition, including whether to count separately an act which continues an expiring act. Michael Farrell in 1986 put the total from 1801 to 1921 at 105.John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer said in the House of Lords that 87 such acts had been passed between the Acts of Union 1801 and 1887, a rate of one per year. The figure was repeated by John Redmond, whereas a writer in a Union Defence League pamphlet put the figure at 76 between 1801 and 1908, plus 22 during Grattan's Parliament (1782–1800).

Some of the more notable Irish Coercion Acts were "An Act for the more effectual Suppression of Local Disturbances and Dangerous Associations in Ireland", "The Protection of Life and Property in Certain Parts of Ireland Act", and the "Protection of Person and Property Act 1881".

An Irish Coercion Bill was proposed by Sir Robert Peel to calm the increasing difficult situation in Ireland as a result of the Great Famine 1844–47. The Bill was blocked and this led, in part, to Peel's retirement as Prime Minister. Later attempts to introduce Irish coercion acts were blocked by the filibustering of Joseph Biggar.

As a response to the Plan of Campaign of the mid-1880s the new Chief Secretary for Ireland Arthur Balfour secured the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act 1887 or "Perpetual Crimes Act", a Coercion Act aimed at the prevention of boycotting, intimidation, unlawful assembly and the organisation of conspiracies against the payment of agreed rents. The Act resulted in the imprisonment of hundreds of people including over twenty MPs. The act was condemned by the Catholic hierarchy since it was to become a permanent part of the law and did not have to be renewed annually by parliament, but Pope Leo XIII issued the bull Saepe Nos in 1888 which was uncritical of the Acts. Trial by jury was abolished. An influential analysis of the pros and cons of the Act was published in 1888 by William Henry Hurlbert, a Catholic Irish-American author.

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