Penal laws (Ireland)

In Ireland, Penal Laws (Irish: Na Péindlíthe) were a series of laws imposed in an attempt to force Irish Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters (such as Presbyterians) to accept the reformed denomination as defined by the English state established Anglican Church and practised by members of the Irish state established Church of Ireland. All remaining penal laws were finally repealed by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (that is, before the separation of the Irish Free State) by the Government of Ireland Act 1920.

The Penal Laws were, according to Edmund Burke "a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." Burke long counseled kinder relations by London with its American & Irish cousins, fearing that the punitive spirit fostered by the British was destroying English character, and would spur violent revolt.

Initially, the dual monarchs of England and Ireland were cautious about applying the Penal Laws to Ireland because they needed the support of the Catholic upper classes to put down the Gaelic Irish rebellion in the Nine Years War (1594–1603). In addition, a significant section of the Catholic aristocracy was composed of Old English, who had traditionally been loyal to English rule in Ireland. However, the ascent of James VI of Scotland to both the English and Irish thrones as James I in 1603 and the eventual victory in the Nine Years War saw a series of coercive new laws put into force. In 1605 the 'Gunpowder Plot' was planned by a group of English Catholics, who were disappointed in their hopes that James would relieve laws against Catholics. This provided a further impetus and justification for restrictive laws on Catholics in Ireland, Scotland and England. In 1607 the Flight of the Earls seeking Catholic help in Europe for a further revolt set the scene for a wholesale Plantation of Ulster by the Lowland Scots and Northern English.

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