III. Problems of Irish Patronage during the Chief Secretaryship of Robert Peel, 1812–18

Extract

During the early years of the nineteenth century the distribution of patronage n i Ireland—‘the spoils system’—reflected current English practice, but with peculiarly Irish overtones. The duke of Wellington's observation in 1830 that the government was losing its control of patronage to private members of Parliament may well have been applied to the Irish scene at any time after the Union. The men who benefited from the Irish system were drawn almost exclusively from the Ascendency party, that group of upper class Anglo-Irish Protestants long favoured by law and custom. Their pre-eminence had been assured during the negotiations prior to the Act for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. In the same manner that Pitt and Castlereagh had achieved their objective by exploiting Irish ambitions for titles, pensions and sinecures, Ascendency politicians established themselves as the dominating force in domestic politics. Commonly referred to as ‘Irish tones’, these men consistently exalted their special religious and economic needs far above any comprehensive British tory interests. Within the permanent Castle staff their influence was all pervasive. They shared a sense of power and the overriding confidence which characterized generations of Anglo-Irish families. Their satisfaction with ‘Orange’ politics served to compliment their pre-occupation with their own self-interests and the maintenance of the status quo.