Penal Laws for Catholics

 
 


27 Penal Laws

    1. The Irish Catholic was forbidden the exercise of his religion.
    2. He was forbidden to receive education.

    3. He was forbidden to enter a profession.

    4. He was forbidden to hold public office.

    5. He was forbidden to engage in trade or commerce.

    6. He was forbidden to live in a corporate town or within five miles thereof.

    7. He was forbidden to own a horse of greater value than five pounds.

    8. He was forbidden to purchase land.

    9. He was forbidden to lease land.

    10. He was forbidden to accept a mortgage on land in security for a loan.
    11. He was forbidden to vote.

    12. He was forbidden to keep any arms for his protection.

    13. He was forbidden to hold a life annuity.

    14. He was forbidden to buy land from a Protestant.

    15. He was forbidden to receive a gift of land from a Protestant.

    16. He was forbidden to inherit land from a Protestant.

    17. He was forbidden to inherit anything from a Protestant.

    18. He was forbidden to rent any land that was worth more than thirty shillings a year.

    19. He was forbidden to reap from his land any profit exceeding a third of the rent.

    20. He could not be guardian to a child.

    21. He could not, when dying, leave his infant children under Catholic guardianship.

    22. He could not attend Catholic worship.

    23. He was compelled by law to attend Protestant worship.

    24. He could not himself educate his child.

    25. He could not send his child to a Catholic teacher.

    26. He could not employ a Catholic teacher to come to his child.

    27. He could not send his child abroad to receive education.

      MacManus, Seamus
      Story of the Irish Race, Devin-Adair Co.,
      Grenwich, Connecticut, 1979 p.458-459

Source: http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/irish_pf.html

 

This page is dedicated to the millions of Irish who suffered and perished in the Great Starvation.

It is also dedicated to those who escaped by emigration, and to the great Irish Diaspora worldwide.


Penal Laws for Catholics


To deprive the Catholics of all civil life

To reduce them to a condition of most extreme and brutal ignorance

To dissociate them from the soil.

He might, with absolute justice, substituted Irish for Catholics-and added, to expirate (cause to expire) the Race.

 


Emigration:
Departure, Crossing and Arrival