Talk:Penal laws (Ireland)

Latest comment: 1 year ago by No such user in topic Requested move 23 March 2023

Siege of Drogheda edit

Reference is made to 'the mass slaughtering of Catholic Irish including the town of Drogheda in which all 9000 inhabitants, men, women, and children were murdered.'

This appears to contradict the article 'Siege of Drogheda' which gives figures of: c.2800 soldiers killed 200 captured. c.700 civilians and Catholic clergy killed

Thor nogson 11:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Citations required edit

This arrticle is badly referenced, esp the anaylsis portion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.1.136 (talk) 22:40, 9 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

Intentionally or otherwise edit

I omitted from the section Elizabeth excommunicated and from the line "The English had intentionally or otherwise punished the faith of the overwhelming majority of the Irish". What I omitted was two very significant words "or otherwise". For the reason that laws which are called "acts for the suppression of popery" are clear even to small children that they are meant to punish and and even eradicate the Catholic faith. The inclusion to that sentence for political correctness or other agendas is utterly ridiculous.

I am also expanding the current section on the laws themselves. I hope you will find it useful. Kedane Kedane (talk) 21:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)Reply


This sentence At that time the British envoy to the Holy See was the Count de Salis, a Catholic landowner in counties Limerick and Armagh. has no relation to the "continuing effect of the penal laws", i think it isn't surprising to send a Catholic embassador to the Pope, especially since there had already been a long tradition of Catholics in Parliament again.-- 89.182.18.86 (talk) 09:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

Yes; there is an irony of sorts in O'Kelly's comment about an "officially heretical" government sending a prosperous landowning Catholic to the Vatican, but it's not encyclopedic. O'Kelly was a useless ambassador.Red Hurley (talk) 15:03, 20 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

O Ciardha citations added edit

The article is OK but could do with many more notes; and a section on the historiography and evolving modern opinions on the subject, maybe starting with Maureen Wall in 1961.Red Hurley (talk) 14:58, 20 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

Sensational assertion is not topical; not historical edit

The following sentence, the last in the section titled 1660-1693 needs to be deleted: "As well as the Papal Te Deum, it was revealed in 2008 that Pope Innocent XI had lent William of Orange 150,000 Scudi through his family's bank before his death in 1689; an embarrassing detail hidden from Irish Catholics and Protestants for over three centuries."

Upon examination of the supporting references, this assertion was made by a pair of fiction writers who claim to have seen the alleged documents, rather than historians who have academically documented their findings and subjected them to peer review. The novelists' claims were being made at a time when their publishers had declined to proceed with a second printing of their book, which leads one to suspect that the story may have been a publicity stunt.

Even if the assertion were supported by peer-reviewed research, it is not substantially relevant to include in an encyclopedic article about Penal Laws.

Vereverde (talk) 03:04, 19 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

You are right to describe it as new research, but it has been publicised in reputable sources, and so it remains for others to counter-quote that it was only a publicity stunt, and was based on inaccurate (and therefore misleading) research.Red Hurley (talk) 10:01, 17 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
Vereverde, what was sensational was not the story published in 2008, but the suppression of the facts between 1693 and 2008 because they were potentially embarrassing to the Church.86.42.217.68 (talk) 13:53, 27 October 2012 (UTC)Reply
Withdrawing the supposed material from examination has not helped other researchers, and that raises the suspicion that the Catholic church is trying to hide something. Either he lent the money to his ally, or he didn't, it's not a grey or borderline area!78.17.60.231 (talk) 08:08, 8 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
No matter what but this allegation is not relevant for the Penal Laws. The Banner talk 13:33, 8 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

William signed off on the penal laws in 1695, but had borrowed money from the head of the church affected by them; that's historical, but unpopular news for extreme Catholics and Protestants, so it has been edited from the record.78.19.225.212 (talk) 06:57, 19 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

Bibliography edit

This is a very useful overview. Now could you please add a Bibliography? In addition to the material directly referenced? Bluedawe 03:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

I have planned a bibliography based on historians, and not on the various religious commentators who had axes to grind. It would start with Maureen Wall c.1960 (see [1]). Dozens of essays about various aspects have appeared since then. Part of the problem for us Irish Catholics is to get away from describing the Penal Laws in terms of national Martyrology, with the idea that suffering is good for the soul, and to concentrate on why the laws were passed; how they were applied; and why they failed. As the article stands today it is a fair overview, but could do with more references.Red Hurley (talk) 10:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

Removal of unreferenced text. edit

The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. You may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. I placed unreferenced tags on this article on the 8 December 2010 and in that time no effort has been made to add references. I've now removed this text. --Domer48'fenian' 14:38, 18 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

Impact edit

There should be a section that highlights the long term impact the Penal Laws had for generations of Irish Catholics, from a social and economic perspective. ÓCorcráin (talk) 00:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

Two things edit

1) "by members of the Irish state established Church of Ireland" - surely something should be put before this to inform an outsider because they could be under the impression that "Irish state established" meant it was a state established by the native Irish for the benefit of the native Irish, rather than a foreign colonial state established by the British state for the benefit of its British Protestant settlers in Ireland? At the very least this is hugely confusing wording. 2)"Any remaining penal laws were finally repealed in 1920 by the Government of Ireland Act." For starters, I'm absolutely certain that a Catholic living under British rule in Ireland still cannot become head of the British state in 2013, a law which was passed in 1701. 89.101.41.216 (talk) 10:59, 6 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

The rest of the world is absolutely certain that the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 was passed.78.18.233.171 (talk) 11:48, 13 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

not standard Wikipedia format edit

I suspect other threads on this talk are about factual and/or controversial aspects of the article, but this one is purely about formatting. I just glanced at the lede. It makes me wince. I'm too busy to bang it (and presumably the rest of the article, but the lede was so unreadable that I didn't read the rest) into anything remotely resembling Wikipedia format; if others feel inclined, you have my moral support. Perhaps another day... • ServiceableVillain 16:54, 14 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

As a start I have reverted the vandalism that had hit it... The Banner talk 18:16, 14 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Move discussion in progress edit

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Penal law (British) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 11:29, 10 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

Dissenters? edit

Just as a point for discussion, the article mentions the penal laws on dissenters yet most of this article is about the impact on people of Catholic faith. To highlight this: the word Catholic is used 99 times and dissenter 5 times on the page. This is not to discredit or debunk the material written which I consider to be correct but to highlight that the impact on non-anglican protestants is lacking.

It would also be useful as an indication to when the penal laws were lifted as from the article it appears to be at different times.2A02:C7F:864B:CC00:A08C:EA8F:F09E:6F4 (talk) 09:04, 1 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 23 March 2023 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Penal laws (Ireland). No such user (talk) 07:53, 31 March 2023 (UTC)Reply


Penal Laws against Irish CatholicsPenal laws (Ireland) – This page was bold moved to the current title on 3 March. I would revert the move, but there are some issues with the old name inasmuch as (1) there are other penal laws that should be disambiguated, and (2) there is a capitalisation issue. Nevertheless the new name chosen also has issues as follows:

  1. The Irish penal laws were not just against Catholics;
  2. The name is not as concise as it could be;
  3. Per MOS:CAPS, it should be Penal laws (lower case l)

On that last point, I have reviewed the sources. The majority speak of the penal laws (not a proper noun). For instance, Burke (1904) does so consistently, as does Cullen (1997). There are a few cases of "Penal Laws" in, e.g., the Maynooth essay, but this is inconsistent in the same document. The better sources are all lower case, so the name should be too. As for concision, "Penal laws (Ireland)" is more concise and avoids the issue that it does not include the dissenters. Adding dates would be acceptable to me so "Penal Laws (Ireland, 1697-1728)" would be fine too. Please state if you prefer that. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:10, 23 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

  • Support move to Penal laws (Ireland). The title to which this was boldly moved seems clunky (at best). And wouldn't seem to meet WP:COMMONNAME. Within Ireland (and texts on Irish history) the term "Penal Laws" (or, without caps, "Penal laws") is most common. Given that there are other potential topics of that title, some form of DAB is required. While, perhaps, the "... against Irish Catholics" flourish is something of a natural language DAB suffix, with some evidence of external use, it is not a particularly COMMON term. And, where that's the case, a "parenthetical disambiguation" would seem more appropriate... Guliolopez (talk) 16:16, 23 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Support per nom, and per Guliolopez. BD2412 T 02:16, 31 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.