Page 321 - Demo

Chapter NiNe 321
three votes were given for “the Great O’Connell.”
It is maintained by many that O’Connell’s “inluence” over the majority of the people of
Ireland arose not only from his ability as a politician and in turn his successes, nor from the capabilities and swaying mastery of his oratory, but that it stemmed in the most part from the courageous and fearless fashion in which he, one of their own Catholic oppressed, stood strong, deiant and fearless against the might of the British Empire. As one commentator noted:
‘O’Connell had shown that an Irish Catholic, despite centuries of repression, was still a man, and could treat with contempt and scorn the hirelings of a foreign king, who had been wont without interference to ride roughshod over a conquered people. It mattered not whether the hireling was an ermined judge on the bench, a denizen of Dublin Castle, or the great lord who sat on the woolsack at Westminster-O’Connell showed the people that, though poverty-stricken and beaten into the earth by the brute force of the tyrant, they could be, in their souls, their tyrants masters.’
This renewed perception by the Irish people of their place in the great universal scheme of things not only re-invigorated them, it also gave them a newfound hope and conidence for the future, and in gratitude they lavished more plaudits to this hero who was responsible for raising up their downcast spirits and bolstering their despondent hearts. Shortly after the passing of the Catholic Relief Act the next major Irish problem that demanded to be solved was the one which quickly became known far and wide as the ‘Tithe War.’
The tithes were a tax levied on all the occupiers and tillers of agricultural land, regard- less of religion, for the support of the Protestant clergy; those who held grazing farms were exempt. This odious tax came into being because the Protestant Church had been estab- lished as the Irish Church and the agreed “tithe” amounted to one tenth part of their crops. In other words, every tenth ridge of potatoes, every tenth stook of corn, and soforth, was collected by the Tithe Proctor, or collector for the Protestant clergy. Added to which, every- one had to pay a church tax, the Church Rate or ‘Church Cess,’ as it was called, which was collected solely for the repair of Protestant churches.
The Catholic population complained that they were forced unfairly to pay for the sup- port of a Protestant clergy whose services they could not attend, in addition to having to subscribe for the upkeep of their own priests, most of whose livelihoods depended on their