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RIGHTS CLAIMED BY ROMAN CATHOLICS TO
SEATS IN BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT,
FREEDOM OF CORPORATIONS,

&c. &c. &c.

WITH AN

INTRODUCTORY PREFACE,

TENDING TO SHEW

HOW FAR THE CLAIMANTS ENJOYED THOSE PRIVILEGES FROM
THE PASSING OF THE ACT OF SUPREMACY IN THE REIGN
OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, DOWN TO THE ACCESSION

OF KING WILLIAM III.

BY EIRIONNACH.

DUBLIN:

Printed by Richard Grace, Mary-Street :
PUBLISHED BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS.

1828.

DA. 950.3 .E36

1030023-190

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Reader's attention is particularly called to the subjoined DOCUMENTS, of indubitable Authority:

No. 1.-Shews that Members of Parliament were not obiged to take the Oath of Supremacy before the time of King William III. DOCUMENTS, page 1.

2 and 3.-Shew the only Oath that was necessary to be taken by certain descriptions of Persons in Ireland to enable them to enjoy Rights, &c. p. p. 3 and 4.

4, 5, and 6.—Shew that Charles I. and Charles II. entered into the most Solemn Treaties with the Irish Roman Catholics to secure to them the Right of Sitting and Voting in Parliament, &c. p. p. 5, 13, and 30.

7. Shews the first attempt ever made to exclude the Roman Catholic Members from the House of Commons, by the Puritan Party in that House, in 1642, page 31.

8. Shews King Charles II.'s recognition of the validity of the Treaties of 1646 and 1648, made between the Duke of Ormond and the Irish Catholics, page 33.

9. Shews the Peers who voted for the Act of Settlement, p. 56. 10, 11 and 12.-Shew that Catholic Peers constantly sat in the

Irish House of Lords in the Parliaments of Charles II.; the distinction made in the Rules of the House, respecting hours of attendance of Protestant and Catholic Peers, p. p. 57, 60 and 61.

13. Shews the Right, and the exercise of the Right, of Roman Catholics to Sit in the House of Commons in the Reign of Charles II. page 61.

14 and 15.-Shew the Right of Catholics to sit in Parliament, and to their Freedom and Votes in Corporations at the latter end of the Reign of Charles II. p. p, 64 and 66.

16.-The Treaty of Limerick, page 68.

17. Shows the Proceedings in the Parliament in 1695, to exclude Catholics from their Seats in Parliament, page 79.

18. Shews the proceedings in the Parliament in 1697, on passing the Bill for the Confirmation of the Articles of Limerick, with the Protest of fourteen Protestant Peers against the injustice of Parliament in violating those Articles, which they did by that Bill, page 82.

ERRATA.

In DOCUMENTS, Page 59, before the name of the Earl of Anglesea, dele *.

In heading of DOCUMENT, No. 14, Page 64, for (This and another Paper, concerning the Nominees, were sent April 10th, 1675, by the Lord Conway to the Lord Ranelagh, one of King Charles the Second's Ministers in England, by His Excellency Arthur Capel Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.)-read, (This and another Paper, concerning the Nominees, were sent by the Lord Conway to the Earl of Arlington.) In same heading, for Page 158, read Page 185.

PREFACE.

THE privation of Civil Rights under which the Roman Catholic subjects of these Kingdoms have unjustly suffered for a number of generations, and under which they still labour, has, for a long series of years, kept this nation in a state of agitation and discontent. For a redress of their grievances they have, almost year after year, for upwards of thirty years, in the most humble manner supplicated the Legislature. But their efforts have been unavailing. Bigotry and intolerance have triumphed over justice and humanity, and the Roman Catholics have still the mortification to feel themselves a degraded people in the land of their nativity, beside the loss of benefits which by the law of God and nature they have a right to enjoy, in common with the most favoured of their fellow-subjects. For a restoration of those rights the Catholics claim the benefit of treaties, solemnly entered into with them, and which secure to them the possession of those rights. Of these treaties that of Limerick, as being the last, and the fulfilment thereof being secured to them by the royal word of King William the Third, the Catholics claim the full benefit. The justice of their claims in this respect their enemies have been obliged to allow; and a violent opposer of those claims, a gentleman bigh in office, has declared, that if it can be proved that the Catholics of Ireland have been deprived of any rights secured to them by that treaty, he will himself vote for Catholic Emancipation. To satisfy the mind of that gentleman, and of all others who may be desirous to know how far the claims of the Catholics are countenanced by the

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