Talk:Penal laws (Ireland)

Siege of Drogheda

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)

Citations required

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)

Intentionally or otherwise

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)

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)

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)

O Ciardha citations added

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)

Sensational assertion is not topical; not historical

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)

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)

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)

Bibliography

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)

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)

Removal of unreferenced text.

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)

Impact

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)

Two things

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)