Above : Picture Of Sir Robert Peel

The social life of Dublin suffered severely by the withdrawal of the Parliament. Peers and commoners took up their residence in London during the sessions, spending the rest of the year in their country estates. The stately mansions in which they had lived remained unoccupied, until finally let for public offices or charitable institutions. Many even sank to the condition of tenement houses.

Still, in some respects, there was progress. Mail coaches, stage coaches and comfortably fitted passenger boats on canals were at the service of travellers. Packet boats crossed almost daily to England and Scotland ; the first steamer began to ply in 1816. The postal service was improved.

The prediction that, if the Union were once accomplished, Irish discontents would disappear of themselves, and the country settle down to peaceful industry, was not realised. Political and social unrest was rife in almost every part of Ireland, and, as a remedy, a long series of Insurrection Acts, Arms’ Acts, suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act and so forth, extended almost unbroken over the first forty years of the century.

Secret societies were active in many counties. Feuds of all kinds sometimes between families or trades, sometimes between districts, led furious encounters, especially at fairs.

The police force was reorganised and improved. In 1814, Sir Robert Peel established the Royal Irish Constabulary, a semi-military body, which was to discharge the duties of police in country districts and in the smaller towns. He also appointed regular paid Resident Magistrates, to undertake part of the judicial functions hitherto discharged by voluntary Justices of the Peace.

Another of the alluring prospects held before the eyes of voters, by those who desired their help in the destruction of the Irish Parliament, was that of increased trade and the pouring of English capital into Ireland ; but this, too, proved an illusion.

The opening of the British markets to Irish goods was of no great benefit, except in the case of one or two articles, such as linen, where the Irish product was of especially superior quality. Other articles England could produce at home, and, as the cost of carriage was less, sell at a cheaper rate. Even in the case of linen, though the exports increased, they did so at a less rapid rate than during the years before the Union. Growing industries, which the Irish Parliament had fostered, were now let alone, and were obliged to enter into competition with more developed and wealthy rivals across the Channel. English stuffs, produced by expensive machinery, flooded the Irish markets ; fancy cloths tempted the well-to-do ; there was cheap ready-made clothing for the poor, The little Irish factories ceased to produce anything but the coarsest ituffs ; then finally they closed, and except in a few districts, and on a very small scale, no more woollen cloth was made in Ireland. The cotton industry perished absolutely ; so did that of silk weaving, which once employed thousands of workmen. The extension of machinery had ruined almost all the little cottage industries, by means of which the wife and daughters of the labourer or small tenant-farmer eked out that llender earnings of the head of the family.

Owing to the depression of trade, especially after the end of the Napoleonic wars in, 1815, there was a great deal of emigration, especially from Ulster, but still the population continued to increase, though the people grew poorer and poorer.