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.

Above : Picture Of Lord Anglesey, Lord Lieutenant At That Time

The victor, as he had said he would do, presented himself at Westminster, and was tendered the usual oaths. He refused to take them, and withdrew. All Ireland now stood in expectation, waiting for the next act of the drama.

Above : Painting Of “Duke Of Wellington“

Long before the period of which we are now treating, the need of reform in the municipal government of Ireland had been generally admitted. That the corporations, large and small, were practically exclusively in Protestant hands was, in the eyes of not a few statesmen, an advantage. But their narrowness in other respects; the corruption and jobbery which resulted from their independence of outside control could scarcely be defended. Since 1793, Catholics were eligible for election on Irish Corporations, but it was stated in Parliament in 1836 that the number actually elected during the forty-three years which had elapsed since the passing of the Act was scarcely 200. Not a single Catholic had yet been admitted to a seat on the Dublin Corporation.