Above : Picture Of Lord John Russell

A debate in Parliament on tithes gave O’Connell an opportunity of speaking of the various injustices under which the Catholics still suffered. Catholic lawyers, or even Protestants who had signed addresses in favour of Emancipation, were, he pointed out, never promoted. Catholic names were noted on jury-lists and their bearers challenged by the Crown ; proposed meetings of Catholics were prohibited for the most trivial reasons. The Church system, by which a miserably poor country was obliged to support a rich, and, to a great extent, useless Church, was in itself scandalous.

Above: The Tithe War