Anglesey in Ireland, 1828 to 1833

Worse than War

Síle McGuckian

Lord Anglesey was a war hero and a glamorous figure in London society when he was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland in 1828. Within months of his arrival he faced the first of three political crises that were fundamentally to threaten the British government’s ability to maintain its control over the country: the campaign for Catholic emancipation; parliamentary reform; and the abolition of tithes (the ‘Tithe War’). In each case, as Anglesey repeatedly grappled with wide spread violence and incidents of insurrection, many members of the government feared that they faced the possibility of revolution. However, Anglesey quickly realised that violence was not the greatest threat against the power of the state, rather it was the determined resistance of a mass movement of people that was to prove impossible for the government to overcome, and that this could in many ways be ‘worse than war’.

Although he had risen to the rank of Field Marshal following the battle of Waterloo where he had been second in command to the duke of Wellington (under his previous title of Lord Uxbridge), Anglesey had been a political novice when he was appointed to the lord lieutenancy. His support for Catholic emancipation was to result in his public firing by Wellington who was then prime minister mere months later, but was instrumental in forcing the government to bring forward the Catholic Relief Act, 1829. During his second lord lieutenancy (1830-3), under the Whig government of Earl Grey, Anglesey supported the passage of the Great Reform Act, 1832 and confronted and addressed the demands of the tithe resistance campaign while at the same seeking to introduce desperately needed reform for Ireland. This book explores how the policies, opinions, and personal relationships between Anglesey and Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Grey, Daniel O’Connell, Edward Stanley, and others, impacted on the unfolding events and the long term consequences that they had for both Britain and Ireland. 

Síle McGuckian completed her undergraduate degree in law at Trinity College Dublin and then obtained a DPhil from the University of Oxford. She practiced as a lawyer before becoming a historian after completing a PhD in history from University College Dublin.