Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793

This article is about the Irish Act of Parliament. For the British Act of Parliament, see Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791.

The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793 (33 Geo. 3. c. 21 (I)) was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland, implicitly repealing some of the Irish Penal Laws and relieving Roman Catholics of certain political, educational, and economic disabilities.

Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793

Parliament of Ireland
Long title	An Act for the relief of his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects of Ireland.
Citation	33 Geo. 3. c. 21 (I)
Introduced by	Robert Hobart, Chief Secretary for Ireland
Dates
Royal assent	9 April 1793
Repealed	1953; 1983
Other legislation
Amended by	Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1879
Repealed by	Statute Law Revision Act 1953 Statute Law Revision Act 1983
Relates to	Popery Act 1704
Status: Repealed
History of passage through Parliament
Text of statute as originally enacted

The Act was introduced by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Robert Hobart, two years after the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791, an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The Irish Act included certain local provisions such as allowing Catholics to take degrees at Trinity College Dublin. Catholic schools had already been permitted again by the Catholic Relief Act 1782, subject to the teachers taking the Oath of Allegiance and obtaining a license from the local Church of Ireland bishop. The 1793 act abolished many of the restrictions of the 1704 Popery Act and replaced others with less onerous ones. The act also repealed the provisions of the Disfranchising Act 1727, which had prohibited Catholics from voting in elections to the Irish House of Commons. However, it did not remove the terms of the parliamentary oath which prohibited Catholics from sitting in the Parliament of Ireland; section 9 of the 1793 act gave a long list of offices in the Dublin Castle administration for which the existing oaths, anathema to Catholics, remained obligatory. This was superseded by the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (the kingdoms having been joined in 1801 by the Acts of Union 1800). Section 12 of the 1829 act had a much shorter list of excluded offices, in particular allowing Catholic MPs.

Repeal

Section 8 of the 1793 act, allowing Catholics to be professors at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, was superseded by an 1800 act allowing all Christians.^[1][2] Other restrictions introduced in 1793 were virtually repealed or superseded by the 1829 act.^[2] Particular sections were later explicitly repealed as follows:^[2]

Sections	Repealed by
12	Marriages by Roman Catholics (Ireland) Act 1833[3]
14	Religious Disabilities Act 1846[4]
6 (in part)	Promissory Oaths Act 1871[5]
7 (in relation to Trinity College Dublin)	University of Dublin Tests Act 1873[6]
1–6, 10, 11, 13	Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1879[7]

The whole act was repealed in United Kingdom law (as regards Northern Ireland) by the Statute Law Revision Act 1953 (passed by Westminster rather than Stormont).^[8] It was repealed in Republic of Ireland law by the Statute Law Revision Act 1983.^[9]

Sources

• Bartlett, Thomas (2016). "'So many wheels within wheels': the 1793 Catholic relief Act revisited". In Hayton, David; Holmes, Andrew (eds.). Ourselves Alone? : Religion, Society and Politics in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ireland : essays presented to S.J. Connolly. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 126–136. ISBN 978-1-84682-592-7 – via Internet Archive.
• "Bill 2115: For the relief of his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects of Ireland". Irish Legislation Database. Queens University Belfast. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
• 33 George III c.21 from The statutes at large, passed in the Parliaments held in Ireland

Citations

1. Royal College of Physicians, Ireland, Act 1800 [40 Geo. 3. c. 84] s. 20
2. Cullinan, William Fitzpatrick, ed. (1885). The Irish statutes revised edition : 3 Edward II to the Union, AD 1310–1800. By authority. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. p. liv.
3. 3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 102. s. 1
4. 9 & 10 Vict. c. 59. s. 1
5. 34 & 35 Vict. c. 48. s. 1 and Schedule 3 Part II
6. 36 & 37 Vict. c. 21. s. 4
7. Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1879 s. 1 and Schedule
8. 2 Eliz. 2 c. 5 s. 1 and Schedule 2
9. Statute Law Revision Act 1983 s. 1 and Schedule Part I