The Rebellion was extinguished in blood and fire.
The period of exhaustion and despair that followed in Ireland was
seized upon by Castlereagh and Pitt for destroying the Irish
Parliament. An immense machinery of bribery and corruption, assisted by
pledges that were broken and prophecies that failed, all working under
the double shadow of rebellion and war, drove the Irish Parliament to
reluctant suicide, and passed into law, both at Dublin and Westminster,
the Union Act of 1800.
That great light of the Irish Parliament thus passed suddenly into
darkness. The Chamber which had resounded with the eloquence of Flood
and Grattan passed over to the money-changers, and ever since the clink
of coin has taken the place of the silver voices of the Irish
orators.[68]
AFTER THE UNION
The events of 1800 left Ireland, for the moment, prostrate under the
heel of Great Britain. The last remnants of self-government disappeared
with the absorption of the two exchequers in 1817. Although Ireland
still retained a separate administration, that administration was not
under the control of any self-governing authority. Out of the Dragon's
teeth of the Union rose the sinister army of a new bureaucracy,
recruited almost entirely by the enemies of Ireland, and for the most
part even working with its guns trained against the hopes and
aspirations of the Irish race.
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