lic people. During this time, many underground agencies were created to help protect people. The Peep O’Day Boys, a Protestants secret society, started to hunt and terrorize the Catholic community. In defiance of the need to endure the violence, the Catholics formed their own society called the Defenders. Rioting preceded the formation of these groups and chaos began to reign in Ireland.With 1791 came the formation of a new Protestant group, the Society of the United Irishmen. They were led by Theobold Wolfe Tone. This society’s sole purpose was to cast Britain out of Ireland forever. Their attempts failed miserably. Rebellion broke out in Wexford; it never manifested itself anywhere else. The Wexford people suffered some heavy violence against them. From the ashes of the failure and use of force by the Society of the United Irishmen brought about a dramatic change to the Face of Northern Ireland. In Wexford, “the tradition of physical force to which the uprising began the Irish Republic Army (IRA) today sees itself as being the legitimate successor.” The IRA has gone from this beginning foundation to become “one of the greatest evils in this world.” With this rebellion the British got scared. They abolished the Irish Parliament and forced them to reunite with the British Parliament. This was accomplished with the passage of the Act of Union in 1800. With this Act, Britain exemplified their dominance over their neighboring country.Time passed and the ex-free nation of Ireland spent a 120 years trying to undo the damage caused by the Act of Union. In this time the Catholics gained a right to sit on Parliament (in 1829 ) and the Protestants found that while they held a majority in the British parliament they had the minority in the Irish Parliament. Even with their legislative power, Catholics were still denied most of their civil rights. To this day the Catholics still feel they ne...
