Introduction. This is an account of the ‘Catholic Rent’, written by Thomas Wyse (1792–1862), one of the Catholic Association’s main organisers. Here he explains the importance of the Catholic rent in unifying Catholics in the campaign for Emancipation. Young and old, rich and poor, responded to O’Connell’s calls for ‘a penny a month’, and although individual contributions were small, each person who subscribed to the rent felt involved personally in the movement. Wyse described how local people volunteered to collect the rent and organised committees to administer the funds. These formed, in effect, branches of the Catholic Association and acted as a link between the central committee in Dublin and the network of branches around the country. According to Wyse, the rent was the means of transforming an elite movement into a mass democratic one, a means of politicising people throughout the countryside, and of giving them a stake in the campaign for Emancipation.

Source. Thomas Wyse, Historical sketch of the late Catholic Association of Ireland (2 vols, London 1829), i, 208–10.

The contribution of a penny per month was proposed by Mr O’Connell: it was instantly adopted; every man hurried to cast his mite into the treasury of a body, from which he felt assured it would return to him in tenfold good. Every peasant in Ireland, every Catholic inhabitant, from the child of seven to the grandfather of seventy, was invited to contribute; and thus arose in a few weeks the ‘Catholic Rent’. The name was strange; the collection at first awkward and ill–organised; the amount fell far below the calculations of the proposers; but the great point was the principle, and that was fully discovered. … It was not only that positive suffering was removed or that Catholic power was augmented by so large an accession of its funds; a new means of binding the people in an open and visible fraternity, which extended from one end of Ireland to the other, was obtained. Every farthing paid added a link to the chain. The Rent was first organised in the towns; it then spread, though slowly, to the neighbouring parishes; and from thence, by degrees, to the most remote parts of the country. The Collectors at first volunteered;––formed a committee;––divided the town into walks for collection––and transmitted their funds, through their secretary, to the Association. As they increased, and improved their system, they enlarged considerably its objects. They took rooms,––held their meetings weekly,––not only received reports of rent and remittances to the Association, &c; but discussed every subject of public policy connected with the general question; and, in most particulars, exhibited a close analogy to the great body with whom they were in relation. In the towns, the consequences were very conspicuous. The Rent proceeded rapidly; and with it a corresponding passion for political discussion, which pervaded every body and every class of society. The various dinners of charitable societies, trades &c. soon were made vehicles of this universal passion. It penetrated:––it clung to every thing. The most indifferent action took its colour from the one principle: the most casual conversation invariably terminated in the Catholic question. But the county parishes continued more or less inert. Up to the very eve of dissolution, the towns generally furnished in a double proportion to the counties.

Gillian M. Doherty