From that time till our own the Catholics of Ireland have had little opportunity of showing whether they were tolerant or otherwise. During the long and dreary meantime the problem before them was not what sort of civil life they should live, but whether or how they could manage to live at all. So late as 1759, Lord Chancellor Bowes, in giving judgment in a famous trial in Dublin, declared that “The law did not suppose a papist to exist in Ireland.” I have no desire to recall the story of how toleration fared in Ireland down to recent times. It is not necessary, and it is a disagreeable recollection. He would be very bold or very credulous who would think of doubting or denying what that history has been. I take up “Thom’s Almanac” of half a century ago, and I find that so late as that time the public offices were occupied almost exclusively by non-Catholics, from the Lord-Lieutenancy down to the Clerkship of Petty Sessions; and I think that it was so down to the office of the rural process-server. How did it come to pass that Catholics were kept outside, and that non-Catholics got within? Surely not that Catholics willingly yielded all public positions to their neighbours! The arrangement was therefore made by the other side. And what was the reason of that monopoly? Surely not that no Catholic was capable of any civil position except that of paying rates and taxes to the Crown and rent to the landlord. The exclusion was clearly the political penalty which Catholicism had to pay for its principles; the monopoly was the political premium which was awarded to those of the other side. The Catholics of Ireland have been gradually working their way towards civil equality. But every step has been disputed. Every claim for civil equality made by those who formed the vast majority of the population and who bore the burden of civil duties was met with a charge of intolerance, and with a protest against intruding religion into the affairs of civil life. That is to say, those who had already secured for themselves political and social privileges through religious exclusiveness raised the cry of religious exclusiveness against the vast majority of the population for claiming their just share of civil rights as they bore their share of civil duties. Catholics had either to remain resigned to their condition, or to protest against their faith being made a bar between them and civil justice. In doing so they have not sought to intrude religion into purely civil affairs; they rather have sought to extrude religious intolerance which, having taken up its abode, slammed the door in their face. Thus when Catholics claimed their civil rights it was called religious exclusiveness; when their neighbours were privileged by religious exclusiveness it was called civil rights. (II) Catholic Tolerance in Practice.