Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829
The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, also known as the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829, was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1829. It was the culmination of the process of Catholic emancipation throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In Ireland, it repealed the Test Act 1672 and the remaining Penal Laws which had been in force since the passing of the Disenfranchising Act of the Irish Parliament of 1728. Its passage followed a vigorous campaign led by Irish lawyer Daniel O'Connell that threatened insurrection. The British prime minister, the Duke of Wellington, and the home secretary, Robert Peel, although initially opposed, accepted the need for it to avoid civil strife. The act permitted members of the Catholic Church to sit in the Parliament. O'Connell had won a seat in a by-election for Clare in 1828 against an Anglican. Under the extant penal law, O'Connell, as a Catholic, was forbidden to take his seat in Parliament. Home Secretary Peel, despite being nicknamed "Orange Peel" by O'Connell because of his strongly anti-Catholic stance as a young man, now concluded: "though emancipation was a great danger, civil strife was a greater danger." Fearing a revolution in Ireland,