88/90 The intervening years had made no difference in his estimate of Ireland, or of Irishmen. O'Connell, who had nothing to do with the politics of the eighteenth century, was "not sincere about repeal," although he "forced the Whigs to give him whatever he might please to ask for,"+ and he certainly asked for that. 568. He would have dragooned the Irish into Protestantism and made the three Catholic provinces into a Crown colony. The Irish establishment he regretted as a badge of Protestant ascendency. |