page_title: Party Processions Act
hierarchical_section_title: Party Processions Act
caption_attribution_description: Freedom to Ireland
context_page_description: The Party Processions Act was an 1850 Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom which prohibited open marching, organised parades and sectarian meetings in Ireland in order to outlaw provocative movements in the wake of the Dolly's Brae fighting of 1849. Written on 8 February, the Act was assembled against people "in the practice of assembling and marching together in procession in Ireland in a manner calculated to create and perpetuate animosities between different classes of Her Majesty's Subjects, and to endanger the public peace." Actions such as using banners, emblems and flags constituted an offence, as did music "calculated or tend to provoke animosity". Violation of the Act was classed as a misdemeanor. The Act was strongly supported by Sir Robert Peel however opposed by other politicians such as Lord Claude Hamilton who argued that religious parades would also be outlawed, yet posed no threat. The Party Emblems Act was passed in 1860 to further support this measure following further riots at Derrymacash.
context_section_description: The Party Processions Act (13 & 14 Vict c2) was an 1850 Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom which prohibited open marching, organised parades and sectarian meetings in Ireland in order to outlaw provocative movements in the wake of the Dolly's Brae fighting of 1849. Written on 8 February, the Act was assembled against people "in the practice of assembling and marching together in procession in Ireland in a manner calculated to create and perpetuate animosities between different classes of Her Majesty's Subjects, and to endanger the public peace." Actions such as using banners, emblems and flags constituted an offence, as did music "calculated or tend to provoke animosity". Violation of the Act was classed as a misdemeanor. The Act was strongly supported by Sir Robert Peel however opposed by other politicians such as Lord Claude Hamilton who argued that religious parades would also be outlawed, yet posed no threat. The Party Emblems Act was passed in 1860 to further support this measure following further riots at Derrymacash. The Act was "grudgingly" accepted by the Orangemen, however both the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Young Ireland movement, and related Fenian movements were less placated. William Johnston of Ballykilbeg led a radical Orangemen group in defiance of the act during the 1860s, and was imprisoned – prompting strong demand for its repeal in 1867, which succeeded in 1872. The issue and repeal of the Act is viewed as an important milestone by nationalist historians of Ireland, and is said to be an example of Irish suppression by the "English" government. Peel, however, was one of a number of Members of Parliament who viewed the Act as a necessity to prevent Catholic and Protestant in-fighting rather than Irish nationalism as a whole. Traditional, revisionist and post-revisionist historians have subsequently supported either viewpoint and the Act remains a controversial one.
caption: "Freedom to Ireland", a patriotic lithograph by Currier & Ives, New York, ca 1866. The Party Processions Act prohibited music, flags, banners, fire arms and party colours from being paraded in Ireland between its issue in 1850 and its repeal in 1872.
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