Irish penal law The act to prevent further growth of popery (1704) Introduction Series of anti-Catholic laws introduced by the Dublin Parliament 1695–1727 in defiance of the Treaty of Limerick. The measures were gradually repealed in the late 18th century, although the penal laws were not completely removed until the Catholic emancipation of 1829. The purpose of these laws was partly punishment for the support given by Irish Catholics to King James II between 1688 and 1690, and partly to ensure the domination of Ireland by the Protestant settlers. Context The first Irish penal laws were two statutes in 1695. One forbade Catholics not covered by the treaty of Limerick to keep weapons. The second, concerned mainly to sever links between Irish Catholics and their continental allies, forbade Catholics to go overseas for purposes of education, but also banned Catholics from teaching or running schools within Ireland. The Bishops' Banishment Act (1697) required all regular clergy, and all bishops, vicars-general, and others exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to leave the kingdom by 1 May 1698. Other clergy were permitted to remain, but an act of 1704 required them to register with the authorities, limited their number to one per parish, and forbade the entry of further priests into the kingdom. Also, Catholics were excluded from parliament (under an English act) from 1691, but did not completely lose the right to vote until 1728. The penal laws were traditionally seen as victimizing the entire Catholic population. The Catholic aristocracy and gentry were both the main targets of the legislation and its main victims. Over the next few decades most of these surviving Catholic landowners, deprived of the opportunity to extend their estates by marriage or purchase, excluded from local and national politics, and threatened with the progressive fragmentation of their properties, conformed to the Church of Ireland. By contrast the laws did not