The situation of Ireland during the premiership of William Pitt the Younger deteriorated.

During this time, Ireland was a theoretically autonomous Kingdom with its own Parliament; in reality it was a client state controlled by the King of Great Britain and supervised by his cabinet in London.

The great majority of its population, Roman Catholics, were excluded from power and land ownership under the Penal Laws. The second-largest group, the Presbyterians in Ulster, owned land and businesses but could not vote and had no political power. The century began with the defeat of the Catholic Jacobites in the Williamite War in Ireland in 1691 and ends with the Acts of Union 1800, which formally annexed Ireland in a United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 and dissolved the Irish Parliament.

The Irish could not trade with any of the British colonies, and had to export all their wool to England, its manifacture was absolutely forbidden. The peasants’ diet was based on potatoes. Famine (=carestia) was endemic.

In 1775 Henry Grattan took charge of the reform movement. Britain was deeply involved in the war against the American colonies and withdrew the militia from Ireland. Grattan could count on an army of some 80 thousand soldiers, he declared full loyalty to George III, but required economic equality and freedom of legislature for Ireland.

It was no real victory because the executive remained in London. A new turn was obtained during the war between Britain and revolutionary France: it was the vote for the Catholics (but membership in the two Irish Houses was denied). So the Irish allied with France and asked full independence. In 1798 the Catholics rose, but were defeated definitely at Vinegar Hill.