difficult, especially after Catholic emancipation. The Church Temporalities Act 1833 was passed, reducing the number of sees from 22 to 12, but attempts to redistribute the church's wealth failed amidst political controversy.

Eventually, as G. M. Trevelyan put it, "the disestablishment and partial disendowment of the Irish Protestant Church was carried out in a masterly and sympathetic manner by William Ewart Gladstone,