Despite the 1800 Act of Union, Ireland was not an integral part of the United Kingdom. Its viceregal government, the breadth and depth of its poverty, and the extent, persistence, and savagery of peasant violence marked it as distinct. This distinction was emphasized by Ireland's Protestant ascendancy in an overwhelmingly Catholic population. In his examination of British administration in Ireland from 1812 to 1830, Brian Jenkins focuses on the Catholic issue which dominated Britain's Irish agenda during this period. He argues that the British government attempted, within the context of the time, to govern Ireland in a civilized and enlightened way.

The conduct of the central government was often reactive rather than deliberate. While its lack of a coherent policy was not remarkable, given the period under consideration, the government's failure to develop such a policy was disastrous in dealing with the fundamental issue of Catholic emancipation. The final surrender of Peel and Wellington was bitter and the 1829 Catholic relief act contained insults to Irish Catholics. The nature of the act, coupled with continued Protestant ascendancy and landlordism, and Catholic mass poverty and insecurity, meant that Catholic emancipation was not a prelude to Ireland's assimilation into the United Kingdom but instead, the beginning of the process of modern Irish nationalism.