Subsequent laws usually derived their momentum from the Irish parliament and reflected its insecurity. Additions were made during the reign of William III, and the severity of the ‘code’ reached its zenith during the reign of Queen Anne. Then it gradually tapered off as the Hanoverian dynasty became more secure and many laws fell into disuse.
The penal laws can be broadly classified into three types: firstly, acts that affected the clergy and the church hierarchy; secondly, acts that affected the family through restrictions imposed on education, marriage and inheritance; and thirdly, acts that prevented Catholics, and to a lesser extent other Nonconformists, from participating in public life or professional activity, such as sitting in parliament, grand juries and municipal corporations or embarking on a career in the legal profession or the armed forces.
Being debarred from the armed forces persuaded many to seek a career in the armies of the Catholic sovereigns of Europe, particularly in France. Enlistment in these regiments was sometimes surreptitious and illegal, but it could also be sanctioned by government granting the enlistment officer a licence. Officially government took a strict line on illegal enlistment, but it was almost impossible to stop, although a number of statutes attempted to plug this loophole.
Professionally Catholics were debarred from the law (10 Will. III, c. 13; 6 Anne, c. 6; 7 Geo. II, c. 5 & c. 6), which in the eighteenth century was the traditional method of advancement both socially and economically, and again many statutes were aimed at prohibiting this avenue from them. However, many got round this difficulty by conforming - doubtless with varying degrees of sincerity - to the Established Church. In March 1726/7 Primate Boulter complained that: