In English history, the penal laws were a series of laws that sought to enforce the State-decreed religious monopoly of the Church of England and, following the 1688 revolution, of Presbyterianism in Scotland, against the continued existence of illegal and underground communities of Catholics, nonjuring Anglicans, and Protestant nonconformists. The Penal laws also imposed various forfeitures, civil penalties, and civil disabilities upon recusants from mandatory attendance at weekly Sunday services of the Established Church. The penal laws in general were repealed in the early 19th-century due to the successful activism of Daniel O'Connell for Catholic Emancipation. Penal actions are civil in nature and were not English common law.
In a culture where only monogamous relationships are legally recognized, bigamy is the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another. A legal or de facto separation of the couple does not alter their marital status as married persons. In the case of a person in the process of divorcing their spouse, that person is taken to be legally married until such time as the divorce becomes final or absolute under the law of the relevant jurisdiction. Bigamy laws do not apply to couples in a de facto or cohabitation relationship, or that enter such relationships when one is legally married. If the prior marriage is for any reason void, the couple is not married, and hence each party is free to marry another without falling foul of the bigamy laws.
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws. Requirements to abjure (renounce) the temporal and spiritual authority of the pope and transubstantiation placed major burdens on Roman Catholics.
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that held that the "Siman Act", a 1919 Nebraska law prohibiting minority languages as both the subject and medium of instruction in schools, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court's ruling is one of the earliest articulations of substantive due process.
An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland that was passed in 1704 designed to suppress Roman Catholicism in Ireland ("Popery"). William Edward Hartpole Lecky called it the most notorious of the Irish Penal Laws.
The Protestant Ascendancy was the sociopolitical and economical domination of Ireland between the 17th and early 20th centuries by a small Anglican ruling class, whose members consisted of landowners, politicians, clergymen, military officers and other prominent professions. They were either members of the Church of Ireland or the Church of England and wielded a disproportionate amount of social, cultural and political influence in Ireland. The Ascendancy existed as a result of British rule in Ireland, as land confiscated from the Irish Catholic aristocracy was awarded by the Crown to Protestant settlers from Great Britain.
Anti-Protestantism is bias, hatred or distrust against some or all branches of Protestantism and/or its followers, especially when amplified in legal, political, ethic or military measures.
Honora "Nano" Nagle was an Irish Catholic religious sister who served as a pioneer of Catholic education in Ireland despite legal prohibitions. She founded the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, commonly known as the Presentation Sisters, now a worldwide Catholic institute of women religious. She was declared venerable in the Catholic Church on 31 October 2013 by Pope Francis.
In Ireland, the penal laws were a series of legal disabilities imposed in the seventeenth, and early eighteenth, centuries on the kingdom's Roman Catholic majority and, to a lesser degree, on Protestant "Dissenters". Enacted by the Irish Parliament, they secured the Protestant Ascendancy by further concentrating property and public office in the hands of those who, as communicants of the established Church of Ireland, subscribed to the Oath of Supremacy. The Oath acknowledged the British monarch as the "supreme governor" of matters both spiritual and temporal, and abjured "all foreign jurisdictions [and] powers"—by implication both the Pope in Rome and the Stuart "Pretender" in the court of the King of France.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Pakistan. Although there have been numerous amendments to the Constitution, there is yet to be a provision prohibiting the death penalty as a punitive remedy.
Hedge schools were small informal secret and illegal schools, particularly in 18th-century Ireland, teaching the rudiments of primary education to children of 'non-conforming' faiths. Prior to the 1792 repeal of the Education Act 1695, only schools run by subscribers to the Anglican faith were allowed to operate. Instead, Catholics and Presbyterians set up secret and illegal schools that met in private homes.
Segregation in Northern Ireland is a long-running issue in the political and social history of Northern Ireland. The segregation involves Northern Ireland's two main voting blocs—Irish nationalist/republicans and unionist/loyalist. It is often seen as both a cause and effect of the "Troubles".
Events from the year 1695 in Ireland.
According to the 2018 census, Buddhism is the largest religion in Thailand, practiced by over 94% of the population; Islam makes up 5% of the population. The Thai government officially recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Christianity.
The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793 was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland, implicitly repealing some of the Irish Penal Laws and relieving Roman Catholics of certain political, educational, and economic disabilities.
The legality of corporal punishment of children varies by country. Corporal punishment of minor children by parents or adult guardians, which is intended to cause physical pain, has been traditionally legal in nearly all countries unless explicitly outlawed. According to a 2014 estimate by Human Rights Watch, "Ninety percent of the world's children live in countries where corporal punishment and other physical violence against children is still legal". Many countries' laws provide for a defence of "reasonable chastisement" against charges of assault and other crimes for parents using corporal punishment. This defence is ultimately derived from English law. As of 2024, only three of seven G7 members and seven of the 20 G20 member states have banned the use of corporal punishment against children.
The status of religious freedom in Africa varies from country to country. States can differ based on whether or not they guarantee equal treatment under law for followers of different religions, whether they establish a state religion, the extent to which religious organizations operating within the country are policed, and the extent to which religious law is used as a basis for the country's legal code.
The Popery Act 1627 was an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of England. Its long title is "An Act to restrain the passing or sending of any to be Popishly bred beyond the Seas". This was the only penal law to be passed during the reign of Charles I.
Hate speech is public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. Hate speech is "usually thought to include communications of animosity or disparagement of an individual or a group on account of a group characteristic such as race, colour, national origin, sex, disability, religion, or sexual orientation".
In medieval Gaelic Ireland, centres of learning were monasteries and bardic schools.
