HUGH BOULTER (1747)

English archbishop of Armagh and virtual ruler of Ireland at the height of the 18th-century Protestant Ascendancy, when Ireland was dominated by persons belonging to the established Anglican Church of Ireland.

Boulter was ordained priest in the Anglican Church and in 1719 became chaplain to King George I.

In 1724 he reluctantly accepted appointment as archbishop of Armagh and primate of the Church of Ireland. Appointed lord justice, he became the English government´s chief adviser in Ireland. He based his policies on the conviction that England´s interests in Ireland were threatened by the large Roman Catholic majority. Hence, he made the penal laws against Catholics more stringent (1728); Catholics were deprived of the vote and excluded from the legal profession. At the same time he sought wherever possible to replace Irish with English in ecclesiastical and political offices.