The Registration Act was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Ireland passed in 1704, one of a series of Penal laws. Its long title is An Act for registering the Popish Clergy and its citation is 2 Ann c.7. It required all existing Roman Catholic priests to register in their local magistrates' court, to pay two 50-pound bonds to ensure good behavior, and to stay in the county where they registered.
Its second section stated that if an Irish Catholic priest was to convert to the Church of Ireland, they would receive a 20-pound stipend, levied on the residents of the area where the priest last practised. Any Unregistered Papal clergy were to depart Ireland before the 20th of July 1704 and any unregistered Papal Clergy remaining in Ireland after 24 June 1705 were to be removed from Ireland. Any that returned would be convicted of High Treason and were sought by freelance "Priest hunters".
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“No legislation can suppress nature; all life rushes to reproduction; our procreative faculties are matured early, while passion is strong, and judgment and self-restraint weak. We cannot alter this, but we can alter what is conventional. We can refuse to brand an act of nature as a crime, and to impute to vice what is due to ignorance.”
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