An Irish Coercion Bill was proposed by Sir Robert Peel on 15 May 1846 in order to calm the increasingly difficult situation in Ireland as a result of the ongoing famine there.
From 1874, attempts to introduce other Irish coercion acts were blocked by the filibustering of Joseph Biggar.
[4] Many of them were active in the Irish National Land League; this was sufficient for the "reasonable suspicion" required by the act.
An influential[citation needed] analysis of the pros and cons of the Act was published in 1888 by William Henry Hurlbert, a Catholic Irish-American author.
[6] Many hundreds were imprisoned at times under the acts, including many prominent politicians and agrarian agitators,[7][failed verification] Joseph Biggar, Alexander Blane, Michael Davitt, John Dillon, James Gilhooly, Patrick Guiney, Matthew Harris, John Hayden, John Hooper, J. E. Kenny, Andrew Kettle, Denis Kilbride, Pat O'Brien, William O'Brien, James O'Kelly, Charles Stewart Parnell, Douglas Pyne, Willie Redmond, and Timothy Sullivan.
Eventually, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Henry Brand, resorted to ignoring IPP members of Parliament who requested the right of speech and put the question, a controversial move that allowed Gladstone to pass the act.