[3] Inheritance in traditional Irish law used gavelkind, whereby an estate was divided equally among a dead man's sons.

In contrast, English common law used male primogeniture, with the eldest son receiving the entire estate.

[1] Formally, one bill was vetoed and the other was returned to Dublin with amendments; a lack of surviving documentation makes it impossible to determine which of the two had which fate.

[1] Sir Toby Butler, the former Solicitor General for Ireland, a Roman Catholic, made a celebrated speech at the bar of the Commons denouncing the act as being "against the laws of God and man... against the rules of reason and justice".

Charles Ivar McGrath says that while the Popery Act had "evident ... negative effects", specific research is lacking,[9] and that it was intended more to prevent an increase in Catholic landholding than encourage further decrease:[9] the Catholic share of land had already fallen from 60% before the 1641 Rebellion to 22% before the Williamite War to 14% in 1704.

[10] Catholic gavelkind cemented a tradition of farm subdivision,[10] which persisted beyond the act's repeal and contributed to the Great Famine of the 1840s.

Lord Redesdale, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, remarked in an 1805 case, based on a disputed inheritance of an estate originally purchased before and after 1704 by a Catholic:[11] The purpose of [2 Anne c. 6 (I)] was to disable papists from purchasing lands in future; and to make all lands of which any papist was or should be seised in fee or in tail, of the nature of gavelkind, and, if not sold in his life-time for money, really and bonâ fide paid, to descend accordingly, notwithstanding any other disposition, but subject to debts and provision for daughters: and in case of conformity of the eldest son, the act reduced the father to the condition of tenant for life, and gave the inheritance to the conforming son, subject to provisions for younger children.

These acts had so embarrassed all the titles in the country, that if no other motive had occurred, it would have been a measure of policy to relax their severity: for no law is sufficient to restrain the desire of possessing landed property, and to evade these restrictive laws, contrivances were used, which perplexed almost every title, and made every protestant insecure in the possession of lands derived through a papist.In 1866, Chancery Commissioners reported that the Law of Judgments was much more complicated in Ireland than in England, and traced the difference back to the steps introduced in Ireland to enforce the 1704 act and ensure property was not being secretly transferred from Protestants to Catholics.

The time period for Dissenters subscribing to the oath was routinely extended, initially by an Indemnity Act at the start of each biennial parliamentary session.

[16] From the late 18th century Roman Catholic relief bills eased the Penal Laws, by explicit or implicit repeal and replacement.