to a perception that the bloodshed was provoked by the misrule of the Ascendancy, and partly from the expense involved. Act of Union and decline The abolition of the Irish Parliament was followed by economic decline in Ireland, and widespread emigration from among the ruling class to the new centre of power in London, which increased the number of absentee landlords. The reduction of legalised discrimination with the passage of Catholic emancipation in 1829 meant that the Ascendancy now faced competition from prosperous Catholics in parliament and in the higher-level professional ranks such as the judiciary and the army that were needed in the growing British Empire. From 1840 corporations running towns and cities in Ireland became more democratically elected; previously they were dominated until 1793 by guild members who had to be Protestants. Great Irish Famine of 1845–52 The festering sense of native grievance was magnified by the Great Irish Famine of 1845–52, with many of the Ascendancy reviled as absentee landlords whose agents were shipping locally produced food overseas, while much of the population starved, over a million dying of hunger or associated diseases. Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the famine. About 20% of the population emigrated. The Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 was passed to allow landlords to sell mortgaged land, where a sale would be restricted because the land was "entailed". Over ten percent of landlords went bankrupt as their tenants could not pay any rent due to the famine. One example was the Browne family which lost over in County Mayo. Land War As a consequence, the remnants of the Ascendancy were gradually displaced during the 19th and early 20th centuries through impoverishment, bankruptcy, the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland by the Irish Church Act 1869 and finally the Irish Land Acts, which legally allowed the sitting tenants to buy their land. Some typical "Ascendancy" land-owning families like the Marquess of Headfort and the Earl of Granard had by then converted to Catholicism, and a considerable number of Protestant Nationalists had already taken their part in Irish history. The government-sponsored Land Commission then bought up a further of farmland between 1885 and 1920 where the freehold was assigned under mortgage to tenant farmers and farm workers. Nationalist movement The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was led by members of the Anglo-Irish class, some of whom feared the political implications of