Catholic Church in the United Kingdom was not yet a reality, particularly in Ireland, where the Protestant Ascendancy was still in full force. The Treaty of Union of 1707, like the Act of Settlement, had stated that no "Papist" could succeed to the throne. Restrictions on the civil rights of Catholics only began to change with the passing of the Papists Act 1778, which allowed them to own property, inherit land and join the British Army, although even this measure resulted in the backlash of the Gordon Riots of 1780, showing the depth of continuing anti-Catholic feeling. After 1790, a new mood emerged as thousands of
Secret societies in colonial Singapore first of which was the Anti-Catholic Riots which took place from February 15–20, 1851, with an estimated 500 dead. The reasons for the riots were due to the successes in which the Catholics had in having converts to Catholicism, which meant that the pool in which secret societies could draw membership from had shrunk, given the Taoist styled religious connotation that secret societies entailed. The second was the Teochew-Hokkien Riots, also known as the Great Riots of 1854 or the Five Catties of Rice Riots, which took place three years later from May 5–17, 1854, with an almost equal death