I think the lesson here is that just holding a vote isn't enough sometimes to protect your rights.
The people you vote for have to have real power to protect you from the mob of people who aren't like you, have never been to your town, and don't care about you.
They let all the Irish men vote, and they let those representatives cast real votes in London's Parliament. But Ireland's population was only half as big as Great Britain's. If the UK had a Senate, it might have gone better, but Wales and Scotland and England still might have outvoted them three to one. What Ireland needed at the time was the ability to vote for its own local government, and for the federal government in London to have limited powers.

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