The Catholic Committee or Catholic Convention was an organisation in 18th-century Ireland that campaigned for the rights of Catholics and for the repeal of the Penal Laws. It dissolved itself in 1793 the wake of a Catholic Relief Act. This removed most of the remaining civil disabilities and extended to Catholic the right to vote on the same limited basis Protestants. Divisions between former Committee members emerged over cooperation with the republican United Irishmen whom the Roman Catholic bishops condemned. The Committee reconvened during the short viceroyalty of William Fitzwilliam (1794–1795). When the hopes he had raised of Catholic admission to the Irish Parliament was dashed by his dismissal, large numbers of Catholics began to take the United Irish oath.