Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery.

Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the largest branches of Christianity, with around 110 million adherents worldwide as of 2024. Most are members of national or regional ecclesiastical provinces of the international Anglican Communion, one of the largest Christian bodies in the world, and the world's third-largest Christian communion. Research from the Center for the Study of Worldwide Christianity, based at Gordon Conwell, found that there were nearly 91 million Anglicans worldwide in 2015, not including the United "churches on the Indian Sub-Continent" as they "are ecumenical federations." In 2025, the Church Times reported that, according to research conducted by researchers at Durham University and Gordon Conwell, using 2020 data provided by member churches and not counting the United churches, there were nearly 95 million Anglicans worldwide within the Anglican Communion. When united churches in the Anglican Communion and the breakaway Continuing Anglican movement were not counted, there were an estimated 97.4 million Anglicans worldwide in 2020.

John Atherton was the Anglican Bishop of Waterford and Lismore in the Church of Ireland. He and John Childe were both tried and executed for buggery in 1640.

The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until the end of 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, but on a highly restrictive franchise, similar to the unreformed House of Commons in contemporary Great Britain. Catholics were disqualified from sitting in the Irish parliament from 1691, even though they comprised the vast majority of the Irish population.