Irish House Of Commons

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.

Irish House of Commons
Type
Type	Lower house
History
Established	1297
Disbanded	1 January 1801
Succeeded by	House of Commons of the United Kingdom
Leadership
Speaker of the House	John Foster (1785–1800)
Seats	300
Elections
Voting system	First past the post with limited suffrage
Meeting place
The House of Commons in session (by Francis Wheatley, 1780)
Footnotes

The Irish executive, known as the Dublin Castle administration, under the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was not answerable to the House of Commons but to the British government. However, the Chief Secretary for Ireland was usually a member of the Irish parliament. In the Commons, business was presided over by the Speaker.

From 1 January 1801, it ceased to exist and was succeeded by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

The limited franchise was exclusively male. From 1728 until 1793, Catholics were disfranchised, as well as being ineligible to sit in the Commons. Most of the population of all religions had no vote. In counties, forty-shilling freeholders were enfranchised while in most boroughs it was either only the members of self-electing corporations or a highly restricted body of freemen that were eligible to vote for the borough's representatives. The vast majority of parliamentary boroughs were pocket boroughs, the private property of an aristocratic patron.

The House of Commons was abolished under the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Ireland into the Kingdom of Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with effect from 1 January 1801. The Irish House of Commons sat for the last time in Parliament House, Dublin on 2 August 1800. One hundred of its members were designated or co-opted to sit with the House of Commons of Great Britain, forming the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The patron of pocket boroughs that were disfranchised under the Act of Union was awarded £15,000 compensation for each.

 

The Speaker of the Irish House of Commons was the presiding officer of the House and its most senior official. The position was one of considerable power and prestige, and in the absence of a government chosen from and answerable to the Commons, he was the dominant political figure in the Parliament. The last Speaker was John Foster.

 

The number of boroughs invited to return members had originally been small (only 55 Boroughs existed in 1603) but was doubled by the Stuart monarchs. By the time of the Union, there were 150 constituencies, each electing two members:

• 32 county constituencies;
• 8 county borough constituencies;
• 109 borough constituencies;
• Dublin University.

Following the Act of Union, from 1801, there were 100 MPs from Ireland in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The constituencies were adapted from those in the Irish House of Commons as follows:

• 32 county constituencies, with two MPs each;
• 2 county borough constituencies, Cork City and Dublin City, both with two MPs;
• 31 county borough and borough constituencies, with one MP each;
• Dublin University, with one MP.

Notes