The Physical Incarnation of Ireland’s Golden Age

I HAVE ALREADY written about the old Houses of Parliament in Dublin, one of my favourite buildings in the entire world, but occasionally one feels the need to revisit previous haunts on this little corner of the web. It is supposedly the first purpose-built parliament building in the world, and stands on the site of Chichester House, a stately home adapted for use by the Irish Parliament from the 1600s onwards.

The Parliament of Ireland first formed in the thirteenth century and existed until its abolition by the Act of Union in 1801. The first recorded meeting was in 1264, making it ostensibly older than the English Parliament if one counts de Montfort’s Parliament of 1265. (More reasonably, we might count the Oxford Parliament of 1258 as England’s “first”). Admittedly, the Parliament was born out of the extended Anglo-Norman domination of Ireland, and Poynings’ Law of 1494 meant that all acts had to receive approval from England before becoming law. Alongside the Protestant Revolution in England, Protestantism was made the state religion in Ireland. Nonetheless, Irish Catholics were actually allowed to vote for the Irish House of Commons (though not stand for election) and take seats in the Irish House of Lords until they were explicitly banished in 1728.

As the eighteenth century proceeded, the Anglo-Irish aristocracy who dominated the Irish Parliament began to seek greater freedom from the British Parliament in Westminster. Through the efforts of the great reformer Henry Grattan, the Parliament of Great Britain was persuaded to allow the repeal of Poynings’ Law in order to appease the growing Irish discontent. With the “Constitution of 1782″, as it was known, Ireland’s legislative independence was restored.

“I found Ireland on her knees,” Grattan proclaimed. “I watched over her with a paternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed! Ireland is now a nation!”

The Irish House of Lords

Ireland’s aristocracy in the Commons and the Lords used their newfound freedom from Britain to adopt a program of moderate, evolutionary reform with the aim of stabilizing the divided nation. Most importantly, by the actions of this Protestant elite the freedom of the Catholic Church was gradually extended. Catholics were once again allowed to vote for the Commons from 1793. In 1795, George III, King of Ireland, exhibited his munificence towards his loyal Roman Catholic subjects by establishing St. Patrick’s College at Maynooth as a Catholic seminary. The land for the college donated by the (Anglican) Duke of Leinster. The seminary continued to be funded by the officially Protestant government until 1869, when the (Anglican) Church of Ireland was disestablished, removing Protestantism as the official state religion.

The Irish House of Commons

With the Parliament’s freedom, Dublin once again became a city of great importance instead of a mere administrative backwater. Merchants and the aristocracy built grand houses in and around the city to participate in the social season. Between January and St. Patrick’s Day in March, the Viceroy of Ireland presided over state balls in the Viceregal Apartments of Dublin Castle, coinciding (for the most part) with the parliamentary session.

Ireland’s golden age, however, was not to last long. Alongside Ireland’s peaceful liberation, the horrors of the Revolution were regnant across the sea in France, and the revolutionary regime there attempted to export its evil ideology. In 1798, the Society of the United Irishmen, a radicalized band of angry reformers, launched a violent republican revolution inspired by the French. The rebellion was eventually suppressed but its widespread nature spread alarm at the state of affairs in Ireland. In the backlash, the British government was convinced that the only solution was the union of Great Britain and Ireland, along similar lines as the Union of Scotland and England in 1707. The initial attempt to get the Irish parliament to abolish itself and agree to union with Great Britain failed, but after a mass campaign of bribery and inducements, the Act of Union was passed in 1800. On January 1, 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland joined, and the United Kingdom was born.

The last session of the Irish Parliament, 1800.

Previously: The Old Irish Parliament House | Hail Glorious Saint Patrick | Parliament House