View source for Irish House of Lords

{{Short description|Upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed until 1800}}{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}}
{{Infobox legislature
| name               = Irish House of Lords
| native_name        =
| transcription_name =
| coa_pic            = Arms of Ireland (historical).svg
| coa_res            = 150px
| coa_caption        = 
| house_type         = [[Upper house]]
| houses             =
| legislature        =
| established        = 1297
| preceded_by        =
| succeeded_by       = [[House of Lords|House of Lords of the United Kingdom]]
| disbanded          = {{End date|1801|1|1|df=y}}
| leader1_type       = [[Lord Chancellor of Ireland|Lord Chancellor]]
| leader1            = [[John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare|The Earl of Clare]]<sup>1</sup> (1789–1800)
| election1          =
| members            =
| house1             =
| house2             =
| house3             =
| seats              = typically 122–147<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Active Irish Peers in the Early Eighteenth Century|first=F. G.|last=James|date=23 May 1979|journal=Journal of British Studies|volume=18|issue=2|pages=52–69|jstor = 175512|doi = 10.1086/385737}}</ref>
| voting_system1     =  [[Ennoblement]] by [[List of Irish monarchs|the monarch]] or inheritance of a [[Peerage of Ireland|peerage]]
| session_room       = File:Irish House of Lords chamber 1.jpg
| session_res        = 250px
| term_length        = Lifetime
| salary             = nil
| meeting_place      = Lords Chamber, [[Parliament House, Dublin]]
| footnotes          = <sup>1</sup>In 1800<hr />See also:<br />[[Parliament of Great Britain]]
}}
[[File:Hoflentrance.jpg|thumb|The House of Lords entrance to the Parliament House (east view). The entrance, which was part of an extension to the original building, was designed by renowned architect [[James Gandon]] by 1789.]]
The '''Irish House of Lords''' was the [[upper house]] of the [[Parliament of Ireland]] that existed from medieval times until the end of 1800. It was also the [[Supreme court|final court of appeal]] of the [[Kingdom of Ireland]].

It was modelled on the [[House of Lords of England]], with members of the [[Peerage of Ireland]] sitting in the Irish Lords, just as members of the [[Peerage of England]] did at Westminster. When the [[Act of Union 1800]] abolished the Irish parliament, a subset of Irish peers sat as [[List of Irish representative peers|Irish representative peer]]s in the [[House of Lords]] of the merged [[Parliament of the United Kingdom]].<ref>E.M. Johnson-Liik ''History of the Irish parliament'' in 6 vols. (Belfast, 2002).</ref>

==History==
The Lords started as a group of barons in the [[Lordship of Ireland]] that was generally limited to the [[The Pale|Pale]], a variable area around Dublin where English law was in effect, but did extend to the rest of Ireland. They sat as a group, not as a separate House, from the first meeting of the [[Parliament of Ireland]] in 1297. From the establishment of the [[Kingdom of Ireland]] in 1542 the Lords included a large number of new Gaelic and Norman lords under the policy of [[surrender and regrant]].

Religious division was reflected in the House, but as late as the 1689 "[[Patriot Parliament]]" a majority of Lords had remained [[Roman Catholic]]s, while the administration and a slight majority in the Commons were [[Anglican Communion|Anglicans]], adherents of the [[Church of Ireland]]. In 1634 the campaign to secure [[The Graces (Ireland)|"The Graces"]] came to a head. Most of these Catholic lords lost their titles in the ensuing [[Irish Rebellion of 1641|1641 rebellion]], notably during the 1652 [[Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652|Cromwellian Settlement]]. These dispossessed lords were regranted their titles (if not always their lands) after the [[Restoration (Ireland)|Restoration of 1660]] by the [[Act of Settlement 1662]]. Others took the losing side in the [[Williamite War in Ireland]] (1689–91), and a much smaller number of them were re-granted their lands in the 18th century.

By the 1790s most of the Lords personified and wanted to protect the "[[Protestant Ascendancy]]". By the time of the abolition of the Irish House of Lords in 1800 some of the peerages were very ancient, such as the [[Baron Kingsale|lords Kingsale]], created in 1397, and the [[Viscount Gormanston|viscounts Gormanston]] from 1478. The first [[Earl of Kildare]] had been created in 1316.

Following the [[Acts of Union 1800|Act of Union in 1800]], the [[peerage of Ireland]] elected just 28 of their number to sit in the [[House of Lords|United Kingdom House of Lords]], described as the "[[List of Irish representative peers|Irish representative peer]]s". This practice ended in 1922 with the establishment of the [[Irish Free State]].  Other newly created Irish peers, such as [[Robert Clive|Clive of India]], the [[Earl of Carysfort]] and [[Lord Curzon]], were still able to stand for election to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom]] (not being [[peerage of the United Kingdom|UK peers]]) if they were not a representative peer. This was a convenient way of giving a title for reasons of prestige to someone who expected to sit in the British House of Commons.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.burkespeerage.com/articles/ireland/page93.aspx|title=The Irish Peers and the House of Lords - The final chapter|publisher=[[Burke's Peerage]]|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100819055054/https://www.burkespeerage.com/articles/ireland/page93.aspx|archivedate=19 August 2010}}</ref>

Today the 18th-century [[Irish Houses of Parliament|Irish Parliament building]] on [[College Green, Dublin|College Green]] in [[Dublin]] is an office of the commercial [[Bank of Ireland]], and visitors can view the Irish House of Lords chamber within the building.

==Function==
The Parliament of Ireland was a [[bicameral]] [[legislature]], and [[bill (law)|bill]]s could originate in either the Commons or the Lords; both had to pass a bill for it to stand a chance of becoming law. Either house could amend or reject the others' proposals. Under [[Poynings' Law (on certification of acts)|Poynings' Law]], matters passed by the Irish parliament had to be approved and could be amended by the [[Irish Privy Council]] and [[English Privy Council]]; main debates before this stage were thus technically on "heads of bills".  Following approval the Parliament of Ireland voted on the formal finalised "bill" (which could only be rejected or passed unamended).

The Lords was the highest [[court of appeal]] in Ireland, same as the [[Judicial functions of the House of Lords|Lords were in England]]. However, the controversial British [[Declaratory Act 1719]] asserted the right of the Lords in Westminster to overrule the Irish Lords. The [[Irish Patriot Party]] secured the [[Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act 1782|repeal of the Declaratory Act]] as part of the [[Constitution of 1782]].

The House of Lords was presided over by the [[Lord Chancellor of Ireland|Lord Chancellor]], who sat on the [[woolsack]], a large seat stuffed with wool from each of the three lands of England, Ireland and Scotland. At the state opening of the Irish parliament Members of Parliament were summoned to the House of Lords from the House of Commons chamber by [[Black Rod]], a royal official who would "command the members on behalf of His Excellency to attend him in the chamber of peers". Sessions were formally opened by the [[Speech from the Throne]] by the [[Lord Lieutenant of Ireland|Lord Lieutenant]], who sat on the throne beneath a canopy of crimson velvet.

Sessions were generally held at [[Dublin Castle]] in the 16th and 17th centuries, until the opening of the [[Irish Houses of Parliament]] in the 1730s.

<gallery>
File:Lords Chamber 2.jpg|A sectional engraving of the House of Lords chamber (by Peter Mazell 1767 based on the drawing by Rowland Omer)
File:Woolsack (Irish House of Lords).jpg|The [[Woolsack]] was used by the [[Lord Chancellor of Ireland|Lord Chancellor]] when chairing the house
File:Battle of Boyne tapestry Irish HOL.jpg|''William III's victory over James II/VII''<br />The [[Battle of the Boyne]] tapestry that hangs in the Lords chamber
File:GILBERT(1896) p145 PRESENTATION OF THE BODY OF ... THE LATE DUKE OF RUTLAND.jpg|[[Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland]] lying in state in the Irish House of Lords chamber after his death in 1787 
</gallery>

==See also==
*[[Kingdom of Ireland]]
*[[List of Irish representative peers]]

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
;Journals of the House of Lords:  [https://opac.oireachtas.ie/Data/Library7/Library1/DC900086.pdf Vol 1] [https://opac.oireachtas.ie/Data/Library7/Library1/DC900087.pdf Vol 2] [https://opac.oireachtas.ie/Data/Library7/Library1/DC900088.pdf Vol 3] [https://opac.oireachtas.ie/Data/Library7/Library1/DC900085.pdf Vol 4] [https://opac.oireachtas.ie/Data/Library7/Library1/DC900084.pdf Vol 5] [https://opac.oireachtas.ie/Data/Library7/Library1/DC900083.pdf Vol 6] [https://opac.oireachtas.ie/Data/Library7/Library1/DC900090.pdf Vol 7] [https://opac.oireachtas.ie/Data/Library7/Library1/DC900089.pdf Vol 8] Proceedings 1634–1800; printed 1779–1800; large (~1 GB) [[PDF]] files from the [[Oireachtas]] library

{{Irish legislatures}}
{{National upper houses}}
{{Kingdom of Ireland}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Irish House Of Lords}}
[[Category:Irish House of Lords| ]]
[[Category:Parliament of Ireland|Lords]]
[[Category:Defunct upper houses]]
[[Category:Former supreme courts]]
[[Category:1290s establishments in Ireland]]
[[Category:1800 disestablishments in Ireland]]
[[Category:Courts and tribunals disestablished in 1800]]