Martin Meenagh blog

  The Irish Parliament 1297-1800 There was a semi-autonomous Irish parliament between 1297 and 1800. From 1537, this body was divided into an Irish House of Lords and House of Commons on an highly restricted franchise, and whereas it purported to a national authority, it should not be misinterpreted as a national assembly. From 1495, its laws had to be cleared by the Irish and British Privy Councils, for instance, as ‘Ponying’s Law’ subordinated the Irish parliament to the English one. [1] From 1607, in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot, until 1778, Catholics in Ireland were excluded at various times from public office, voting, the army, many forms of ownership, and effectively from public worship and burial. This process was from time to time interrupted, and was not systematic at first, leaving some Irish catholic lords and MPs until the late seventeenth century, for instance. From the early seventeenth century, however, constituencies were changed to give the Irish House of...

  As often in the past three years, I am compiling my briefing notes for students in the intention of putting them online as a book. These are draft notes for one of this term's courses, copied from my main blog. Ireland is an old island which currently contains a young republic and a culturally divided area of British jurisdiction. Consequently, there is a great deal of ‘term shifting’ which goes on in descriptions of the place. Some people feel comfortable thinking in terms of counties, some in provinces, and some in geographical descriptions. Given the historic and current disputatiousness of the Irish, otherwise innocuous terms carry meanings; to call the country ‘Eire’ rather than ‘the Republic,’ to use the terms ‘the State’ or ‘The North’ is to make a conscious decision of which those outside of Ireland’s internal debates are often unaware. Some cities have three names, all of which, in the right circumstances, could start a fight. Paradoxically, however, the association of...