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ABSTRACT
Parliament in early modern Ireland grew in both the size of its membership and its workload, and so as the flow of business put before parliament in the early modern period increased, the parliamentary committee became a more frequent part of the institution. Committees, and the parliamentary conferences conducted by them, were used as a way of dispatching business in an increasingly efficient, targeted, and concentrated manner. The committee allowed for freer debate, concentration of expertise, and timely completion of work. Studying them is useful for our understanding of the development of the institution, but also too for observing the involvement and work-rate of individual parliamentarians, and perhaps political activity too.
Notes
1 J. Hardiman, Tracts relating to Ireland, 2 vols (Dublin, 1841–43), vol. 2, app. 2; J.H. Ohlmeyer, Making Ireland English: The Irish aristocracy in the seventeenth century (New Haven, 2012), pp. 29–42. Ohlmeyer counts 14 lines from medieval Ireland still in existence at the beginning of the early modern period, rising to a resident peerage of 75 in 1685.
2 The journals of the house of lords of the kingdom of Ireland (Dublin, 1779) [hereafter LJ Ire.], 23 July 1634, S.O. V, VI; LJ Ire., 2 November 1692, S.O. 12.
3 LJ Ire., 23 July 1634, S.O. XII.
4 LJ Ire., 23 July 1634, S.O. V.
5 P. Collinson, ‘Puritans, men of business and Elizabethan parliaments’, Parliamentary History 7, (1988), pp. 187–211; M.A.R. Graves, ‘The management of the Elizabethan house of commons: The council’s men of business’, Parliamentary History 2, (1983), pp. 11–38.
6 C.A. Dennehy, ‘Institutional history and the early modern Irish state’, in V. Carey, S. Covington and V. McGowan-Doyle, (eds), Early modern Ireland: Sources, methods, perspectives (New York, 2019), pp. 180–95.
7 S. Lambert, ‘Committees, religion, and parliamentary encroachment on royal authority in early Stuart England’, English historical review 105, (1990), p. 79.
8 For general work on the English Parliament, see C. Kyle & J. Peacey (eds), Parliament at work: Parliamentary committtees, political power, and public access in early modern England (Woodbridge, 2002), especially the chapters by M. Graves and C. Kyle.
9 C.A. Dennehy, The Irish parliament, 1613–89: The evolution of a colonial institution (Manchester, 2019), pp. 207–9.
10 E.R. Foster, The house of lords, 1603–1649: Structure, procedure, and the nature of its business (Chapel Hill, 1983), p. 111
11 The journals of the house of commons of the kingdom of Ireland (Dublin, 1752) [hereafter CJ Ire.], 26, 29 April 1615.
12 ‘At the commencement of each session the Irish House of Lords, like the Irish House of Commons established standing committees to deal with five general areas: religion, privileges, grievances, courts of justice, and trade.’ F.G. James, Lords of the ascendancy, 1600–1800 (Dublin, 1995), p. 74.
13 CJ Ire., 12 June 1661.
14 CJ Ire., 30 October 1665.
15 M. Perceval-Maxwell, The outbreak of the Irish rebellion of 1641 (Montreal, 1994).
16 LJ Ire., 31 July 1634.
17 CJ Ire., 15 June 1661.
18 CJ Ire., 4 December 1662.
19 F.G. James, Lords of the ascendancy, p. 77.
20 CJ Ire., 15 April 1663. An adjournment that turned out to be a thirty-month prorogation.
21 CJ Ire., 15, 16 May 1661.
22 LJ Ire., 8, 14 May 1661.
23 LJ Ire., 31 May 1661. Trinity Hall was probably in Trinity College, where Sterne was a lecturer, as well as being founder of the medical faculty.
24 CJ Ire., 31 July 1635.
25 CJ Ire., 28 July 1666.
26 CJ Ire., 15 July 1641.
27 G. McKee, ‘The operation, practices and procedures of the Irish house of commons from 1692 to 1730’, (King’s College, University of London, PhD thesis, 2017), p. 27. At Westminster there must have been quite a hubbub as parliament was so open that pick-pockets operated within the conference chambers. C. Kyle & J. Peacey, ‘“Under cover of so much coming and going”: Public access to parliament and the political process in early modern England’, Parliament at work, p. 19.
28 Dennehy, The Irish parliament, 1613–89, pp. 137–40.
29 Aungier to Lane, 31 July 1661, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Carte MS 31, f.274.
30 CJ Ire., 27 May 1661.
31 LJ Ire., 10 June 1662.
32 D.L. Smith, The Stuart parliaments, 1603–1689 (London, 1999), p. 72.
33 Smith, The Stuart parliaments, p. 72.
34 B. McGrath, ‘The membership of the Irish House of Commons, 1613–1615’, (Trinity College Dublin, MLitt thesis, 1985), p. 74.
35 LJ Ire., 27 August 1662.
36 CJ Ire., 21 June 1661.
37 CJ Ire., 25 August 1662.
38 LJ Ire., 17 April 1662.
39 CJ Ire., 20 February 1663.
40 CJ Ire., 7 November 1614; LJ Ire., 29 July 1634.
41 CJ Ire., 22 May 1662.
42 Glenn McKee quotes a detailed list of various rooms available to parliament. G. McKee, ‘The operation, practices and procedures’, p. 26.
43 CJ Ire., 17 April 1635, 4 June 1641.
44 CJ Ire., 13 December 1662.
45 CJ Ire., 13 July 1666.
46 LJ Ire., 3 August 1666.
47 Smith, The Stuart Parliaments, pp. 74–5.
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Coleman A. Dennehy
Coleman A. Dennehy currently teaches at the University of Limerick, Ireland. He is a former Irish Research Council Marie Skłodowska-Curie Elevate Fellow, held at UCD and UCL. He holds degrees in history and law. He has published widely on early modern Ireland. He is the author of Parliament in Ireland, 1613–89: the evolution of a colonial institution (Manchester, 2019); and the editor of Restoration Ireland: always settling and never settled (Aldershot, 2008) and Law and revolution in seventeenth-century Ireland (Dublin, 2019). He was a researcher at The Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt, Germany, and a visiting professor at the Institut für Rechts- und Verfassungsgeschichte (Department of Legal and Constitutional History), at the Faculty of Law, University of Vienna, Austria. He is 2nd Secretary-General of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions (ICHRPI).