Research Output
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Publication
Government, parliament and the constitution: the reinterpretation of Poynings' Law, 1692-1714
2006-11, McGrath, Charles Ivar
The history of Poynings’ Law is complex and multifaceted. Much has been written about it, at times with the end result being a recognition that to investigate Poynings’ Law is to venture into a quagmire. At the same time, a number of important works have been published over the years that throw light upon specific periods in the history of that law. Until recently, much of the focus has been on the period stretching from the passage of the law in 1494-5 up to 1641, with some significant excursions into the eighteenth-century history of the law. Two newer studies demonstrate a shift in focus: one a detailed study of the 1640s; the other a broader work on the history of the law from 1660 to 1800. However, at present, gaps still remain in our knowledge of the subject, particularly for the last one hundred and forty years of the law’s existence. This article aims to fill one such gap, by focusing upon the period 1692-1714.
Publication
English Ministers, Irish Politicians and the Making of a Parliamentary Settlement in Ireland, 1692-5
2004-06-01, McGrath, Charles Ivar
In the first post-Glorious Revolution Parliament in Ireland in 1692, a constitutional crisis erupted over the House of Commons’ claim to have the ‘sole and undoubted right’ to initiate financial supply legislation in Ireland, and their rejection of the majority of the government’s legislative programme, including the most substantial provisions for financial supply. Not only did the ‘sole right’ claim result in the loss of desperately needed income for the government, it also represented an attack upon the existing constitutional framework in Ireland, in particular Poynings’ Law and the Crown’s prerogative in initiating legislation. The hasty prorogation of Parliament following these events led to political impasse in Ireland at the end of 1692. This article details the endeavours that were made to break that impasse, and examines the roles taken by leading English ministers, in particular those associated with the Whig party, and by a new generation of Irish politicians, many of whom were also whiggish in inclination, in the negotiation of a compromise settlement in 1694–5. The compromise solution eventually agreed upon in early 1695 resulted later in that year in the summoning of a new Irish Parliament, in which substantial necessary financial supplies were voted for the government. In the longer term, the 1695 compromise came to form the basis for a new constitutional framework for Irish executive-legislature relations that facilitated the advent of regular parliamentary sessions on a biennial basis in Ireland in the eighteenth century.