The Statute of Westminster 1931 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that sets the basis for the relationship between the Commonwealth realms and the Crown.
The Constitution of 1782 was a group of Acts passed by the Parliament of Ireland and the Parliament of Great Britain in 1782–83 which increased the legislative and judicial independence of the Kingdom of Ireland by reducing the ability of the Kingdom of Great Britain to make laws and hear court cases relating to Ireland. These changes were promoted, under the name legislative independence, by the Irish Patriot Party, a loose alliance with Henry Grattan as its leading orator. The Parliament of Ireland as it existed after 1782 is often called Grattan's Parliament in his honour. The Constitution did not create a responsible executive, as the Dublin Castle administration remained under the control of a Lord Lieutenant sent over by the British government.
Henry Grattan was an Irish politician and lawyer who campaigned for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century from Britain. He was a Member of the Irish Parliament (MP) from 1775 to 1801 and a Member of Parliament (MP) in Westminster from 1805 to 1820. He has been described as a superb orator and a romantic. With generous enthusiasm he demanded that Ireland should be granted its rightful status, that of an independent nation, though he always insisted that Ireland would remain linked to Great Britain by a common crown and by sharing a common political tradition.
The Acts of Union 1800 were parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The acts came into force on 1 January 1801, and the merged Parliament of the United Kingdom had its first meeting on 22 January 1801.
Poynings' Law or the Statute of Drogheda was a 1494 Act of the Parliament of Ireland which provided that the parliament could not meet until its proposed legislation had been approved both by Ireland's Lord Deputy and Privy Council and by England's monarch and Privy Council. It was a major grievance in 18th-century Ireland, was amended by the Constitution of 1782, rendered moot by the Acts of Union 1800, and repealed by the Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1878.
The Acts of Supremacy are two acts passed by the Parliament of England in the 16th century that established the English monarchs as the head of the Church of England; two similar laws were passed by the Parliament of Ireland establishing the English monarchs as the head of the Church of Ireland. The 1534 Act declared King Henry VIII and his successors as the Supreme Head of the Church, replacing the Pope. This first Act was repealed during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I. The 1558 Act declared Queen Elizabeth I and her successors the Supreme Governor of the Church, a title that the British monarch still holds.
Henry Flood was an Irish statesman and Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench for Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became proficient in the classics. He was a leading Irish politician, and a friend of Henry Grattan, the leader of the Irish Patriot Party. He became an object of public interest in 1770, when he was put on trial for murder, after killing a political rival in a duel.
The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from medieval times until 1800. It was also the final court of appeal of the Kingdom of Ireland.
The Parliament of Ireland was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two chambers: the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Lords were members of the Irish peerage and bishops. The Commons was directly elected, albeit on a very restricted franchise. Parliaments met at various places in Leinster and Munster, but latterly always in Dublin: in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle, Chichester House (1661–1727), the Blue Coat School (1729–31), and finally a purpose-built Parliament House on College Green.
The Tenures Abolition Act 1660, sometimes known as the Statute of Tenures, was an Act of the Parliament of England which changed the nature of several types of feudal land tenure in England. The long title of the Act was An Act takeing away the Court of Wards and Liveries, and Tenures in Capite, and by Knights-service, and Purveyance, and for settling a Revenue upon his Majesty in Lieu thereof.
The Clergy Act 1661 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of England passed in 1661. It "repealed, annulled and made void to all intents and purposes" the Clergy Act 1640, which had prevented those in holy orders from exercising any temporal jurisdiction or authority and so, expelled the bishops, as Lords Spiritual, from the House of Lords. It was itself repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863.
The Correspondence with James the Pretender Act 1701 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of England passed in 1701. The Act—the long title of which was "An Act for the Attainder of the pretended Prince of Wales of High Treason"— was a response to the Jacobite claim to the English and Scottish thrones of James Francis Edward Stuart, who declared himself King James III of England and Ireland and VIII of Scotland upon the death of his father, the exiled James II of England, in September 1701.
An Act for the better securing the dependency of the Kingdom of Ireland on the Crown of Great Britain was a 1719 Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain which declared that it had the right to pass laws for the Kingdom of Ireland, and that the British House of Lords had appellate jurisdiction for Irish court cases. It became known as the Declaratory Act, and opponents in the Irish Patriot Party referred to it as the Sixth of George I. Legal and political historians have also called it the Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act 1719 or the Irish Parliament Act 1719. Prompted by a routine Irish lawsuit, it was aimed at resolving the long-running dispute between the British and the Irish House of Lords as to which was the final court of appeal from the Irish Courts. Along with Poynings' Law, the Declaratory Act became a symbol of the subservience of the Parliament of Ireland, and its repeal was long an aim of Irish statesmen, which was finally achieved for Anglican Irish as part of the Constitution of 1782.
Events from the year 1782 in Ireland.
Events from the year 1782 in Great Britain. The American Revolutionary War draws to a close.
The Irish Patriot Party was the name of a number of different political groupings in Ireland throughout the 18th century. They were primarily supportive of Whig concepts of personal liberty combined with an Irish identity that rejected full independence, but advocated strong self-government within the British Empire.
The Habeas Corpus Act 1862 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that limited the right of the English courts to issue writs of habeas corpus in British colonies or dominions. The act was passed in response to Ex parte Anderson, a case in the Canadian courts in which the English Court of King's Bench attempted to issue a writ of habeas corpus and have Anderson appear before an English judge. While the court issued the writ, it felt that setting such a precedent would interfere with the "higher degree of Colonial independence". As a result, the Act was passed, receiving royal assent on 16 May 1862.
The Octennial Act was a 1768 act of the Parliament of Ireland which set a maximum duration of eight years for the Irish House of Commons. Before this, a dissolution of parliament was not required except on the demise of the Crown, and the previous three general elections were held in 1715, 1727, and 1761, on the respective deaths of Anne, George I, and George II. After the act, general elections were held in 1769, 76, 83, 90, and 98.
The chief governor was the senior official in the Dublin Castle administration, which maintained English and British rule in Ireland from the 1170s to 1922. The chief governor was the viceroy of the English monarch and presided over the Privy Council of Ireland. In some periods he was in effective charge of the administration, subject only to the monarch in England; in others he was a figurehead and power was wielded by others.
The Irish Appeals Act 1783, commonly known as the Renunciation Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. By it the British Parliament renounced all right to legislate for Ireland, and declared that no appeal from the decision of any court in Ireland could be heard in any court in Great Britain.
