Irish House of Commons in the context of "Irish House of Lords"

The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. The leader of the majority party in the House of Commons by convention becomes the prime minister. Other parliaments have also had a lower house called the "House of Commons".

The Parliament of Ireland (Irish: Parlaimint na hÉireann) was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until the end of 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 ('lords temporal') and bishops ('lords spiritual'; after the Reformation, Church of Ireland 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 (15th century), Dublin Castle (to 1649), Chichester House (1661–1727), the Blue Coat School (1729–31), and finally a purpose-built Parliament House on College Green.

The main purpose of parliament was to approve taxes that were then levied by and for the Dublin Castle administration. Those who would pay the bulk of taxation, namely the clergy, merchants, and landowners, also comprised the members. Only the "English of Ireland" were represented until the first Gaelic lords were summoned during the 16th-century Tudor reconquest. Under Poynings' Law of 1495, all Acts of Parliament had to be pre-approved by the Irish Privy Council and English Privy Council. Parliament supported the Irish Reformation and Catholics were excluded from membership and voting in penal times. The Constitution of 1782 amended Poynings' Law to allow the Irish Parliament to initiate legislation. Catholics were re-enfranchised under the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793.

Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (né Wesley; 1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish British Army officer and statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures in Britain during the early 19th century, twice serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was one of the British commanders who ended the Anglo-Mysore wars by defeating Tipu Sultan in 1799, and among those who ended the Napoleonic Wars in a Coalition victory when the Seventh Coalition defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Wellesley was born into a Protestant Ascendancy family in Dublin, in the Kingdom of Ireland. He was commissioned as an ensign in the British Army in 1787, serving in Ireland as aide-de-camp to two successive lords lieutenant of Ireland. He was also elected as a member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons. Rising to the rank of colonel by 1796, Wellesley served in the Flanders campaign before being sent to India, where he fought in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, ending the conflict with a victory at Seringapatam in 1799. He was appointed governor of Seringapatam and Mysore and, as a newly appointed major-general, won a decisive victory over the Maratha Confederacy at the Battle of Assaye in 1803.

Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (18 June 1769 – 12 August 1822), usually known as Lord Castlereagh, derived from the courtesy title Viscount Castlereagh (UK: /ˈkɑːsəlreɪ/ KAH-səl-ray) by which he was styled from 1796 to 1821, was an Irish-born British statesman and politician. As secretary to the Viceroy in Ireland, he worked to suppress the Rebellion of 1798 and to secure passage in 1800 of the Irish Act of Union. As the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom from 1812, he was central to the management of the coalition that defeated Napoleon, and was British plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna. In the post-war government of Lord Liverpool, Castlereagh was seen to support harsh measures against agitation for reform, and he ended his life an isolated and unpopular figure.

Early in his career in Ireland, and following a visit to revolutionary France, Castlereagh recoiled from the democratic politics of his Presbyterian constituents in Ulster. Crossing the floor of the Irish House of Commons in support of the government, he took a leading role in detaining members of the republican conspiracy, the United Irishmen, his former political associates among them. After the 1798 Rebellion, as Chief Secretary for Ireland he pushed the Act of Union through the Irish Parliament. However, unable to overcome the resistance of King George III to the Catholic Emancipation that they believed should have accompanied the creation of a United Kingdom, both he and Prime Minister William Pitt resigned.

The 1797 Irish general election was the last general election to the Irish House of Commons, with the Acts of Union three years later uniting the Kingdom of Ireland with the Kingdom of Great Britain. The election followed the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793, meaning it was the first general election in Ireland in which Catholics could vote, provided they met the property requirements. The election also coincided with simmering rebellion in Ireland, coming not long after an attempted French expedition to Ireland, and the following year witnessing the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Despite the changes to the electorate, and the heavily political backdrop, the election was marked most by the apathy shown to it by Ireland's electorate.

Charles Hamilton (13 November 1704 – 18 September 1786), styled The Honourable from birth, was a British politician. He was a younger son of James Hamilton, 6th Earl of Abercorn. He represented Strabane in the Irish House of Commons between 1727 and 1760. He sat also for Truro in the British House of Commons from 1741 to 1747. He is most remembered as the creator of Painshill Park near Cobham in Surrey.

The Irish Patriot Party, also referred to as the Irish Whigs, was an informal political grouping in the Irish House of Commons during 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.

Due to the discriminatory penal laws, the Irish Parliament at the time was exclusively Anglican Protestant. Their main achievement was the Constitution of 1782, which gave Ireland legislative independence.

The Honourable George Hamilton (c. 1697 – 3 May 1775) was a British politician, the second son of James Hamilton, 6th Earl of Abercorn.

He was twice Member of Parliament for Wells in the British House of Commons. Between 1727 and 1761, he represented St Johnstown (County Donegal) in the Irish House of Commons. He was known for his love of planting.