Peerage of Ireland in the context of "Parliament of Ireland"

The Peerage of the United Kingdom is one of the five peerages in the United Kingdom. It comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Acts of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great Britain. New peers continued to be created in the Peerage of Ireland until 1898 (the last creation was the Barony of Curzon of Kedleston).

The House of Lords Act 1999 reformed the House of Lords. Until then, all peers of the United Kingdom were automatically members of the House of Lords. However, from that date, most of the hereditary peers ceased to be members, whereas the life peers retained their seats. All hereditary peers of the first creation (i.e. those for whom a peerage was originally created, as opposed to those who inherited a peerage), and all surviving hereditary peers who had served as Leader of the House of Lords, were offered a life peerage to allow them to continue to sit in the House, should they wish.

George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore (/ˈbɔːltɪmɔːr/; 1580 – 15 April 1632) was an English politician. He achieved domestic political success as a member of parliament and later Secretary of State under King James I. He lost much of his political power after his support for a failed marriage alliance between Prince Charles and the Spanish House of Habsburg royal family. Rather than continue in politics, he resigned all of his political offices in 1625 except for his position on the Privy Council and declared his Catholicism publicly. He was created Baron Baltimore in the Peerage of Ireland upon his resignation. Baltimore Manor was located in County Longford, Ireland.

Calvert took an interest in the British colonization of the Americas, at first for commercial reasons and later to create a refuge for persecuted Irish and English Catholics. He became the proprietor of Avalon, the first sustained English settlement on the southeastern peninsula on the island of Newfoundland (off the eastern coast of modern Canada). Discouraged by its cold and sometimes inhospitable climate and the sufferings of the settlers, he looked for a more suitable spot further south and sought a new royal charter to settle the region, which would become the state of Maryland. Calvert died five weeks before the new Charter was sealed, leaving the settlement of the Maryland colony to his son Cecil. His second son Leonard Calvert was the first colonial governor of the Province of Maryland.

Under the reforms of the House of Lords Act 1999, the majority of hereditary peers lost the right to sit as members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Section 2 of the Act, however, provides an exception from this general exclusion of membership for up to 92 hereditary peers: 90 to be elected by the House, as well as the holders of two royal offices, the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain, who sit as ex officio members. The initial cohort of excepted hereditary peers were elected in the 1999 House of Lords elections. Between 1999 and November 2002, vacancies among this group were filled by runners-up in the 1999 election. Since then, by-elections to the House of Lords have filled vacancies.

Candidature for both the 1999 elections and subsequent by-elections is restricted to peers in the Peerages of England, Scotland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Peers in the Peerage of Ireland are only eligible for election if they hold a title in one of the other peerages, but if successful may use their Irish peerage title as a member of the House. The electorates are either the whole membership of the House of Lords (including life peers), or a party group of sitting hereditary peers. A standing order of the House, approved prior to the commencement of the House of Lords Act 1999, mandates that the 90 elected hereditary peers consist of:

Duke of Clarence and St Andrews was a title created in 1789 in the Peerage of Great Britain for Prince William Henry (later King William IV). He was also created Earl of Munster in the Peerage of Ireland at the same time.

While there had been several creations of Dukes of Clarence (and there was later a Duke of Clarence and Avondale), the only creation of a Duke of Clarence and St Andrews was for Prince William, third son of King George III. When William succeeded his elder brother George IV to the throne in 1830, the dukedom merged in the crown. The title refers to ancient castle and honour of Clare, Suffolk; and the Scottish city of St Andrews.

The hereditary peers in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of October 2025, there are 799 hereditary peers: 29 dukes (including five royal dukes, of which the Duke of Edinburgh is a life peerage, the holder being a hereditary earl), 34 marquesses, 189 earls, 108 viscounts, and 439 barons (not counting subsidiary titles).

As a result of the Peerage Act 1963, all peers except those in the peerage of Ireland were entitled to sit in the House of Lords. Since the House of Lords Act 1999 came into force only 92 hereditary peers, elected from all hereditary peers, are permitted to do so, unless they are also life peers. Peers are called to the House of Lords with a writ of summons.

The Irish nobility could be described as including persons who do, or historically did, fall into one or more of the following categories of nobility:

• Gaelic nobility of Ireland: descendants in the male line of at least one historical grade of king (Rí).
• Hiberno-Norman or Old English (Ireland) nobility: descendants of the colonisers who came to Ireland from Wales, Normandy and England after the Norman invasions of England and Ireland in 1066 and 1169–71, respectively.
• Peerage of Ireland, whose titles were created by the English and later British monarchs of Ireland in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland.

These groups are not mutually exclusive. There is some overlap between the first two groups (prior to the Treaty of Limerick), and a lesser degree of overlap between the last two groups (prior to independence from the United Kingdom). Such overlaps may be personal (e.g. a Gaelic noble who was "regranted" his titles by King Henry VIII of England), or they may be geographical (i.e. different noble traditions co-existing in neighbouring parts of the country, which were only distinguished by the date when they finally fell under the Dublin Castle administration).

The Gaelic nobility of Ireland is one of three groups of Irish nobility, along with those nobles descended from the Hiberno-Normans and those granted titles of nobility in the Peerage of Ireland.

Baron Baltimore, of Baltimore, County Longford, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1625 and ended in 1771, upon the death of its sixth-generation male heir, aged 40. Holders of the title were usually known as Lord Baltimore.