512 



Proceedinfjs of the Royal Irish Academy. 



But although in Ireland, as in England, Parliament was called 

 more frequently in the fifteenth century than in either the sixteenth 

 or the seventeenth, we have practically no record of its procedure. 

 In any attempt to trace the procedure of the Irish Parliament, we can 

 hardly start farther hack than the opening of the Tudor period ; and 

 in e:ffect with the celebrated Parliament of Sir Edward Poynings, 

 which marks the opening of a new Parliamentary era. That assembly 

 was not, indeed, the only Parliament held in Ireland under the first 

 Tudor. If we include that held at Drogheda in the same year by 

 Robert Preston, Lord Gormanston, which was subsequently declared 

 void for want of any general summons of the Knights of the Shires, 

 there were at least six Parliaments called in this reign. Of these, 

 the first, which was held in 1492 by Walter, Archbishop of Dublin, 

 as deputy for the Lord Lieutenant, Jasper, Duke of Bedford, can 

 hardly be deemed to have comprised a fuller representation of the 

 Lords and Commons of Ireland than Gormanston's. Eor an address 

 to the King ''from his true and faithful subjects the Lords Spiritual 

 and Temporal, and his Councillors of his land of Ireland in playne 

 Parliament ther assembled," though apparently signed by all the 

 members, contains no more than sixteen signatures. Even if we 

 suppose (a hypothesis for which there is no warrant) that the signa- 

 tories were limited to members of the Upper House, and that the 

 document takes no account of the Commons, the unrepresentative 

 character of the assembly is shown by the fact that every one of the 

 seven Spiritual and nine Temporal Lords was territorially connected 

 with the Pale.^ But whatever its composition, the legislative vigour 

 of this Parliament cannot be gainsaid. In spite, or possibly because,, 

 of its limited numbers, it passed as many as thirty -two statutes in 

 the course of its two sessions.^ 



Of the other Parliaments of Henry YIL, besides that summoned 

 by Poynings, two were held by Lord Gormanston, the first at Trim, 

 and the second, already mentioned as invalid, at Drogheda. A 

 Parliament was held in 1498 by Gerald, Earl of Kildare, at Castle- 

 dermot, or Tristledermot, and another, which may, however, have 

 been no more than a second session of the same Parliament, was held 



^ The Archbishop of Armagh forms an exception more apparent than real, since 

 Louth foimed part of his Archdiocese, and the Primate's principal residence was at 

 Drogheda. 



2 The statutes of this Parliament were the last which were drawn in Norman- 

 French. 



