Editing Representative peer (section)

==Ireland==
{{See also|List of Irish representative peers}}

[[File:Irish House of Lords chamber 1.jpg|thumb|The Chamber of the [[Irish House of Lords]] in [[Irish Houses of Parliament|Parliament House]] on [[College Green, Dublin|College Green]] in [[Dublin]] was the location of the first election of Irish representative peers.]]
Irish representation in the Westminster parliament was outlined by articles IV and VIII of the agreement embodied in the [[Acts of Union 1800]], which also required the Irish Parliament to pass an act before the union providing details for implementation.<ref>Malcomson 2000 p.312; {{cite book |chapter-url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433035269780;view=1up;seq=397 |chapter=(40 Geo. 4 c.39 [Ir.]) An Act to regulate the Mode by which the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons to Serve in the United Kingdom on the Part of Ireland, shall be summoned and returned to the said Parliament |title=The statutes at large, passed in the Parliaments held in Ireland  |volume=20 |pages=349–358 |date=12 June 1800 |location=Dublin |publisher=Boulter Grierson}}</ref>

Irish peers were allowed to elect twenty-eight representative peers as [[Lords Temporal]], each of whom could serve for life.<ref name="May p228"/> The Chamber of the [[Irish House of Lords]], located in [[Irish Houses of Parliament|Parliament House]] on College Green in central [[Dublin]], housed the first election, attended by the peers or their proxies. [[First Pitt ministry|The government]] mistakenly circulated a list of the successful candidates before the vote.<ref name="Malcomson311"/> The [[Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper]] in Ireland was responsible for electoral arrangements; each peer voted by an open and public ballot. After the Union, new elections were held by [[postal vote]] within 52 days of a vacancy.<ref name="Malcomson313">Malcomson 2000 p.313</ref> Vacancies arose through death or, in the case of [[Frederic Trench, 3rd Baron Ashtown|Baron Ashtown]] in 1915, [[bankruptcy]]. No vacancy was created where a representative peer acquired a UK peerage, as when [[George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|Lord Curzon]] was made [[Viscount Scarsdale|Earl Curzon of Kedleston]] in 1911.

The [[Lord Chancellor]] of Great Britain—the presiding officer of the House of Lords—certified the vacancy,<ref>Finnelly, (1830), p 164</ref> while the [[Lord Chancellor of Ireland]] directed the Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper to issue ballots to Irish peers, receive the completed ballots, determine the victor, and announce the result, which was then published in both ''[[The Dublin Gazette]]'' and ''[[The London Gazette]]''.<ref>May, ''A practical treatise&nbsp;... of Parliament'' (1851), p 169; {{Cite book |last=Finnelly |first=William |title=The Law and Practice of Elections in England, Scotland, and Ireland |publisher=A. Maxwell |year=1830 |location=London |pages=161–3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TZ4yAQAAMAAJ&pg=PR161}}</ref> Roman Catholic peers could not vote or stand for election until the [[Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829]].<ref name="Malcomson311">Malcomson (2000) p. 311</ref> The process of being recognised by the Westminster [[Committee of Privileges]] as an elector was more cumbersome and expensive than being recognised as a (British or Irish) peer, until the orders drawn up in 1800 were amended in 1857.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Peerage of Ireland—Proof of Right To Vote.—Resolutions. |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1857/jul/03/the-peerage-of-ireland-proof-of-right-to |website=Hansard |access-date=5 February 2019 |pages=HL Deb vol 146 cc855–6 |no-pp=yes |date=3 July 1857}}</ref> Successive governments tried to prevent the election of [[absentee landlords]].<ref name="Malcomson311"/> An exception was [[Lord Curzon]], who [[January 1908 Irish representative peer election|won election as a representative peer in 1908]], despite never having claimed the right to be an elector;<ref>{{cite web |title=Representative Peers For Ireland. |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1908/jan/29/representative-peers-for-ireland |website=Hansard |access-date=5 February 2019 |pages=HL Deb vol 183 cc5–7 |no-pp=yes |date=29 January 1908}}</ref> he had been refused a peerage of the United Kingdom by [[Liberal government, 1905–1915|the Liberal government]] of the day.<ref name="Malcomson311"/>

The Acts of Union united the [[Church of England]] and [[Church of Ireland]], whose bishops and archbishops had previously sat as [[Lords Spiritual]] in their respective Houses of Lords. In the united Parliament, there were at first four Irish prelates at any one time, one [[archbishop]] and three [[diocesan bishop]]s, who sat for a [[Legislative session|session]] before ceding their seats to colleagues on a fixed rotation of [[Dioceses of Ireland|dioceses]].<ref>40 Geo. 4 c.39 [Ir.] sec.5</ref><ref name="May treatise on law">{{cite book |last=May |first=Thomas Erskine |author-link=Erskine May, 1st Baron Farnborough |title=A practical treatise on the law, privileges, proceedings and usage of Parliament |publisher=Butterworths |year=1851 |url=https://archive.org/details/practicaltreatis00mayt |pages=[https://archive.org/details/practicaltreatis00mayt/page/6 6]–8, 15 |access-date=18 January 2013}}</ref><ref>Malcomson (2002), p. 325</ref> The rotation passed over any bishop already serving as an elected representative peer, as when [[Charles Agar, 1st Earl of Normanton|Charles Agar]] sat as [[Viscount Somerton]] rather than as [[Archbishop of Dublin (Church of Ireland)|Archbishop of Dublin]]. The rotation was changed by the [[Church Temporalities Act 1833]] ([[3 & 4 Will. 4]]. c. 37), which merged many dioceses and degraded the archbishoprics of [[Archdiocese of Tuam (Church of Ireland)|Tuam]] and [[Archbishop of Cashel|Cashel]] to bishoprics.<ref name="diocese"/> No Irish bishops sat in Westminster as Lords Spiritual after the [[disestablishment]] of the Church of Ireland in 1871, brought about by the [[Irish Church Act 1869]],<ref name="diocese">{{cite web |title=A Brief History |publisher=[[Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough]] |url=https://dublin.anglican.org/about-us/history |access-date=21 September 2017 }}</ref> although [[Robin Eames]] was made a [[life peer]] in 1995 while [[Archbishop of Armagh (Church of Ireland)|Archbishop of Armagh]].

[[File:1stEarlOfNormanton.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[The Most Reverend|The Most Rev.]] the [[Charles Agar, 1st Earl of Normanton|Earl of Normanton]], [[Archbishop of Dublin (Church of Ireland)|Lord Archbishop of Dublin]], one of the first 28 Irish representative peers]]

===Abolition and attempts to reintroduce===
Following the establishment of the [[Irish Free State]] in December 1922, Irish peers ceased to elect representatives, although those already elected continued to have the right to serve for life; the last of the temporal peers, [[Francis Needham, 4th Earl of Kilmorey]], by chance a peer from an [[Ulster]] family, died in 1961.<ref>{{cite web |last=Gadd |first=R.P. |title=A short account of the peerage of Ireland |publisher=[[The Heraldry Society]] |url=http://www.theheraldrysociety.com/articles/ireland/peerage_of_ireland.htm |access-date=18 January 2013}}</ref> Disputes had arisen long before as to whether Irish representative peers could still be elected. The main [[Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922]] was silent on the matter, to some seeming to mean that the right had not been abolished, but the ancillary [[Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act 1922]] had abolished the office of [[Lord Chancellor of Ireland]],<ref>{{cite web |author=Brigid Hadfield |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/learning/history/stateapart/agreement/constitutional/support/ci_c021.shtml |title=The Northern Ireland Act 1998 and the Act of Union |publisher=BBC NI |year=1998 |access-date=7 April 2007}}</ref> whose involvement was required in the election process. The Irish Free State abolished the office of Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper in 1926, the last holder becoming [[Master of the High Court (Ireland)|Master of the High Court]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Court Officers Act 1926 s.31 |url=http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1926/act/27/section/31/enacted/en/html#sec31 |website=electronic Irish Statute Book (eISB) |access-date=12 November 2020 |language=en}}; Committee For Privileges 1966 [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435072671522&view=1up&seq=994 p.xl s.6]</ref> After 1922 various Irish peers petitioned the House of Lords for a restoration of their right to elect representatives. In 1962, the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform again rejected such requests.<ref name="Lysaght">{{cite web |last=Lysaght |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Lysaght |title=The Irish Peers and the House of Lords |work=106th Edition |publisher=Burke's Peerage & Baronetage |year=1999 |url=http://www.burkes-peerage.net/articles/ireland/page93.aspx |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716064928/http://www.burkespeerage.com/articles/ireland/page93.aspx |archive-date=2011-07-16 |access-date=7 April 2007}}</ref> In the next year, when the [[Peerage Act 1963]] (which, among other things, gave all peers in the [[Peerage of Scotland]] the right to sit in the House of Lords) was being considered, an amendment similarly to allow Irish peers all to be summoned was defeated, by ninety votes to eight. Instead, the new Act confirmed the right of all Irish peers to stand for election to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] and to vote at parliamentary elections, which were rights they had always had.<ref name="Peerage Act 1963"/>

In 1965, the [[8th Earl of Antrim]], another peer from Ulster, and other Irish peers, petitioned the House of Lords, arguing that the right to elect representative peers had never been formally abolished. The House of Lords ruled against them. [[James Reid, Baron Reid|Lord Reid]], a [[Lord of Appeal in Ordinary]], based his ruling on the Act of Union, which stated that representative peers sat "on the part of Ireland."<ref name="Lysaght" /> He reasoned that, since the island had been divided into the Irish Free State and [[Northern Ireland]], there was no such political entity called "Ireland" which the representative peers could be said to represent. Lord Reid wrote, "A statutory provision is [[Implicit repeal|impliedly repealed]] if a later enactment brings to an end a state of things the continuance of which is essential for its operation."<ref>{{cite web |author=Brigid Hadfield |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/learning/history/stateapart/agreement/constitutional/support/ci_c022.shtml |title=The Belfast Agreement, Sovereignty and the State of the Union |publisher=BBC NI |year=1998 |access-date=7 April 2007}}</ref> In contrast, [[Richard Wilberforce, Baron Wilberforce|Lord Wilberforce]], another Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, disagreed that a major enactment such as the Act of Union could be repealed by implication.<ref name="Lysaght" /> He argued instead that since the posts of Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper had been abolished, there was no mechanism by which Irish peers could be elected. Here too, the petitioners lost.<ref name="Lysaght"/>

The petitioners failed to raise the status of [[Northern Ireland]] as part of the United Kingdom. [[Charles Lysaght]] suggests that if this fact had been foremost, Lord Wilberforce's arguments relating to the removal of the electoral mechanism for the election could be rebutted, as the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and the Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper did have successors in Northern Ireland. The reason for excluding the arguments relating to Northern Ireland from the petition "was that leading counsel for the petitioning Irish peers was convinced that the members of the Committee for Privileges were with him on what he considered was his best argument and did not want to alienate them by introducing another point."<ref name="Lysaght" /> To prevent further appeals on the matter, [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]] repealed, as a part of the [[Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1971]], the sections of the Acts of Union relating to the election of Irish representative peers.<ref name="Lysaght" />