Editing Representative peer (section)

===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" />