The above-mentioned was only one of Poyning's laws. The substance of some others is given by Blackstone (1 Com., 102); which prevented any laws from being proposed, except only such as were drawn up before the parliament which should pass them was in being ; but by the 3 & 4 Philip and Mary, c. 4, it was provided that any new propositions might he certified to England for approval, even after the summons and during the session of parliament. Still this left to the par liament of Ireland nothing more than merely the power of rejecting any law proposed to it ; it could neither initiate a new law nor repeal an old one, nor even amend or alter that which was offered for its acceptance. In practice however, the letter of the statute was somewhat re lazed. Blackstone goes on to state that he practice in his day (some years after the middle of the last century) was, "that bills are often framed in either house, under the denomination of heads for a bill or bills,' and in that shape they are offered to the consideration of the lord-lieutenant and privy council, who, upon such parliamentary intimation, or otherwise upon the application of private persons, receive and transmit such heads, or reject them without any transmission to England." These heads of hills how ever really differed in nothing from bills or acts of parliament, except that, instead of the words " Be it enacted," the formal commencement of each paragraph or clause was, We pray that it may be enacted ;" and the motion for presenting them scarcely differed, except in form, from the motion in the English House of Commons for leave to bring in a bill, a motion necessary in all cases to be as sented to or carried in the affirmative be fore the actual bringing in of any bill. Aud as for the consent of the crown or the government, which it was necessary to obtain before either house of the Irish parliament could take up the considera tion of any proposed law, with a view to its enactment, that would in practice pro bably be found to operate much in the same way with the assent of the crown, which even in England was necessary to give validity to any bill after it had passed both houses. In the Irish as well as in the English parliament there was in fact an opportunity of discussing the proposition without the permission of the crown. An English as well as an Irish bill required the assent of the crown be fore it could become law. The practice of presenting heads of bills however was not introduced into the Irish parliament till after the Revolution of 1688.
But the dependence of Ireland upon the English crown, and the consequent subordination of the Irish legislature, were held to go still farther than to the establishment of the principle that laws might be made by the parliament of Eng land to bind Ireland. The Irish House
of Lords had entertained writs of error upon judgments in the courts of common law from the reign of Charles I., and ap peals in equity from the Restoration. Nevertheless, in the year 1719, a judg meut in the Court of Exchequer having been reversed by the House of Lords, the question was carried to the House of Lords of Great Britain, by which the judgment of the Court of Exchequer was affirmed.
On this the Irish House of Lords resolved that no appeal lay from the Court of Exchequer in Ireland to the parliament of Great Britain. But this resolution was immediately met by an act of the British parliament, the 5 Geo. I. c. 1, declaring that "the king's ma jesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords :-piritual and temporal of Great Britain in parliament assembled, had, bath, and of right ought to have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the people and the kingdom of Ire land ; and that the House of Lords in Ireland have not nor of right ought to have any jurisdiction to judge of, reverse, or affirm any judgment, sentence, or de cree given or made in any court within the said kingdom ; and that all proceed ings before the said House of Lords upon any such judgment, sentence, or decree are and are hereby declared to be utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever." In this state the law remained till the year 1782. In that year the statute 5 Geo. I. c. 1, was repealed by the 22 Geo. III c 53; and the following year the 23 Geo. III. c. 28, declared the exclusive au thority of the Irish parliament and courts of justice in all matters of legislation and judicature for Ireland. Finally, in 1800, by the Act of the 39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 67, the Irish parliament was ex tinguished, and it was enacted -net the United Kingdom should be represented in one and the same parliament, to be called the parliament of the United Kirg dom of Great Britain and Ireland. [RA B. LIAMENT.] The earliest Irish statutes on record are of the year 1310 ; but from that date there are none till the year 1429, from which time there is a regular series. The whole have been printed, and there are also abridgments by Bullingbroke and Belcher, Hunt, and others.
(Lord Mountmorres's History of the Irish Parliament ; Blackstone's Commen taries; Oldfield's Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland ; Wake field's Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political ; Hallam's Constitutional His tory of England.)