Kingdom of Ireland

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This article is about the kingdom existing from 1541 to 1800. For others, see King of Ireland. For other uses of Ireland, see Ireland (disambiguation).

The Kingdom of Ireland was the name given to the Irish state from 1541, by an act of the Parliament of Ireland. The new Monarch replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171. King Henry VIII thus became the first King of Ireland since 1169, and the first ever King of a United Ireland.

Henry VIII was proclaimed King of Ireland by a degree passed by the Irish Parliament that year. This reformed but still pre-democratic body now included native Gaelic Irish chieftains for the first time.

Henry needed to make this constitutional change because the Lordship of Ireland had been granted to the English Monarch as a feudal possession by the (Roman Catholic) Pope Adrian IV (reigned 1154-1159) in a papal bull.

Henry VIII had broken away from the Roman Pope and declared himself the Head of the newly formed Church of England (initially still Catholic in its approach to worship, over the years Protestant reformers influenced the church, but this changed with differing monarchs). As a result, Henry could no longer afford to recognize the Roman Catholic Church's nominal sovereignty over Ireland.

In this fashion, the Throne of Ireland became occupied by the reigning King of England, thus placing the kingdom of Ireland in personal union with the Kingdom of England. (70 years later in 1605, the Throne of England became occupied by the King of Scotland, leading eventually to the United Kingdom by the Act of Union 1707).

The Kingdom of Ireland was governed by an executive under the control of the Lord Deputy, later called Lord Lieutenant. While some Irishmen held the post, most Lords Deputy were English noblemen.

The kingdom was legislated for by the bicameral Parliament of Ireland, made up of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and which almost always met in Dublin. The powers of the Irish parliament were restricted by a series of laws, notably Poynings Law of 1492. Roman Catholics and later Presbyterians were for much of its later history excluded from membership of the Irish parliament. In the eighteenth century parliament met in a new, purpose-designed parliament house, the first purpose-designed two-chamber parliament house in the world) in College Green in the heart of Dublin.

Some restrictions were repealed in 1782 in what came to be known as the Constitution of 1782. Parliament in this period came to be known as Grattan's Parliament, after one of the principal Irish political opposition leaders of the period, Henry Grattan.

By the Act of Union of the Irish Parliament, the Kingdom of Ireland merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish Parliament ceased to exist, though the executive, presided over by the Lord Lieutenant, remained in place until 1922. The Act was preceded by the failed rebellion and French invasion of 1798, and was the subject of much controversy, involving much bribery of the Irish MPs to ensure passage.

In 1922, 26 counties left the United Kingdom and formed the Irish Free State. Under the Irish Free State Constitution, the King became King in Ireland. This was changed by the Royal Titles Act, 1927, by which the King explicitly became king of all his dominions in their own right, becoming fully King of Ireland instead. Though Kevin O'Higgins, Vice-President of the Executive Council (ie, deputy prime minister), did suggest resurrecting the 'Kingdom of Ireland' as a dual monarchy to link Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, with the King of Ireland being crowned in a public ceremony in Phoenix Park in Dublin, the idea was abandoned after O'Higgins' assassination by anti-Treaty IRA men in 1927.

Irish states in order of creation (1171–present)
Lordship of Ireland | Kingdom of Ireland | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland | Irish Republic | Southern Ireland | Northern Ireland | Irish Free State | Republic of Ireland
See also: Confederate Ireland | Republic of Connaught | Éire | Republic of Munster