Page:The Irish Parliament; what it was, and what it did.djvu/19

 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF LORDS.

The Irish House of Lords consisted at the time of the Union of 228 temporal and 22 spiritual peers. In the reign of Elizabeth the total number of Irish temporal peers was 32. In 168 1, at the close of the last administration of the Duke of Ormond, their number had increased to 119, making with the bishops a total of 141 lords. In 1790 the number of Irish peers, with the bishops, amounted to 200. During Lord Cornwallis's Viceroyalty, 29 Irish peers were created; of these only 7 were unconnected with the question of the Union. Many of the Irish temporal peers were Englishmen and Scotsmen, who had no connection with Ireland either by property or family. Some had never taken their seats in the House of Lords, and, indeed, had never been in Ireland. When Mr. Yelverton introduced the heads of a Bill for the modification of Poynings' Law, the measure was opposed, on the ground that it would diminish the