The article highlights a contradiction: Irish Protestant elites defended the jurisdictional dignity of their House of Lords against Westminster, while supporting a governing order that excluded most Catholics and limited dissenters’ rights. The 1719 Toleration Act consequently appears conciliatory and restrictive, securing Presbyterian worship without establishing equality. Set beside precarious rural livelihoods and expanding linen markets, constitutional debate seems inseparable from unequal power. To what extent should Sherlock v Annesley be understood as a principled defence of Irish institutional autonomy, rather than an attempt by a narrow governing class to protect its authority within a changing commercial and confessional society?