Ormond’s October Parliament reveals a tension: Protestant legislators pressed for constitutional and commercial relief from England while simultaneously reinforcing a legal order that left the Catholic majority increasingly vulnerable. The Commons’ suggestion of either fuller constitutional enjoyment or a stricter union seems ambiguous, since it expressed grievance without anticipating the union in a straightforward way. Proposed waterways suggest that economic improvement could coexist with confessional exclusion and constrained self-government. How should we interpret the relationship between Irish Protestant demands for greater political and economic autonomy, their support for measures against Catholic clergy, and their interest in infrastructural improvement during 1703?