Robinson’s Library, Pery’s Chair
The most firmly dated political development came on 7 March, when Edmund Sexten Pery was elected Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He succeeded John Ponsonby, whose resignation marked the collapse of an older style of political management. For decades, the Dublin administration had often depended upon powerful Protestant grandees known later as “undertakers”. They used their influence in parliament and in offices of state to manage government business, while lord lieutenants commonly spent much of their time in Britain. By 1771 that arrangement was being decisively challenged.