Six Days on Ireland’s Roads
Queen Anne was sovereign, but Ireland retained its own parliament and executive. Neither arrangement meant broad political participation. The parliament meeting in 1710 was overwhelmingly Protestant in membership and outlook, while Roman Catholics, who formed the great majority of the population, were excluded from political power by the penal laws already enacted in the preceding years. Its legislative scope was also constrained by the constitutional relationship with England and, after 1707, Great Britain. Nonetheless, an Irish parliamentary session mattered: it voted revenue, remade rules governing land and local administration, and furnished opportunities for the interests of landlords, merchants and office-holders.