The Irish Houses of Parliament (Irish: Tithe na Parlaiminte), also known as the Irish Parliament House, today called the Bank of Ireland, College Green, due to its use by the bank, was the world's first purpose-built two-chamber parliament house. It served as the seat of both chambers (the Lords and Commons) of the Irish Parliament of the Kingdom of Ireland for most of the 18th century until that parliament was abolished by the Act of Union of 1800, when Ireland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
In the 17th century, Parliament settled at Chichester House, a town house in Hoggen Green (later College Green) formerly owned by Sir George Carew, Lord President of Munster and Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, which had been built on the site of a nunnery disbanded by King Henry VIII at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. Carew's house, named Chichester House after its later owner Sir Arthur Chichester, was already a building of sufficient importance to have become a temporary home of the Kingdom of Ireland's law courts during the Michaelmas law term in 1605. Most famously, the legal documentation facilitating the Plantation of Ulster had been signed in the house on 16 November 1612.
Read more about Irish Houses Of Parliament: Plans For The New Building, Design of The New Building, Pearce's Design Copied in The US Capitol and British Museum, Public Ceremonial in The Irish Houses of Parliament, Abolition of The Irish Parliament, After 1800: From A Parliament To A Bank, The Continuing Symbolism of The Old Irish Houses of Parliament, The Dáil Chooses A Different Home, Modern View, References and Sources
Famous quotes containing the words irish, houses and/or parliament:
“I went to a very militantly Republican grammar school and, under its influence, began to revolt against the Establishment, on the simple rule of thumb, highly satisfying to a ten-year-old, that Irish equals good, English equals bad.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“I like old people when they have aged well. And old houses with an accumulation of sweet honest living in them are good. And the timelessness that only the passing of Time itself can give to objects both inside and outside the spirit is a continuing reassurance.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)