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Precarious Bicameralism? Senates in Ireland from the Late Middle Ages to the Present

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Precarious Bicameralism? Senates in Ireland from the Late Middle Ages to the Present Precarious Bicameralism? Senates in Ireland from the late Middle Ages to the Present MacCarthaigh, M., & Martin, S. (2019). Precarious Bicameralism? Senates in Ireland from the late Middle Ages to the Present. In N. Bijleveld, C. Grittner, D. E. Smith, & W. Verstegen (Eds.), Reforming Senates: Upper Legislative Houses in North Atlantic Small Powers 1800-present (pp. 239-54). (Routledge Studies in Modern History). Routledge. Published in: Reforming Senates: Upper Legislative Houses in North Atlantic Small Powers 1800-present Document Version: Peer reviewed version Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights © 2019 Taylor & Francis. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. Download date:25. Sep. 2021 1 Precarious bicameralism? Senates in Ireland from the late Middle Ages to the Present Muiris MacCarthaigh, Queen’s University Belfast, [email protected] Shane Martin, University of Essex, [email protected] Introduction Legislatures are the cornerstone of representative democracy, and the decision to have one (unicameral) or two (bicameral) chambers within the national legislature is a decision of great significance.1 Typically, this decision is made during the design or re‐design of a country’s constitutional framework (Martin and Rasch 2013). Tsebelis and Money (1997), who note that the “defining characteristic of bicameral legislatures is the requirement that legislation be deliberated in two distinct assemblies” find that approximately one third of countries around the world have a bicameral legislature. Looking at larger democracies only (with a population of at least 4 million people), Martin and Strøm (2019) find that just under half (33 of 68) countries have a bicameral legislature. Comparatively then, bicameralism as a form of legislative organization remains popular but not typical. In many countries, the status of second chambers (sometimes referred to as upper chambers or senates) has and continues to be the subject of significant attentiveness from political elites, commentators and voters. Bicameralism can be precarious. Some second chambers have been abolished recently (for example, in Croatia in 2001 and in Peru in 1993). Others face calls for fundamental reform, with a reduction in their powers and/or change in their mode of selection (for example in Italy and the United Kingdom). Other countries have amended their constitutions to establish or re‐establish a second chamber (for example, Kenya in 2010). Some second chambers have faced the threat of elimination but survived. This chapter explores one such case – the nature and fate of bicameralism in the Republic of Ireland. In a national vote held on October 4th 2013, voters in the Irish Republic were given the opportunity to abolish Ireland’s senate ‐ Seanad Éireann (hereafter the Seanad). The proposal to abolish the Seanad was defeated by a narrow 1 We use the terms ‘legislature,’ ‘parliament,’ interchangeably throughout this chapter. 2 margin, being rejected by just under 52 percent of those voting, albeit on a turnout of less than 40% of eligible voters. The uncertain position of the second parliamentary chamber in Ireland is not, however, a new phenomenon and the 2013 referendum was in keeping with the problematic if not controversial role senates have faced in Ireland over centuries. In order to set more recent events in historical relief, this chapter briefly traces the evolution of the upper chamber on the island of Ireland beginning with the period from the middle ages to pre‐20th century constitutional arrangements. Following this, a more detailed analysis is presented of bicameralism in post‐independent Ireland until recent decades. The latter half of the chapter considers the 2013 referendum to abolish the senate, as well as post‐ referendum attempts at reform of the chamber. Senates in Ireland from the 14th to 20th centuries The Irish experience of bicameralism is heavily influenced by, and a response to, its colonial history, and to contemporaneous English thinking about the design and function of political institutions. As Coakley (2013, p. 108) identifies, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the then Irish parliament, like those elsewhere in Europe during the Ancien Régime, was in fact tricameral, with the estates of Peers (Lords) and Commons conjoined to a third chamber for the ‘proctors’ or representatives of the clergy.2 This latter chamber ceased in 1536 following its opposition to Reformation‐inspired legislation, and clerical representation transferred to the Lords. The resulting bicameral parliament resembled that of the emerging British state (following the 1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland) and by 1800 the Irish House of Lords was almost equal in size to the 300‐member Irish House of Commons, consisting of 22 spiritual and 225 temporal peers. However, although it mirrored Westminster in structure and operation, and followed the emerging party‐political divisions there, the Irish Parliament retained what Foster called ‘a different, querulous, and often impotent relationship vis‐à‐vis the apparatus of government’ (Foster 1989, p. 135). Tensions between Ireland and Britain grew during the 18th century, and culminated in a failed rebellion in 1798 inspired by those which had recently occurred in America and France. In 1800, the Acts of Union by the Parliament of Ireland and the Parliament of Great Britain respectively resulted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the end of the Irish parliament, and the representation of Ireland 2 Tricamerlaism is today very rare, although between 1984 and 1994 South Africa had a three‐ chamber legislature. Until 1866 Sweden had an even rarer four‐chamber (quadricameral) parliament. 3 in the United Kingdom House of Lords by means of 4 clerical and 28 secular peers and in the House of Commons by means of 100 elected representatives (Mansergh 2005). During the latter half of the 19th century, demands grew for the restoration of some form of autonomous government in Ireland – known as Home Rule – including institutional safeguards such as senates for the protection of Protestant interests in what was an overwhelming Catholic polity. The defeated Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893 both proposed some form of upper house, the former Bill providing for 103 members and the latter 48. The electorate for these seats was envisaged as being primarily comprised of those with property qualifications, in the process excluding the majority Catholic population from the franchise for those chambers. The third Home Rule Bill of 1912 was passed into law by Westminster, this time with substantially revised proposals for a 40‐member upper house initially involving a combination of nomination and direct election (using a form of proportional representation), and later solely by means of direct election. With the onset of World War 1, the new Act was put into suspension and was never implemented. Nonetheless the idea of a bicameral domestic parliament had taken shape, and was to re‐appear in the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, passed by Westminster in the middle of a militant Irish nationalist uprising seeking full autonomy from Westminster rule. The new Act envisaged the partition of Ireland into two entities with devolved semi‐autonomous status – Northern Ireland (which came into existence) and Southern Ireland (which did not). Each jurisdiction was to have a bicameral legislature comprising a House of Commons and a Senate, and an umbrella ‘Council of Ireland’ comprised of representative from the four chambers was also provided for. The Parliament of Northern Ireland survived for a half‐century until 1972, when it was suspended and then abolished the following year. Its 26‐member Senate had an unusual composition and electoral system with the Lord Mayor of Belfast and the Mayor of Londonderry (i.e. local authority positions) having ex officio seats and the remaining 24 members being elected by the House of Commons for 8‐ year terms. In contrast, the system devised for the 64‐member Senate of Southern Ireland was more complex and involved a variety of corporate interests (Coakley 2013, p.110). They included: the Lord Mayors of Dublin and Cork (the two largest cities in southern Ireland), and the Lord Chancellor (the highest judicial office) as ex officio members 14 local authority representatives, elected regionally 17 members nominated by the Lord Lieutenant (the Crown’s representative in Ireland) 6 bishops (4 Catholic and 2 Church of Ireland) elected by their respective peers 4 16 peers, elected by the Irish peerage 8 privy councillors, elected by the Irish Privy Council (an advisory
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