THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1690.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—If we are about to see an Irish Parliament at work it may be useful to look back to the last assembly to which that description can be properly applied; not, that is, to the Legis- lature which was brought to an end by the Act of Union, but to the Parliament which James II. convoked in 1690, This is
how John Richard Green, not by any means an " ascendancy' man, speaks of it
"The routed soldiers [after the battle of Newtown Butler] fell back on Dublin, where James lay helpless in the hands of the frenzied Parliament which he had summoned. Every member returned was an Irishman and a Catholic, and their one aim was to undo the successive confiscations which had given the soil to English settlers and to get back Ireland for the Irish. The Act of Settlement, on which all title to property rested, was at once repealed in spite of the King's reluctance. Three thousand Protestants of name and fortune were massed together in the largest Bill of Attainder which the world has over seen. In spite of James's promise of religious freedom the Protestant clergy were driven from their parsonages, the fellows and scholars were turned out of Trinity College."
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