The Irish Appeals Act 1783 (23 Geo 3 c 28), commonly known as the Renunciation Act, was an Act of the

Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...

. By it the British Parliament renounced all right to legislate for Ireland, and declared that no appeal from the decision of any court in Ireland could be heard in any court in Great Britain.

Background

The

Declaratory Act 1719 An Act for the better securing the dependency of the Kingdom of Ireland on the Crown of Great Britain (6. Geo. I, c. 5) was a 1719 Act of Parliament, Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain which declared that it had the right to pass laws fo ...

declared that the king and parliament of Great Britain had "full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient validity to bind the Kingdom and people of Ireland", and that the

Irish House of Lords The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from medieval times until 1800. It was also the final court of appeal of the Kingdom of Ireland. It was modelled on the House of Lords of England, with membe ...

had no power to hear appeals from Irish courts. This was greatly resented by the Irish parliament. In the early 1780s, the combination of political pressure from individuals such as

Henry Grattan Henry Grattan (3 July 1746 – 4 June 1820) was an Irish politician and lawyer who campaigned for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century from Britain. He was a Member of the Irish Parliament (MP) from 1775 to 18 ...

and

Henry Flood Henry Flood (1732 – 2 December 1791), Irish statesman, son of Warden Flood, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench for Ireland, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became proficient ...

and the conventions of the

Irish Volunteers The Irish Volunteers ( ga, Óglaigh na hÉireann), sometimes called the Irish Volunteer Force or Irish Volunteer Army, was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists and republicans. It was ostensibly formed in respon ...

, at a time when Britain was involved in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

, led to the passing of the Repeal Act of 1782, which granted legislative independence to the

Kingdom of Ireland The Kingdom of Ireland ( ga, label=Classical Irish, an Ríoghacht Éireann; ga, label=Modern Irish, an Ríocht Éireann, ) was a monarchy on the island of Ireland that was a client state of England and then of Great Britain. It existed from ...

. A small number of Irish politicians believed that repeal of the act did not imply that the British parliament could not ''assume'' the right to legislate for Ireland. As

W. E. H. Lecky William Edward Hartpole Lecky (26 March 1838 – 22 October 1903) was an Irish historian, essayist, and political theorist with Whig proclivities. His major work was an eight-volume ''History of Ireland during the Eighteenth Century''. Early ...

put it, "the Declaratory Act had not made the right, and therefore its repeal could not destroy it." Flood became convinced that it was necessary that the British parliament pass an act specifically renouncing any right to legislate for Ireland. Initially the majority of the Irish parliament, including Grattan, opposed such a move. Later that year, however,

Lord Mansfield William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, PC, SL (2 March 170520 March 1793) was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. Born to Scottish nobility, he was educated in Perth, Scotland, before moving to Lond ...

heard an appeal from an Irish court in the English King's Bench. This had the effect of strengthening Flood's hand, and the result was the passage, on 17 April 1783, of the Renunciation Act.

Content

The Act contained two sections. The first declared The second dealt specifically with the right of appeal: The statute did not state that appeals from Irish courts lay with the Irish House of Lords, but in practice the Irish House of Lords took on this function.

End of operation

The

Act of Union 1800 The Acts of Union 1800 (sometimes incorrectly referred to as a single 'Act of Union 1801') were parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Irela ...

abolished the Irish parliament, and thus ended legislative independence. That act did not repeal the Renunciation Act, and even the

Statute Law Revision Act 1871 The Statute Law Revision Act 1871 (34 & 35 Vict c 116) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was intended, in particular, to facilitate the preparation of the revised edition of the statutes then in progress. This Act was partl ...

repealed only a few short sentences at the end of section 2 relating to records of proceedings before 1782. Indeed, the act was still on the statute books when the

Short Titles Act Short Titles Act (with its variations) is a stock short title used for legislation in Ireland and the United Kingdom which retroactively confers short titles on a large number of earlier pieces of legislation. The Bill for an Act with this short ti ...

was passed in 1896.

References

{{reflist Great Britain Acts of Parliament 1783