The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as

Lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or ...

or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Gre ...

. It is one of the five divisions of

Peerages in the United Kingdom The peerages in the United Kingdom are a legal system comprising both hereditary and lifetime titles, composed of various noble ranks, and forming a constituent part of the British honours system. The term ''peerage'' can be used both collec ...

. The creation of such titles came to an end in the 19th century. The ranks of the Irish peerage are

duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, t ...

marquess A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman ...

earl Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form '' jarl'', and meant " chieftain", partic ...

viscount A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. In many countries a viscount, and its historical equivalents, was a non-hereditary, administrative or judicia ...

and baron. As of 2016, there were 135 titles in the Peerage of Ireland extant: two dukedoms, ten marquessates, 43 earldoms, 28 viscountcies, and 52 baronies. The Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland continues to exercise jurisdiction over the Peerage of Ireland, including those peers whose titles derive from places located in what is now the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

. Article 40.2 of the Constitution of Ireland forbids the state conferring titles of nobility and an Irish citizen may not accept titles of nobility or honour except with the prior approval of the Irish government. This issue has not arisen in respect of the Peerage of Ireland because no creation of titles in it has been made since the constitution came into force. In the following table, each peer is listed only by his highest Irish title, showing higher or equal titles in the other peerages. Those peers who are known by a higher title in one of the other peerages are listed in ''italics''.

History

A modest number of titles in the peerage of Ireland date from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. Before 1801, Irish peers had the right to sit in 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 mem ...

, on the abolition of which by the Union effective in 1801 by an Act of 1800 they elected a small proportion – twenty-eight ''

representative peer In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords. Until 1999, all members of the Peerage of England held the right ...

s'' – of their number (and elected replacements as they died) to the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster ...

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buck ...

. Both before and after the Union, Irish peerages were often used as a way of creating peerages which did not grant a seat in the House of Lords of England (before 1707) or Great Britain (after 1707) and so allowed the grantee (such as Clive of India) to sit in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

in London. As a consequence, many late-made Irish peers had little or no connection to Ireland, and indeed the names of some Irish peerages refer to places in Great Britain (for example, the Earldom of Mexborough refers to a place in England and the Earldom of Ranfurly refers to a village in Scotland). Irish peerages continued to be created for almost a century after the union, although the treaty of union placed restrictions on their numbers: three needed to become extinct before a new peerage could be granted, until there were only one hundred Irish peers (exclusive of those who held any peerage of Great Britain subsisting at the time of the union, or of the United Kingdom created since the union). There was a spate of creations of Irish peerages from 1797 onward, mostly peerages of higher ranks for existing Irish peers, as part of the negotiation of the Act of Union; this ended in the first week of January 1801, but the restrictions of the Act were not applied to the last few peers. In the following decades, Irish peerages were created at least as often as the Act permitted until at least 1856. But the pace then slowed, with only four more being created in the rest of the 19th century, and none in the 20th and 21st centuries. The last two grants of Irish peerages were the promotion of the Marquess of Abercorn (a peerage of Great Britain) to be

Duke of Abercorn The title Duke of Abercorn () is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1868 and bestowed upon James Hamilton, 2nd Marquess of Abercorn. Although the Dukedom is in the Peerage of Ireland, it refers to Abercorn, West Lothian, and ...

in the Irish Peerage when he became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1868 and the granting of the Curzon of Kedleston barony to George Curzon when he became Viceroy of India in 1898. Peers of Ireland have precedence below peers of England, Scotland, and Great Britain of the same rank, and above peers of the United Kingdom of the same rank; but Irish peers created after 1801 yield to United Kingdom peers of earlier creation. Accordingly, the Duke of Abercorn (the junior duke in the Peerage of Ireland) ranks between the Duke of Sutherland and the Duke of Westminster (both dukes in the Peerage of the United Kingdom). When one of the Irish representative peers died, the Irish Peerage met to elect his replacement; but the office required to arrange this were abolished as part of the creation of the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independ ...

. The existing representative peers kept their seats in the House of Lords, but they have not been replaced. Since the death of

Francis Needham, 4th Earl of Kilmorey Captain Francis Charles Adelbert Henry Needham, 4th Earl of Kilmorey (26 November 1883 – 11 January 1961), styled Viscount Newry until 1915, was a Royal Navy officer and Anglo-Irish peer. In 1916 he was appointed as an Irish representative ...

in 1961, none remains. The right of the Irish Peerage to elect representatives was abolished by the

Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1971 The Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1971 (c 52) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It implemented recommendations contained in the third report on statute law revision, by the Law Commission. This Act was repealed for by Group 1 oPar ...

. Titles in the

Peerage of the United Kingdom The Peerage of the United Kingdom is one of the five Peerages in the United Kingdom. It comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Acts of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great ...

have also referred to places in Ireland, for example Baron Arklow (created 1801 and 1881) or Baron Killarney (created 1892 and 1920). Since partition, only places in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...

have been used, although the 1880 title " Baron Mount Temple, of Mount Temple in the County of Sligo", was recreated in 1932 as "Baron Mount Temple, of Lee in the County of Southampton".

Ranks

In the following table of the Peerage of Ireland as it currently stands, each peer's highest titles in each of the other peerages (if any) are also listed. Irish peers possessed of titles in any of the other peerages (except Scotland, which only got the right to an automatic seat in 1963, with the Peerage Act 1963) had automatic seats in the House of Lords until 1999. The Earl of Darnley inherited the

Baron Clifton Baron Clifton, of Leighton Bromswold in the County of Huntingdon, is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1608 for Sir Gervase Clifton, who made Prebendal house which was built by John Thorpe and later owned by the Clifton b ...

in the Peerage of England in 1722–1900 and 1937–1999 as the barony is in writ.

Dukes in the Peerage of Ireland

Marquesses in the Peerage of Ireland

Earls in the Peerage of Ireland

Viscounts in the Peerage of Ireland

Barons in the Peerage of Ireland

In Ireland, '' barony'' may also refer to a semi-obsolete political subdivision of a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

. There is no connection between such a barony and the noble title of baron. *

Extinct peerages

Two peerages have become extinct since the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999: # Earl of Egmont, Viscount Perceval (sep) # Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, Viscount Mount-Earl (sep)

Notes

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Peerage Of Ireland Ireland and the Commonwealth of Nations

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Parliament of Ireland Peerages