JOHN BERGIN Research Fellow, Queen's University Belfast, UK RICHARD BUTTERWICK Senior Lecturer in Modern Polish History, University College London, UK NEAL GARNHAM Senior Lecturer in History, the University of Ulster at Coleraine, UK D.W. HAYTON Professor of Early Modern Irish and British History, Queen's University Belfast, UK JAMES KELLY Head of the History Department, St Patrick's College, Dublin City University, Ireland CHARLES IVAR MCGRATH Lecturer in the School of History and Archives, University College Dublin, Ireland STEPHEN J. MILLER Associate Professor in History, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA ANDREW SNEDDON Lecturer in History, the University of Ulster, UK JULIAN SWANN Professor of History, Birkbeck, University of London, UK ORSOLYA SZAKÁLY Subject Lecturer, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK.

"The work of David Hayton, Charles, Ivar McGrath and James Kelly all present in this book as well as other historians, notably Edith Mary Johnston- Liik, has transformed our understanding of how the Irish parliament worked and why it was important." - Liam Chambers, Mary Immaculate College, Ireland

• Introduction: The Irish Parliament in European Context: a Representative Institution in a Composite State; D.W.Hayton & J.Kelly Money, Politics and Power: the Financial Legislation of the Irish Parliament; C.I.McGrath Sustaining a Confessional State: the Irish Parliament and Catholicism; J.Kelly Parliament and the Established Church: Reform and Reaction; D.W.Hayton Defending the Kingdom and Preserving the Constitution: Reform of the Militia; N.Garnham Legislating for Economic Development: Irish Fisheries as a Case-Study in the Limitations of 'improvement'; A.Sneddon 'Le roi demande, les états consente': Royal Council, Provincial Estates and Parliament in Eighteenth-century Burgundy; J.Swann The Estates of Languedoc in Eighteenth-Century France: Administrative Expansion and Feudal Revitalisation; S.J.Miller Managing a Composite Monarchy: the Hungarian Diet and the Habsburgs in the Eighteenth Century; O.Szakály Lawmaking in a Post-Composite State? The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Eighteenth Century; R.Butterwick Conclusion; D.W.Hayton & J.Kelly