The Eighteenth-Century Composite State: Representative Institutions in Ireland and Europe, 1689-1800

This pioneering exploration of the phenomenon of the composite state in eighteenth-century Europe employs a comparative approach to sustain the case for the inclusion of Ireland within this interpretive framework. Written by acknowledged experts, the collection uniquely combines the findings of new research on Ireland with broader syntheses of some of the major composite states of Europe. Chapters on Irish legislation relating to the confessional state, public finance, internal security and social and economic `improvement' are complemented by accounts of representative institutions in France, Hungary and Poland-Lithuania. A reflective introduction and conclusion set the collection in the wider historical and interpretive context. The volume thus amplifies our understanding of the nature of the European composite state and the deliberations of the Irish parliament.

D. W. Hayton is Professor of Early Modern Irish and British History at Queen's University Belfast, UK. He is the author of Ruling Ireland 1685-1742 and many articles and essays on politics, religion and society in Ireland and Britain in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
James Kelly is Cregan Professor of History and Head of the History Department at St Patrick's College, Dublin City University, Ireland. His publications include Poynings'Law and the Making of Law in Ireland, 1660-1800, The Proceedings of the House of Lords, 1771-1800 and Sir Richard Musgrave, 1746-1818: Ultra-Protestant Ideologue.
John Bergin is a Research Fellow at Queen's University Belfast, UK. His research interests include the Irish Catholic and Quaker political lobbies in the eighteenth century, and Irish private divorce acts.