,[57] and strengthened in the reign of Mary
Tudor.[58] They were for a brief time entirely taken away by Oliver
Cromwell, who was, strangely enough, the first great Unionist ruler of
Ireland. Restored by Charles II., the Irish Parliament was again
limited in power by the Government of George I.[59] But in 1782 it
broke through all these limitations, and became for a short brilliant
period a fully self-governing Parliament.
We have thus the illuminating fact that, with one single exception--and
that an example eminent in English affairs, but certainly not to be
followed in Irish--every great English ruler and monarch governed
Ireland under a distinct Irish Home Rule Parliament up to the year
1800. If Home Rule is so certain to be ruinous to Empire, how, we may
well ask, did these rulers build up the British Empire? How did
Marlborough and Clive, Chatham and Walpole, do their great world-work
with an Irish Parliament behind them? The answer is, of course, that
they did it better, and not worse, because Ireland was so far satisfied
with her fortunes as to be willing to put her full force into the
struggle for Empire.
For as long as Ireland possessed a Parliament she always possessed
hope.
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