He had therefore absolutely no experience of public affairs.

The English squire of that age, though assuredly not a very profound or enlightened politician, was a statesman and a philosopher when compared with the Roman Catholic squire of Munster or Connaught.
The Parliaments of Ireland had then no fixed place of assembling.

Indeed they met so seldom and broke up so speedily that it would hardly have been worth while to build and furnish a palace for their special use.

It was not till the Hanoverian dynasty had been long on the throne, that a senate house which sustains a comparison with the finest compositions of Inigo Jones arose in College Green.

On the spot where the portico and dome of the Four Courts now overlook the Liffey, stood, in the seventeenth century, an ancient building which had once been a convent of Dominican friars, but had since the Reformation been appropriated to the use of the legal profession, and bore the name of the King's Inns.
There accommodation had been provided for the parliament.