Union with Ireland Act 1800

1. Introductory Text

2. Preamble.

3. [1.]. The Parliaments of England and Ireland have agreed upon the articles following:

4. Article First

   1. That Great Britain and Ireland shall upon Jan. 1, 1801, be united into one kingdom; and that the titles appertaining to the crown, &c. shall be such as his Majesty shall be pleased to appoint.

5. Article Second

   1. That the succession to the crown shall continue limited and settled as at present.

6. Article Third

   1. That the United Kingdom be represented in one Parliament.

7. Article Fourth

   1. †That such Act as shall be passed in Ireland to regulate the mode of summoning and returning the lords and commoners to serve in the united Parliament of the United Kingdom, shall be considered as part of the treaty of union.

   2. †That any peer of Ireland may be elected to serve in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, unless previously elected to sit in the House of Lords, but shall not be entitled to the privilege of peerage, etc.

   3. His Majesty may create peers, and make promotions in the peerage of Ireland after the union, under certain regulations.

   4. Peerages in abeyance to be deemed existing peerages, and no peerage to be deemed extinct but on default of claim for a year after the death of the late possessor. If a claim be after that period made and allowed, and a new creation shall have taken place in the interval, no new right of creation shall accrue to his Majesty on the next extinction of a peerage.

   5. Questions touching the election of members to sit in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on the part of Ireland shall be decided as questions touching such elections in Great Britain.

   6. When his Majesty shall declare his pleasure for holding a Parliament of the United Kingdom, a proclamation shall issue to cause the lords and commons, who are to serve on the part of Ireland to be returned as shall be provided by any Act of the present session in Ireland.

   7. †The lords of Parliament on the part of Ireland shall have the same privileges as the lords on the part of Great Britain, and all lords spiritual of Ireland shall have rank next after the lords spiritual of the same rank of Great Britain, and shall enjoy the same privileges, (except those depending upon sitting in the House of Lords), and the temporal peers of Ireland shall have rank next after the peers of the like rank in Great Britain at the time of the union; and all peerages of Ireland and of the United Kingdom created after the union shall have rank according to creation; and all peerages of Great Britain and of Ireland shall, in all other respects, be considered as peerages of the United Kingdom, and the peers of Ireland shall enjoy the same privileges, except those depending upon sitting in the House of Lords.

8. Article Fifth

   1. †The churches of England and Ireland to be united into one Protestant Episcopal Church, and the doctrine of the Church of Scotland to remain as now established.

9. Article Sixth

   1. †The subjects of Great Britain and Ireland shall be on the same footing in respect of trade and navigation, and in all treaties with foreign powers the subjects of Ireland shall have the same privileges as British subject.

   2. From January 1, 1801, all prohibitions and bounties on the export of articles the produce or manufacture of either country to the other shall cease.

   3. All articles the produce or manufacture of either country, not herein-after enumerated as subject to specific duties, shall be imported into each country from the other, duty free, other than the countervailing duties in the Schedule No. 1. or to such as shall hereafter be imposed by the united Parliament;

   4. Articles of the produce or manufacture of either country, subject to internal duty, or to duty on the materials, may be subjected on importation into each country to countervailing duties, and upon their export a drawback of the duty shall be allowed.

   5. Articles the produce or manufacture of either country when exported through the other, shall be subject to the same charges as if exported directly from the country of which they were the produce or manufacture.

10. Article Seventh

    1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11. Article Eight

    1. All laws in force at the union, and all courts of jurisdiction within the respective kingdoms, shall remain, subject to such alterations as may appear proper to the united Parliament. †All appeals to be finally decided by the peers of the United Kingdom. There shall remain in Ireland a Court of Admiralty, and appeals therefrom shall be to the delegates in Chancery there. All laws contrary to the provisions enacted for carrying these articles into effect to be repealed.

12. His Majesty having been pleased to approve of the foregoing articles, it is enacted, that they shall be the articles of union, and be in force for ever, from Jan. 1, 1801; provided that before that period an Act shall have been passed in Ireland for carrying them into effect.

13. 2. Recital of an Act of the Parliament of Ireland to regulate the mode by which the lords and the commons, to serve in the Parliament of the United Kingdom on the part of Ireland, shall be summoned and returned.

14. Recited Act to be taken as a part of this Act.

15. 3. The great seal of Ireland may, if his Majesty shall think fit, after the union be used there in like manner as before, except where otherwise provided by the foregoing articles; and his Majesty may continue the Privy Council of Ireland.