About the Published Volumes

It was entirely fitting that in 2002, in close proximity to the bicentenary of the Act of Union, History of the Irish Parliament 1692–1800, was published. It was the outcome of decades of dedicated research, masterminded and edited by Professor Edith Johnston-Liik. The work includes a brief digest of the 1,692 statutes passed between 1692 and 1800, which sum up the achievements and ambitions of the MPs who passed them, as well as profiles of the 300 constituencies which returned them. The greater portion of the work – four of the six volumes – contains short biographies of the nearly 2,300 MPs in the Irish parliament.

The information amassed is presented in a format that has made it an invaluable reference work, accessible to academic and local historians, and genealogists alike. Not only did it demonstrably and amply reward the support it has received from the Australian, Irish, British and Northern Irish governments but, unquestionably, it will be regarded for many years as the definitive work on the Irish Parliament 1692–1800.

History of the Irish Parliament was launched in Dublin by the Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern TD, in the old Irish Parliament building in Dublin (the Bank of Ireland headquarters) on Thursday, 21 February 2002; in Belfast at Parliament Buildings, Stormont on Wednesday, 27 February 2002, by the then Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure, Michael McGimpsey MLA; in the Cholmondeley Room, Palace of Westminster, London, on Tuesday, 26 March 2002 by Lord Hutton; and in the same year enjoyed two receptions in America: in the Burns Library, Boston College, and the US Capitol Building, Washington DC.

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Professor Edith Johnston-Liik

Edith Mary Johnston-Liik was born in Belfast in 1930 and educated at Richmond Lodge and Victoria College. She received an MA and a PhD from the University of St Andrews and a diploma in education from Queen’s University Belfast. From 1956 to 1976 she was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the University of Sheffield and foundation warden of Tapton University Hall of Residence. From 1976 to 1993 she was Professor of History at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. She has also taught in the United States as Land Grant Centennial Lecturer in the University of Delaware and as Visiting Lecturer at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. In Canada she taught at McMaster University and Queen’s University in Ontario and at the University of Alberta at Edmonton. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship from 1961 to 1963 and a Commonwealth Fellowship in 1973.

Professor Johnston-Liik’s publication included Great Britain and Ireland: a Study in Political Administration (1963, reprinted in USA 1978); Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (1974); with G. Liik and R.G. Ward, A Measure of Greatness: the Origins of the Australian Iron and Steel Industry (1998). She also published articles in Irish Historical Studies and the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy and she contributed chapters to various books including O. MacDonagh et al., Irish Culture and Nationalism, vols I and II and P. Roebuck, Macartney of Lissanoure. In 2006 she authored MPs in Dublin as a companion to the History of the Irish Parliament and to coincide with the launch of the online resource. Professor Johnston-Liik died on 25 February 2008.

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