ABSTRACT
The Act of Union with Ireland 1800 has given rise to similar arguments, although these arguments are even less convincing than those addressed to the Act of Union with Scotland. The Act of Union was declared to ‘last forever’. Article 5 provided for a United Church of England and Ireland that ‘shall be and shall remain in full force for ever, and that this be deemed and taken to be an essential and fundamental part of the Union’. Nevertheless, in 1869 the Irish Church was disestablished under the Irish Church Act of that year. In Ex parte Canon Selwyn (1872), a clergyman sought an order of mandamus against the Lord President of the Council ordering him to petition the Queen for adjudication of the question whether the giving of the royal assent to the Irish Church Act 1869 was contrary to the coronation oath and the Act of Settlement. The coronation oath contained a commitment to maintain a unified and established Church of England and Ireland. The court dismissed the petition on the basis that the statute was supreme and could not be questioned in a court of law.
