ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the performance of Ruvigny, earl of Galway, as he served his second term as lord justice of Ireland in the early Hanoverian period. It contends that Galway was appointed by the new king, George I, in this difficult context of political transition and Jacobite threat, to go back to Ireland on account of his experience of both the parliament and the military. The chapter argues that, despite the difficulties he faced in government, notably from the episcopal bench in the House of Lords, and personally over the cost of French pensions, he left an important legacy. Galway contributed to the consolidation of the Protestant minority’s power, of parliamentary procedure, was involved in the creation of the national debt, improved the position of Protestant dissenters, and responded to the Jacobite insurrection of 1715 by raising new regiments.
