ABSTRACT
On 18 April 1663, Ormond wrote to the secretary of state who had responsibility for Ireland, Sir Henry Bennet, later Earl of Arlington, that 'parliaments here are useless & ridiculous assemblies'. Opinions such as Ormond's, along with many historians between now and then, have given the Restoration Irish parliament a particular reputation from which it has still not fully recovered. In the absence of biographical study of the members of the Restoration Irish parliament, we are dependent upon the reflections of those who witnessed the events. Most of the attacks on Catholics, very few of which come in Ormond's time in Ireland, came to nothing. In the course of 1662, the government introduced into the Commons three bills. Later in the conflict with the French and the Dutch, a committee of the House of Commons reported on a way of supplying money to the king. The Commons suggested to Ormond that four subsidies could be provided over the following eighteen months.
