Author: [BRODICK (Alan)]
Title: The Speaker. A Poem Inscrib'd to Alan Brodrick, Esq; Speaker to the Honourable House of Commons, Met at Dublin, November the 25th, 1713. Before his Grace the Duke of Shrewsbury.
Description: [Dublin: s.n., 1713]. First and only edition, small 4to (205 x 155 mm), 4pp., drop-head title, small piece torn from inner upper blank margin, disbound. Effusive praise of the politician soon to become Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The occasion of the present pamphlet was Brodrick's return to power as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons after being out of office for two years. He was returned at the 1713 election, held under the lord lieutenancy of the Duke of Shrewsbury, and presumably the date in the title of the poem refers to the occasion of his being chosen as speaker, in a contest with a court-sponsored Tory candidate. What was presumably a Tory reply, A Letter to the Author of the Speaker, appeared soon after (Foxon, L154). Foxon, S620; ESTC locating 5 copies in the British Isles (BL, Cambridge, House of Lords, Dublin Honourable Society, National Library of Ireland); one copy in North America (University of Chicago).

Keywords: IRELAND DUBLIN IMPRINT IRISH POLITICS POEMS GOVERNMENT