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In 1908, three elections were held to fill vacancies among the 28 Irish representative peers at that time elected to the British House of Lords. The first election, in January, was necessitated by the death of Francis Browne, 4th Baron Kilmaine, and resulted in the election of Lord Curzon, the former viceroy of India. Curzon's election was questioned, but the House of Lords seated him. The second vacancy was created by the death of Lawrence Parsons, 4th Earl of Rosse, and the voting, which was completed in November, resulted in a tie between Frederick Trench, 3rd Baron Ashtown and Arthur Maxwell, 11th Baron Farnham. This was the only time a tie occurred in an Irish representative peer election. The election was decided by chance, with Ashtown winning. In the third election, the following month, Lord Farnham was elected.

Curzon, despite a minimal connection with Ireland, contested the first election as a means of getting back into parliament after being denied a United Kingdom peerage by the prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Both Ashtown and Farnham contested the race that Curzon won, with Ashtown finishing second to the former viceroy. When Rosse died in August 1908, newspapers named Ashtown and Farnham as the likely candidates to replace him. On 2 November 1908, Joseph Nugent Lentaigne, the Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper, certified that the election had ended in a tie. He traveled to London to place the election return before the House of Lords. Under a procedure set forth in the Act of Union 1800, papers containing the names of each peer were placed in a glass before the House of Lords on 4 November 1908. Lord Ashtown's name was drawn, and he was declared elected.

By the time of the November election, another Irish representative peer, Ponsonby Moore, 9th Earl of Drogheda had died, and Farnham was elected in his place in December 1908. Ashtown was deprived of his place in the House of Lords by his bankruptcy in 1915. Curzon was granted a United Kingdom peerage in 1911. This did not affect his status as an Irish representative peer, and he remained in the House of Lords until his death in 1925. No Irish representative peers were elected after the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, with those already elected allowed to continue in the House of Lords. Farnham lived until 1957, and with his death, only three Irish representative peers remained; the last died in 1961.

Background
Pursuant to the Act of Union 1800, by which Great Britain and Ireland merged into one kingdom, 28 members of the Irish peerage who were not also peers of the United Kingdom were to be elected to the House of Lords for life as Irish representative peers, elected by the entire Irish peerage, including those who held a United Kingdom title. An elected peer could not resign, nor would promotion to a peerage of the United Kingdom end his tenure as representative peer; only death or disqualification to sit in parliament would vacate the seat. Sir Colman O'Loghlen stated in the House of Commons in 1870 that there were about 186 Irish peers, of which 106 held only an Irish title.

The law provided that upon receiving the death certificate for an Irish representative peer (signed by two members of the House of Lords, not including bishops or archbishops), the Lord Chancellor would notify the Lord Chancellor for Ireland to have the Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper conduct an election. Each of the eligible voters would receive a ballot in duplicate with a space for the name of the peer who the voter desired to elect. The ballot was to be signed and sealed and returned to the Crown Office in Dublin. Before filling out the ballot, however, the voter had to appear before a judge of England or Ireland, a justice of the peace for any Irish borough or county, or, if abroad, an ambassador or secretary of an embassy, and take the oath of allegiance. This made it inconvenient for Irish peers to vote, and some did not.

Elections for Irish representative peers lapsed with the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. Although the existing Irish representative peers retained their seats for life, there was no longer a Lord Chancellor for Ireland or a Hanaper to conduct elections. Still, the Lord Chancellor in London continued to receive paperwork mentioning the right to vote in elections for Irish representative peer, and, following the death of the final Irish representative peer, Lord Kolmorey, in 1961, Irish peers petitioned the House of Lords for a declaration that they still had the right to elect 28 representatives. This was denied, with one member of the Committee for Privileges declaring that the right had ended when the Irish Free State left the United Kingdom, while another stated that the end of the offices of Lord Chancellor for Ireland and Hanaper meant no election could take place. The provisions regarding Irish representative peers were removed from the statute book by the Statute Laws Repeals Act 1971.

January election
On 9 November 1907, Francis Browne, 4th Baron Kilmaine, an Irish representative peer since 1890, threw himself off a fourth-storey balcony at his Paris hotel. Lord Kilmaine, who had been suffering from illness, was killed immediately. Writs were subsequently issued in the election for a successor as representative peer, returnable 20 January 1908. The press named Ivo Bligh, 8th Earl of Darnley (who had actually been elected an Irish representative peer in 1905) and John Bingham, 5th Baron Clanmorris as possible successors.

In the newspapers of 30 December, it was announced that Lord Curzon, the former viceroy of India, would seek the office, and had sent letters to the Irish peers asking for their votes. Curzon had accepted an Irish peerage before going to India, contemplating a return to the House of Commons after completing his term as viceroy, since Irish peers who were not members of the House of Lords could stand for the House of Commons for constituencies in Great Britain, though they could not stand for Irish ones. On his return to Britain, he found that his health would not permit him to seek a return to the Commons, and that King Edward VII considered it undesirable that a recent viceroy fight for a parliamentary seat. The prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, refused him a British peerage that would permit him, like other former viceroys, to sit in the House of Lords. Lord Lansdowne suggested Curzon seek to become an Irish representative peer in place of Lord Kilmaine, and two prominent Irish noblemen, the Duke of Abercorn and  the Marquess of Londonderry, were willing to back Curzon for the position in spite of the fact that Curzon had never been to Ireland.

Despite this support, Curzon was opposed for the seat, as a non-Irishman who had no real interest in Irish affairs. Some peers had already cast their ballots when he entered the race, and others objected because he was the heir to a British title, and when he inherited that title, he would not vacate his place as Irish representative peer. Within a week of the announcement, the press stated that Curzon would be opposed by Frederick Trench, 3rd Baron Ashtown, Arthur Maxwell, 11th Baron Farnham and Yvo Vesey, 5th Viscount de Vesci.

When parliament assembled on 29 January 1908, the King's Speech was first delivered by Edward VII in the House of Lords, after which several lords took the oath. Then, the writ and return stating that Lord Curzon had gained the greatest number of votes in the election, with Lord Ashtown second, was placed before the House or Lords. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Loreburn then ruled that the Act of Union, though it required that the peers voting in an election for Irish representative peers to have claimed a right to vote, and had that claim upheld by the House of Lords, it did not require the same for the person elected. Accordingly, Lord Curzon, whose name appears as a Lord Temporal, could be elected. This was concurred in by the former chancellor, Lord Halsbury, after which Curzon appeared and took the oath. The following day, Curzon petitioned for the right to vote in elections for Irish representative peers, and that petition was granted.