An engraving showing a cross-section of the interior of the Irish House of Commons in Dublin. Work on this, part of the world’s first purpose-built parliament, began in 1729 to designs by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. The engraving was made in 1767 by the artist Peter Mazell after a drawing by architect Rowland Omer. It is a valuable source of information about how the House of Commons looked since the original domed chamber was destroyed by fire in 1792 and, for the last years of the Irish parliament’s life prior to the 1800 Act of Union, replaced by a simpler structure. The engraving hangs on the stairs of Furness, County Kildare (the upper landing window can be seen reflected in the glass): appropriate because in the second half of the 18th century the house was owned by Richard Nevill who, like his father and grandfather before him, sat as an M.P. in the Irish House of Commons.