Economic and social profile:
A small inland city and market-town in southern Tipperary, Cashel was the seat of an archbishopric and diocese. The town had no manufactures and little trade, with agriculture affording ‘very limited and uncertain’ employment to the working classes.Parliamentary Gazetteer (1845, 1998 edn.) i (2). 346. It was described in 1834 as ‘rather pretty’ but far from flourishing. Blending ‘sumptuous architecture’ with ‘an aggregate of meanness, poverty, and filth’, the town consisted of one long street, with very irregular and diverging lanes. Even before the famine the city seemed to one observer, ‘as if scourged by some plague’, and the population fell by nearly one third between 1832 and 1852.H.J. Hanham (ed.), Dod’s Electoral Facts 1832-1853 (1971), 56; D.G. Marnane, Cashel: History and Guide (2007), 87; Parliamentary Gazetteer, i (2). 343; Daily News, 6 Dec. 1849. The town commission, which replaced the old corporation in 1840, was well-funded owing to an advantageous settlement with the borough’s former patrons in 1844.Marnane, Cashel, 93-5. Yet the city remained poorly administered and ‘in a condition of the most deplorable neglect’, its inhabitants frequently suffering from severe water shortages.Parliamentary Gazetteer, i (2). 343; S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), i. 230; Morning Chronicle, 18 July 1837; Standard, 29 June 1838. In spite of a growing tourist trade that revolved around the Rock of Cashel, the population’s lack of access to river and rail communication was a contentious issue at elections.K. Devery, ‘The function of hotels in parliamentary borough elections in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland: two case studies in the borough of Cashel, 1852 and 1868’, in Irish History Yearbook 2 (2003), 53-61, at 54-5.
Electoral history:
For many years, the borough had been in the hands of the Pennefathers, who exercised firm control over the corporation. The franchise being confined to the carefully chosen freemen, Pennefather nominated the member, frequently selling the seat to the government in return for offices. The Irish Reform Act, however, destroyed their control of Cashel, as the number of those qualified to vote increased from 7 to 200.Dod’s Electoral Facts, 56; HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 881-3, vi. 725-6; PP 1835 [23] [24] [25] [27] [28], xxvii. 1, 51, 79, 199, xxviii. 1 [653-669]; PP 1831-32 (519) xliii. 1 [10-11]. Cashel, like other small southern Irish boroughs, quickly became a stronghold of local Liberalism, and there was a marked division in political allegiances between the town and its suburbs.K.T. Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society in Ireland 1832-1885 (1984), 290, 69. Because the electoral boundary had been extended into the outlying commons in 1832, so as to create a sufficiently large electorate, about 40% of the electors were farmers. Of the remainder, 17% were gentlemen or professionals, 26% shopkeepers, 5% engaged in commerce, 7% were artisans and 5% publicans or brewers. The town’s Catholic clergy were ‘highly clannish and partisan’, yet their electoral interventions were only intermittently successful.HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 881-3; Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 39-40, 233, 248.
It was said of Cashel in 1840 that no member had been elected ‘without the consent of the Liberator’, a fact which considerably benefitted the Whigs as the borough quickly became a safe berth for a succession of Irish law officers.A. Macintyre, The Liberator. Daniel O’Connell and the Irish Party 1830-1847 (1965), 87, citing W. Fitzpatrick, The Correspondence of Daniel O’Connell. The Liberator, ii (1888), 268. This led to accusations that the borough was consistently ‘jobbed by political seat brokers’, and its politics were largely influenced by Daniel O’Connell’s compact with the Whigs.Daily News, 6 Dec. 1849. Having initially been captured by the repeal party in 1832, it became the preserve of government nominees after 1835. Even when Cashel began to return repealers and ‘independent’ Liberals after 1847, none of them proved particularly hostile to Liberal ministries.
In arguing that the abuses of the electoral system were ‘seen in no part of the empire more visibly than in an examination of the rotten Irish boroughs’, the Daily News in December 1849 declared that,
The very worst and most disgustingly rotten of them all may be pronounced to be Cashel. If the stench of corruption be stronger from Kinsale, the malaria of influence is perhaps more potent in Cashel, and for a long career of consistent rottenness, and systematic and self-imposed slavery to external nomination, the time-serving, place-grubbing, Castle-hacks of Cashel may be held peerless in Ireland.
However, the first election held in Cashel after the Irish Reform Act was a decisive break with the past, and witnessed the demise of the Conservative influence of the Pennefather family and the return of a local repealer.
In the summer of 1832 cholera was ‘raging violently’ in the town and Philip Pusey, the son-in-law of Lord Carnarvon, who had sat briefly in the Pennefather interest, abandoned Cashel for Berkshire.Morning Chronicle, 20 Aug. 1832; The Times, 7 Sept. 1832, 22 Dec. 1832; HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 911. Hugh Kennedy of Cultra, county Down, who held considerable property in the borough, and Matthew Pennefather, who had recently succeeded his father and had sat for the seat in 1830-1, were expected to stand. The latter, however, stood aside in favour of his younger brother, William.Morning Post, 20 Aug. 1832, 28 Sept. 1832; Freeman’s Journal, 28 Aug. 1832; Morning Chronicle, 24 Sept. 1832; HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 725-6. Although well-funded, Pennefather was, suggested O’Connell, ‘remarkable, even amongst [the town’s Conservatives], for his stupidity and ignorance’: Irish Monthly Magazine, i (1833), 414. James Roe, the president of the Tipperary Liberal Club, who had acquired the title of ‘the poor man’s magistrate’, came forward as an unequivocal repealer and tithe abolitionist.Freeman’s Journal, 21, 29, 30 Aug. 1832; Morning Chronicle, 30 Aug. 1832. Louis Perrin, then high in the confidence of the Whig ministry, also offered, but was rejected, the repeal pledge being considered indispensible. According to Michael Doheny,A barrister of humble origins, Doheny had applied to join the National Political Union in November 1832 from his cell in Clonmel jail, after being arrested for resisting the payment of tithes. He was appointed legal assessor of the borough in 1840, and joined the Repeal Association’s general committee the following year: M. Doheny to D. O’Connell, 27 Nov. 1832, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, iv. 471-2; D. McCabe & J. Quinn, ‘Doheny, Michael (1805-62)’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, iii. 355-6. a leading local politician, the Liberal electors then resolved that henceforth in selecting a candidate ‘the decision of the majority should govern the entire’, which almost ‘invariably prevented a contest’ for the next twenty years.Freeman’s Journal, 2 June 1841. Roe was therefore returned unopposed and at minimal expense.PP 1835 (547) viii. 1 [515].
By 1835 Roe had ‘wearied of a Parliamentary life’, and the repeal party appeared disunited. Daniel O’Connell nevertheless encouraged Roe to stand again, informing John O’Brien, a local doctor and repealer, ‘I strongly suspect Mr. Roe would not retire but for your internal division. What an unhappy country ours is in which men will make any sacrifice save of passion or prejudice to the public good.’The Times, 2 Dec. 1834; D. O’Connell to J. O’Brien, 16 Dec. 1834, O’Connell Correspondence, v. 231-2. For O’Brien’s evidence concerning the outcome of the 1835 election, see PP 1835 (519) viii. 1 [512-5]. As a consequence of this apparent disunity, Matthew Pennefather obtained promises from a number of electors and announced his candidacy. With Roe still reluctant to offer, and O’Connell’s eldest son, John, opting to contest Youghal, Louis Perrin, the first sergeant-at-law, made his peace with O’Connell and abandoned his precarious seat at Monaghan.D. O’Connell to J. O’Brien, 12 Dec. 1834, O’Connell Correspondence, v. 226-7; Standard, 31 Dec. 1834. Upon his arrival in Cashel, and in spite of Doheny’s strenuous opposition to bringing forward a non-repealer, Perrin quickly enlisted the support of the local tithe agitator, Lysaght Pennefather, and ‘his unnatural auxiliaries’, the local Catholic clergy, and canvassed ‘under the protection of O’Connell’s image’.Freeman’s Journal, 2 June 1841; Morning Post, 29 Dec. 1834, 8 Jan. 1835. The clergy were alleged to have intervened directly in this contest, as priests reportedly ‘paraded the town and country with crucifixes, cursing those who would not vote for “Perrin and their God”’. Although Pennefather polled ‘to the last man’, Perrin headed the poll by a considerable margin. The Conservatives claimed that more than 60 of the Liberal votes cast were ineligible, but no petition was forthcoming.Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 213; The Times, 23 Jan. 1835. For discussion of the ‘undue influence’ said to have been exercised by the clergy during this election, see Report of the Select Committee on Bribery at Elections, PP 1835 (547) viii. 1 [309-10, 323-6, 330-3, 369-74, 512-5].
That July Perrin used the introduction of his Irish municipal corporations bill to further discredit the Pennefather interest, by exposing the corruption and inefficiency of Cashel’s corporation.Hansard, 31 July 1835, vol. 29, cc. 1294-9; Examiner, 9 Aug. 1835. When Perrin was elevated to the bench on 31 August, Stephen Woulfe, a prominent Catholic sergeant-at-law, secured O’Connell’s enthusiastic endorsement.Blackburn Standard, 2 Sept. 1835. He was returned without opposition having, like Perrin before him, made a substantial donation to the Cashel chapel and school-house funds.The Times, 15 Sept. 1835.
In February 1837 a by-election became necessary when Woulfe was appointed as Irish attorney-general, and the principal borough electors took the opportunity to get up a petition calling for the abolition of tithes, municipal reform and the ballot.Freeman’s Journal, 3 Feb. 1837. Woulfe received an enthusiastic reception and promised a speedy resolution of the tithe and poor law questions. He also pledged to ‘restore to the city of Cashel the property of which it was so ruthlessly spoilated’ by the corporation, promising the inhabitants ‘their own town council’. With the influential support of Doheny and Dr. Patrick Heffernan, Woulfe was returned without opposition.Freeman’s Journal, 14 Feb. 1837; Standard, 15 Feb. 1837. At the general election that summer, it was suggested that Thomas Pennefather would challenge Woulfe on behalf of the corporation, and Sir John Fitzgerald was also spoken of as a Conservative candidate.The Times, 10, 12 July 1837; Morning Post, 6 July 1837. In the event, however, Woulfe was re-elected unopposed.
Upon Woulfe’s elevation to the Irish bench in June 1838, Thomas Welsh, a former ‘mate of a merchant marine vessel’ who had risen to become a barrister and registrar to Lord Chief Baron Richards, came forward. A member of O’Connell’s General Association, Welsh was regarded as an honest promoter of the liberal cause and an ‘unflinching Radical’.Standard, 29 June 1838; Freeman’s Journal, 22 June 1838; Morning Post, 25 June 1838. In criticising the Whig ministry’s record on municipal and church reform, he argued for limitations to the Irish poor law bill and an extension of the franchise.Standard, 29 June 1838. Stephen Spring Rice, the eldest son of the chancellor of the exchequer (who was then said to be ‘about as unpopular a man as any in Ireland’) also came forward. Despite being endorsed by Woulfe, there seemed little hope that Spring Rice would succeed in ‘such a democratic constituency as that of Cashel’.Standard, 2 July 1838; James Scully to D. O’Connell, 22 June 1838, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, vi. 171; Freeman’s Journal, 30 June 1838. William Ewart, the late Liberal member for Liverpool, and Richard Moore Q.C. also came forward in the government interest, the latter, it was alleged, simply because he saw ‘the tide of promotion running with them and away from the Conservative party’. Moore was then pursuing a ‘compact alliance’ with Richard Lalor Sheil, in spite of his brother having stood against Sheil at Tipperary in 1837.Freeman’s Journal, 22 June 1838. The price of this compact was thought to have been a pledge that Sheil would not be opposed in future: Standard, 28 June 1838. Matthew Pennefather was again spoken of as a Conservative candidate, and John Scully, an ‘eloquent and talented’ local magistrate, was also touted for the Liberals. Cashel had suddenly become ‘a little political Babel’, and the issue of the writ on 4 July saw a Galway man named Kirwan offer promising the electors ‘mines of gold and rivers of honey’.Examiner, 1 July 1838; Standard, 29 June, 2 July 1838; Freeman’s Journal, 14 Feb. 1837; Morning Post, 7 July 1838.
In spite of the government’s warm support for at least one of the candidates, none was judged to be of ‘sufficient weight and character to excite general interest in his favour’. Joseph Stock, another first sergeant, who had recently ‘stood a good drubbing from the electors of Trinity College’, therefore came forward as a ministerialist. A ‘thorough-going supporter of Liberal opinions’, Stock soon received endorsements from O’Connell, Sheil, and Woulfe, and gathered the support of Doheny and a majority of the Liberal electors.Freeman’s Journal, 2 June 1841; Morning Chronicle, 3 July 1838; The Times, 3, 9 July 1838. His rival ‘Liberal’ candidate, Richard Moore, had proved reluctant to issue an address sufficiently radical to please the electors, and was effectively removed from the contest when he was called upon to act as a judge of assize on the Munster circuit.Freeman’s Journal, 30 June 1838; Standard, 2 July 1838; The Times, 5 July 1838. The electors, however, were still divided, with support being given to Spring Rice, Ewart and Stock (the relatively inexperienced Welsh having been ‘thrown overboard’ in the latter’s favour). Stock nevertheless emerged as the most popular and ‘deserving’ candidate, and, with the support of Heffernan, Doheny, and the Freeman’s Journal, was returned without opposition, the ‘feeble efforts to sow disunion amongst the Liberals of Cashel’ having been defeated.Freeman’s Journal, 30 June, 18 July 1838; Morning Post, 7 July 1838.
That September, amidst rumours that Stock would obtain office and thus precipitate a by-election, letters were published in the Standard alleging that Perrin, Woulfe and Stock had each paid between £1,000 and £2,000 ‘in hard cash’ to secure their returns. The charge was refuted by Stock, who claimed to have spent only £100 and took the opportunity to defend the reputation of the constituency.Standard, 29 Aug., 9 Oct. 1838; Freeman’s Journal, 18 Oct. 1838. Although the by-election did not materialise, the political landscape of Cashel was changed in October 1840, when the long awaited Irish municipal reforms were implemented. An elected town commission composed of ‘all Radicals, nearly all Repealers’ replaced the corporation, thus removing any credible Conservative influence in the borough.Freeman’s Journal, 9 Oct. 1840, 2 June 1841.
Early in 1841 Cashel’s remaining Conservatives were further frustrated when the high constable of the barony, contrary to the guidelines issued by the poor law commission, failed to secure the position of returning officer for the borough.The Times, 8 Apr. 1841. The poor law union was declared on 30 January 1839: Parliamentary Gazetteer, i (2). 345. Liberal leaders were, however, divided. At the Repeal Association meeting of 24 May, O’Connell opposed his regional agent’s suggestion that Stock should be opposed by a repealer at the general election. In the absence of a requisition, O’Connell argued, the Liberals ought to unite ‘against the common foe’, trusting that candidates like Stock wanted ‘but little additional excitement to induce them to become zealous repealers’.T.M. Ray to D. O’Connell, 21 May 1841, D. O’Connell to J. O’Connell, 26 [& 28] May 1841, vii. 68-9, 74-6; Freeman’s Journal, 25 May 1841. Faced by claims that the borough had been monopolised by ‘a small junto of seat brokers’ serving the interests of the ‘Melbourne-O’Connell regime’, Doheny defended Stock’s claim to the seat, and, on 30 May 1841, the independent electors endorsed the sitting member.Daily News, 6 Dec. 1849; Freeman’s Journal, 25 May, 2 June 1841. O’Connell sealed the matter in an open letter to his son, John, in which he stated that no pledges on the repeal question would be required of the candidates for Cashel and Clonmel, and ‘most strongly and emphatically’ recommended the re-election of Stock.Freeman’s Journal, 30 June, 1 July 1841; Morning Post, 3 June 1841. A subsequent meeting of electors reiterated support for Stock: Freeman’s Journal, 2 July 1841. Although Lawrence Waldron, a Dublin calico-printer with landholdings in county Tipperary, was briefly spoken of as a Liberal challenger, Stock was again elected unopposed.Northern Star, 19 June 1841.
Notwithstanding Stock’s return, the repeal interest in Cashel remained strong. On 23 May 1843 Cashel was the venue of one of Ireland’s largest repeal meetings, at which O’Connell staked a claim to middle class support for the cause, while also decrying the decline of the ‘city of Kings’.Freeman’s Journal, 26 Apr., 8 May 1843; Hull Packet, 23 June 1843; Caledonian Mercury, 17 June 1843; M. Cronin, ‘“Of One Mind”?: O’Connellite Crowds in the 1830s and 1840s’, in P.J. Jupp & E. Magennis, Crowds in Ireland c. 1720-1920 (2000), 139-72 [149, 157-8, 163, 167]. A view now prevailed that the borough had become ‘the tool of barristers seeking preferment through their influence’.Standard, 25 Apr. 1859. Dubbed ‘Judge-borough’, the Freeman’s Journal charged Cashel with having fallen into disrepute as a ‘non-Repeal borough, with a Repeal constituency’, and claimed that the electors ‘could at all times since the reform bill have returned a repealer without even a contest’.Standard, 2 July 1838; Freeman’s Journal, 11 Nov. 1845. Further discontent arose because the town, though near to the route of the Great Southern and Western railway, remained bereft of rail communication.Morning Chronicle, 27 Mar. 1843. Consequently, towards the end of 1844 a constituency meeting resolved to request Stock to declare in favour of repeal or resign the representation. When Stock offered to take the latter course, his constituents did not press the matter. However, after the town council alluded to the issue in its address to O’Connell upon his visit to the city in September 1845, Stock’s prompt offer to resign was reluctantly accepted on 19 October.Freeman’s Journal, 5 Nov. 1845. It was subsequently suggested that Stock had also ‘got tired of waiting for promotion’ during the years of Liberal opposition: Daily News, 6 Dec. 1849. Heffernan and Doheny quickly arranged to find a replacement for Stock, and, with Sir Colman O’Loghlen apparently unwilling to accept the nomination, Sir Timothy O’Brien, the Tipperary-born former lord mayor of Dublin, was invited to stand in what was now described as a ‘repeal pocket-borough’.Freeman’s Journal, 6 Nov. 1845, 9 Feb. 1846; Morning Chronicle, 13 Nov. 1845; Derby Mercury, 26 Nov. 1845; Morning Post, 6 Feb. 1846. A wealthy Dublin merchant who had ‘made his money by whisky’, he was unknown in the city, but received the endorsement of the Repeal Association. He arrived in Cashel accompanied by Doheny on 5 February to an enthusiastic reception.Freeman’s Journal, 27 Jan. 1846. Nominated by Heffernan, he advocated the repeal of the corn laws, which he expected not only to result in cheap food, but also ‘considerably augment the demand for labour’, decried the decline of Irish manufactures since the Union, and called for more Irish railway construction.Daily News, 9 Feb. 1846; Freeman’s Journal, 9 Feb. 1846. He was returned unopposed.
During the famine, Cashel’s workhouse was overwhelmed with paupers and a further period of ‘decline and decay’ ensued, in which the population of the city fell from 7,036 in 1841 to 4,650 in 1851.Marnane, Cashel, 88, 89, 92, 120. At the 1847 general election Michael Doheny proposed to meet the crisis by contesting the borough himself on Young Ireland principles.Having assisted with the launch of The Nation in 1842, Doheny had helped to found the Irish Confederation that January: McCabe & Quinn, ‘Doheny, Michael’, 355; Freeman’s Journal, 31 July, 5 Aug. 1847. In the event, however, O’Brien’s great wealth enabled him to counteract any opposition and thus maintain his political dominance of the borough.Devery, ‘The function of hotels in parliamentary elections’, 55. He was duly returned unopposed and pledged to reform landlord-tenant relations.Cashel hosted a large tenant-right meeting that November: Freeman’s Journal, 15 Nov. 1847. He was, however, sternly challenged at the hustings on his voting record in parliament and the repeal party’s relationship with the Whig ministry, and omitted to discuss the famine.B. Walker, ‘Politicians, Elections and Catastrophe: The General Election of 1847’, Irish Political Studies, 22:1 (2007), 1-34 [20]. The constituency was subsequently accused of ‘bellowing repeal with its tongue in its cheek, and its eyes on “the Castle”’, and being guilty of ‘pliancy and docility to ministerial orders’.Daily News, 6 Dec. 1849. Reacting to this situation, Doheny returned to the neighbourhood during the Young Ireland rising of 1848 to preach ‘the gospel of insurrection’, but made little effect before his arrest on 10 July.Marnane, Cashel, 90-1; Standard, 5 July 1848; Freeman’s Journal, 13 July 1848, and see M. Doheny, The Felon’s Track; or, History of the Attempted Outbreak in Ireland (1849). Doheny subsequently left Ireland for New York, where he co-founded the Fenian Brotherhood in 1859: McCabe & Quinn, ‘Doheny, Michael’, 356.
As the pattern of Irish politics stabilised in the aftermath of the famine, the borough became more open and witnessed a series of keenly contested elections. In spite of the franchise being extended to £8 householders in 1850, the number of registered electors in 1852 (111) was only 40% of that in 1832 (277), and it was calculated that if the franchise were to be extended to £5 occupiers the number of electors would increase only to 250.Dod’s Parliamentary Facts, 56. A dissolution was expected before Easter, and it was anticipated that the Derbyites would start candidates throughout the south of Ireland.Morning Chronicle, 28 Feb. 1852. Several candidates proferred their claims, including ‘some Englishmen, with large purses and extraordinary promises’. In late March 1852 a meeting of electors expressed renewed confidence in O’Brien, but 57 electors declared their determination to remain unpledged. They also appointed a committee to secure a candidate in favour of a thorough revision of the poor law system, measures for the encouragement of Irish manufacture, and Sharman Crawford’s tenant-right bill.Freeman’s Journal, 1, 5 Apr. 1852. The sense of grievance at being by-passed by the Dublin to Cork railway line persisted. More than half the electorate ‘agreed publicly to support whoever promised money for railway construction’, and an approach was even made to William Dargan, the famous railway contractor.Marnane, Cashel, 92-3; Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 450; Belfast News-letter, 9 Apr. 1852; Daily News, 9 Apr. 1852. O’Brien responded by issuing an election address which reflected the altered aspect of Irish politics since the death of O’Connell, and expressed his satisfaction that the Whig ministry had ‘met its deserved doom’. In making a case for an independent Irish party, he promised to seek government funding for Irish railways, support Sharman Crawford’s land reforms, and secure the defrayment of Irish debts incurred during the famine.Freeman’s Journal, 12 Apr. 1852.
O’Brien’s promises, however, did little to deter challengers. By the late spring it was reported that a ‘nest of imported hornets’ had ‘been buzzing about the great Rock of Cashel’.Freeman’s Journal, 15 June 1852. At the ‘bidding of a numerous and influential section of the electors’, Daniel Hayden of Carrick-on-Suir came forward, adopting the principle of tenant-right ‘as his motto’.Daily News, 10 Apr. 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 24 Apr. 1852. Martin Charles Maher, a native of Tipperary who had spent the previous twenty years in London, also addressed electors, ‘neither as a Whig nor a Tory’, but as a supporter of the Irish Brigade’s efforts to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles Act and ‘abolish the overgrown temporalities of the protestant church in Ireland’.Daily News, 6 May 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 5 May 1852. Some constituents questioned the value of what appeared an unnecessary challenge to O’Brien, at a ‘period when political charlatans, traffickers, and adventurers’ had been ‘let loose to devour the electors’ of Ireland, and Maher retired before the nominations.Freeman’s Journal, 22 May 1852. O’Brien, however, faced further potential challenges from a Mr. Hume, an ‘independent supporter of Lord Derby’s Government’, and a young parson’s son of ‘Conservative family’ named Massy, who started on a platform defending Catholic rights. Suspected of ‘some deep dodge’, however, Massy quickly abandoned his canvass after being refused admission to the town’s only hotel, the owner of which, James Ryall, was an influential supporter of O’Brien.Examiner, 29 May 1852; 4, 9 June 1852. Ryall sat on the committee of the National Bank in Cashel and was chairman of the town commissioners: Devery, ‘The function of hotels in parliamentary elections’, 60.
O’Brien was eventually forced into active canvassing (albeit delayed by the recent death of his wife) by the appearance of Thomas Hughan, a London solicitor, who, it was reported, enjoyed the support of the Carlton Club.Morning Chronicle, 31 May 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 9 June 1852. Hughan, whose chief election pledge appeared to be his promise of £300 for the local races, was forced by popular hostility to abandon his canvass; ‘the English Invader’, so the Freeman’s Journal suggested, having spent ‘his money in a wild goose chase’. His place was, however, soon taken by Charles McGarel, a retired London merchant and ‘West India speculator’, who had purchased an estate at Magheramorne, county Antrim in 1842. A Derbyite, he had previously canvassed Worcester, and now came forward as the advocate of ‘the cheap and large loaf’.The Times, 21 Apr. 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 4, 9 June, 12 July 1852; Morning Post, 7 June 1852; Examiner, 10 July 1852. The appearance of Hughan and McGarel in the wake of a recent anti-Catholic riot in Lancashire, provoked some highly inflammatory rhetoric. Although McGarel was believed to be a Catholic, and in spite of his close links with Ireland, O’Brien described him as ‘the “Stockport Saxon”’ and suggested that he had come to Ireland ‘to tell the people of Cashel the result of the coroner’s inquest on the slaughtered Irish Catholics’ of that town.Freeman’s Journal, 9, 13 July 1852. The priest who accompanied O’Brien reportedly drew his audience’s attention to the funeral procession that had preceded McGarel’s arrival in the town, claiming the presence of a coffin embodied ‘the feelings and intentions of the bigot Saxon Orange murderer towards the people of this country’: Freeman’s Journal, 9 July 1852. Although McGarel forced a poll in Cashel’s first contested election since 1835, O’Brien was re-elected by a wide margin. In November 1852 McGarel brought an election petition which alleged that his electors had been hindered by the recording officer’s unexplained absence from the polling place, but it was withdrawn on 11 April 1853.CJ, cviii. 113-4, 191, 383; Examiner, 23 Apr. 1853.
Cashel’s reputation as a corrupt borough continued to attract a string of ‘wealthy carpet-baggers’ like, according to one authority, ‘flies to manure’. In 1859 Lord Donoughmore informed the Conservative chief secretary, Lord Naas, that the constituency was ‘in a delightful mess’.Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 77. O’Brien, still presenting himself as an independent Liberal, and Major Henry William Massy of Grantstown, county Tipperary, a Liberal-Conservative supporter of Lord Palmerston, both canvassed the city. Massy claimed to have obtained 84 promises but soon transferred to the county seat.Freeman’s Journal, 16, 18 Mar. 1857; Morning Chronicle, 17 Mar. 1857. W.F. Lodge of Colrain House, Cashel also addressed electors, coming forward principally on the ground of his residence in the city, yet remaining ‘perfectly dumb as regards his political leanings’. John Lanigan, who had long been active in Tipperary politics, attracted support from some civic leaders and offered as an Independent oppositionist.Freeman’s Journal, 26 Mar. 1857. James Lyster O’Beirne, a Dublin-born solicitor with substantial business interests in England, also entered the field ‘breathing the most Liberal opinions’ concerning the disestablishment of the Irish Church, tenant-right, and the Maynooth grant. He also promised to help develop local trade by finally securing a railway line to the city.Freeman’s Journal, 19, 21, 23 Mar. 1857; Caledonian Mercury, 20 Mar. 1857. Patrick Joseph Murray then transferred from Clonmel to Cashel, having also ‘deemed it expedient to join the party of “Independent Opposition”’ and advertise his support for disestablishment, land reform, the ballot and a ‘widely extended’ suffrage.Morning Chronicle, 21 Mar. 1857; Freeman’s Journal, 19, 20 Mar. 1857. Charles Hare Hemphill, a Conservative barrister from Tyrone, also joined the field.Hemphill was later Irish solicitor-general, 1892-5, and MP for North Tyrone, 1895-1906, when he was created 1st baron Hemphill: P.M. Geoghegan, ‘Hemphill, Samuel’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, iv. 593. While O’Brien’s backers were confident of success, it was thought that their candidate had arranged to contest Queen’s County in the event of a defeat at Cashel, even though the most potent potential challenge to O’Brien, from Thomas O’Hagan, a prominent Catholic lawyer, did not materialise.Freeman’s Journal, 25, 30 Mar. 1857.
After election addresses had been issued by O’Brien, Murray, and O’Beirne, the latter resigned in favour of Lanigan, later claiming to have persuaded his ‘26 or 27 sterling supporters’ to vote for the local man.Freeman’s Journal, 27 Feb. 1869. Corruption was, once again, a significant element of the election. The parish priest, Father Patrick Leahy, remarked that the ‘men who would determine the election … are to a man corrupt’. With the constituency divided into two parties of Catholic voters, the candidates would, Leahy opined, have to ‘spend money liberally’.Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 450. A native of Tipperary, Leahy was elected as archbishop of Cashel shortly after the election: D. McCabe & L. Lunney, ‘Leahy, Patrick’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, v. 378-80. O’Brien, Lanigan, and Hemphill went to the poll, at which there was a 95% turn out, suggesting to one authority ‘a certain liveliness among the recently deceased’.Morning Chronicle, 2 Apr. 1857; Freeman’s Journal, 2, 3 Apr. 1857; Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 71. O’Brien won by 15 votes and an election petition was subsequently brought forward by O’Beirne for corruption and bribery, but was soon withdrawn.PP 1857-58 (157) xii. 203; Hansard, 12 Mar. 1858, vol. 149, cc. 159-61.
By 1859 there was said to be ‘a remarkable want of system and accord’ between Irish Liberals, whereas the Conservatives now appeared ‘united and determined’.Morning Chronicle, 18 Apr. 1859. Cashel, where there were ‘so many separate interests … and such divided councils’, was regarded as a salient example of this discord. After O’Brien decided to decline standing for a fifth time some half-dozen candidates were spoken of, and the contest was expected to be ‘fierce and hot’. John Rutter Carden of Barnane, co. Tipperary, an unpopular local landlord came forward, ‘notwithstanding his extraordinary conduct’ in an attempted abduction case, for which he had served two years in jail.Carden was imprisoned in 1854 for attempting to abduct Eleanor Arbuthnot: Freeman’s Journal, 5 July 1854; A.E. Carden, Carden of Barnane (2004). Though ostensibly a Conservative, Carden, it was said, had promised ‘to vote for anything and everything that may be suggested by the Radicals and their advisers’. For the Liberals, John Lanigan came forward again and Thomas O’Hagan and Major Henry Massy also received invitations to stand.Freeman’s Journal, 11, 22 Apr. 1859; Liverpool Mercury, 12 Apr. 1859; Belfast News-letter, 16, 28 Apr. 1859. Charles Hemphill again entered the field having, it was noted, ‘become a Radical in his address’, and Henry George Hughes, the former Irish solicitor-general and Liberal MP for Cavan and Longford, also offered.Liverpool Mercury, 16 Apr. 1859. Hughes was re-appointed Irish solicitor-general in 1858 and elevated to the bench in 1859: B. Hourican, ‘Hughes, Henry George’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, iv. 830-1. Hemphill canvassed but quickly withdrew in Hughes’s favour, after the latter obtained the cooperation of the Catholic clergy.Morning Post, 21 Apr. 1859. Vincent Scully, the Liberal MP for Tipperary also addressed the borough electors, and it was anticipated that the Conservatives would take advantage of the Liberal split and contest the seat.Morning Chronicle, 18 Apr. 1859; Morning Post, 21 Apr. 1859. John Reynolds, the former repeal MP for Dublin was also reported to be in the field: Standard, 23 Apr. 1859. Scully therefore withdrew but Hughes’s prospects suffered a reverse when Lanigan went back on his decision to withdraw, warning electors not to allow the borough to fall to another ‘place-beggar’. Two companies of the 20th regiment were despatched to the town in expectation of a fierce contest.Freeman’s Journal, 22, 25 Apr. 1859; Liverpool Mercury, 25 Apr. 1859; Standard, 25 Apr. 1859. Only Lanigan, Hemphill and Carden were nominated, and the former headed the poll by a clear margin.Freeman’s Journal, 4, 6 May 1859.
After Lanigan hinted at retirement in 1864, James Lyster O’Beirne prepared to contest the borough at the request, so he later claimed, ‘of a numerous and influential portion of the constituency’, who regarded Lanigan as an honest yet ineffective representative.Freeman’s Journal, 27 Feb. 1869. Regarded by the Irish Liberal press as a business man who was ‘thoroughly conversant with mercantile and commercial affairs’, O’Beirne’s practical abilities appeared to eclipse those of the ‘good and amiable’ Lanigan.Freeman’s Journal, 17 July 1865. In the event, the sitting member refused to stand aside, and O’Beirne, John Reilly and John Rogan Burke each issued addresses to the electors. O’Beirne took an anti-ministerialist position, attacking Palmerston’s government on land reform, Catholic rights, emigration and taxation. Burke, a manufacturer from Dalkey, county Dublin, also stood for tenant-right, state-aid for Irish development, and ‘the right of the poor to be supported by the state’. Reilly came forward simply because his name, he claimed, had recently been used for ‘purposes of slander and deception’.Freeman’s Journal, 4, 8 July 1865; The Times, 26 June 1865. In addition to Lanigan and O’Beirne, several local men were also nominated, but did not go to the poll.Pall Mall Gazette, 14 July 1865. The town was the scene of considerable chaos, the election being marked by several popular demonstrations.Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 396, 407. Langian was defeated by a clear margin after, as has been noted, ‘bribery proved more powerful than clerical influence’.J. O’Shea, Priest, Politics and Society in Post-famine Ireland. A study of County Tipperary 1850-1891 (1983), 49. O’Beirne later admitted to constituents that ‘many things may have been done at the election of ’65 which ought not to have been done’: Freeman’s Journal, 27 Feb. 1869.
At the 1868 general election, an English Catholic Liberal named Henry Munster challenged O’Beirne, making ‘large promises’ to improve the town, and spending £6,000, at a time when the cost of purchasing votes from the 200 strong electorate was reported to stand at £30 a head.Freeman’s Journal, 19, 27 Oct. 1868; Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 84-5. O’Beirne beat Munster by 16 votes, but the election was declared void in February 1869, on the ground that both parties had been guilty of bribery.Freeman’s Journal, 19 Dec. 1868, 6 Mar. 1869; Belfast News-letter, 22 Feb. 1869. The constituency’s long-held reputation for venality finally caught up with it when, in June 1870, the borough was disenfranchised following a royal commission inquiry into the circumstances of the 1868 election.PP 1870 [C. 9] xxxii. 1; Freeman’s Journal, 18 June 1870.
