Commons 1790-1820

County Down was one of Ireland’s most heavily populated constituencies and, thanks to successful farming from productive soil and a substantial linen industry, one of the wealthiest. In terms of property and religion the social structure was relatively broad and diverse. Down possessed a numerous gentry and a significant number of ‘middling’ farmers, and while perhaps half the population were presbyterians, the remainder were divided between Catholics and members of the Established Church. As far as can be ascertained, the relatively large electorate reflected these features.

For some years before the Union, elections for this wild and unproductive county had been largely dominated by Alexander Montgomery, a radical squire who relied more upon his general popularity than on his tenantry and who had materially assisted in the return of Henry Vaughan Brooke. The Marquess of Abercorn challenged them in 1797, but did not then succeed.

Youghal, like Bandon, was one of the boroughs which, passing by marriage into the hands of the 4th Duke of Devonshire in 1753, had, through mismanagement, fallen under the influence of the earls of Shannon, who returned all the Members in this period.

Mallow, one of two manor boroughs which retained the right to representation after the Union, was theoretically in the gift of the Jephson family, who lived at Mallow Castle and owned all or most of the manor from which the freeholder electorate was derived.Wakefield, Account of Ireland, ii. 303. In practice, however, Denham Jephson’s influence was often more nominal than real.

By 1797 Lord de Clifford, an English absentee who owned about half the town land, had re-established his personal interest in this small port and potwalloping borough, most probably by creating a sufficient number of non-resident freemen from his Irish estates to overwhelm any resident opposition. In 1804 he successfully resisted a bid to establish freedom by right rather than by selection. His interest returned the Members throughout, all of them relatives.

Cork was Ireland’s second most important commercial centre and, like Dublin, continued to return two Members after the Union.

During the 1730s and 1740s the patron of the largely protestant borough of Bandon, Lord Burlington, entrusted the general management of his Irish affairs to his nephew Henry Boyle, later 1st Earl of Shannon. Upon his death in 1753 his personal interest in the borough passed to his daughter and heir, the wife of the 4th Duke of Devonshire. This was the origin of a dispute between the Shannons and the Devonshires over the control of the borough which persisted until the end of this period.

As Ireland’s largest county, Cork had an unusually high number of wealthy landlords—at least 20 with more than £8,000 p.a., and several in excess of £20,000 according to one estimate.Wakefield, Account of Ireland, ii. 303. In electoral terms the most important were the earls of Shannon (Boyle) whose influence had traditionally had a national as well as a local dimension; the earls of Bandon (Bernard) and Kingston (King); and, though dormant in the earlier part of this period, the dukes of Devonshire.Chatsworth mss, Knowlton to Devonshire, 28 Sept.

The Earl of Egremont had a substantial property interest in Ennis, but the corporation was controlled by the Marquess of Conyngham and Sir Edward O’ Brien, who each returned a Member for Ennis to the Irish parliament. This arrangement was undermined by the disfranchisement of one of the seats at the Union.

Clare had a tradition of turbulent electioneering. One reason was the existence of an unusually large number of territorial interests. The most ancient belonged to various branches of the O’Brien family: the Marquess of Thomond at Inchiquin, Sir Edward of Dromoland and O’Brien of Ballynalacker. Another interest, based upon 35,000 acres of former O’Brien territory, had devolved by inheritance to an Englishman, Lord Egremont.