Co. Londonderry

Londonderry was the leading port of the north west of Ireland and had a substantial landlord in the London Society, which owned the western liberties where approximately 60 per cent of the population lived. On the eve of the Union there were two leading interests among the unusually large freeman electorate.

Coleraine was the property of the London Society, whose agent was John Claudius Beresford, and by 1799 his cousin Lord Waterford had ‘purchased’ the corporation, possibly by the admission of 35 select freemen in 1797, the last to be admitted before 1830.Sheffield mss, Foster to Sheffield, 8 Dec. 1799; Parl Rep. [I], H. C. 1831-2 (519), xliii.

Coleraine, on the east bank of the Bann, was a town of rising commercial importance, particularly through the trade in its eponymous linens. J. C. Curwen, Observations on State of Ireland (1818), i. 211, 212; H.D. Inglis, Ireland in 1834, ii. 226-8; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), i. 384-6; PP (1831-2), xliii. 33; (1836), xxiv.

Londonderry, a ‘very grand’ and ‘extremely imposing’ city on the west bank of the Foyle, was a thriving port and expanding commercial centre, which had a lively populace and in this period boasted three newspapers, the Chronicle, Journal and Sentinel. J.C. Curwen, Observations on State of Ireland (1818), i. 222-6; H.D. Inglis, Ireland in 1834, ii. 195-205; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii. 297, 300-2; PP (1831-2), xliii. 99; (1836), xxiv.