Commons 1820-1832

Mayo, a predominantly Catholic county, produced mainly oats, potatoes and barley and had an ‘extensive’ manufactory of linens, based chiefly in ‘cabins of the poor ... furnished with a loom’. Its population of 293,112 in 1821 had grown to 367,956 by 1831, making it the third largest after Cork and Tipperary. There were several market towns, including Ballinrobe, Ballyclare, Foxford and Killala, and the disfranchised boroughs of Castlebar, the venue for county elections, and Westport, the ‘chief market’ for its linens. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.

The prosperous port, improving city and garrison town of Limerick, at the mouth of the Shannon estuary, formed a parliamentary county borough covering an extensive area both north and south of the river. The more outlying of its 21 parishes were thinly populated, and three-quarters of the inhabitants lived either in the dilapidated old centre, known as English Town (roughly equivalent to the Protestant parish of St. Mary), or in the more modern and increasingly vibrant commercial suburbs of Irish Town (of which the Catholic parish of St. John was the most politically active).

County Limerick, a thriving area of pastoral farming and linen production, was so heavily populated by Catholics that Oldfield commented in 1816 that they, ‘in questions where their interest is concerned, must command the return of the Members’.Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), vi. 239-40; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.

Kilkenny, a predominantly Catholic county, produced mainly wheat, oats and potatoes and had a declining wool and blanket industry. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised boroughs of Callan, Gowran, Innistiogue, Knocktopher and Thomastown, the parliamentary borough of Kilkenny city, the venue for county elections, and Castlecomer, Durrow, and Graig.S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.

The large county of Kerry, with its famously rugged and beautiful coastline, was home to a sizeable Catholic population, but, as was reported by the Dublin barrister Arthur Chichester Macartney to the Irish lord chancellor in 1822, the inhabitants were ‘wretchedly poor, and in civilization and improvement 150 years behind the northerns’.Add. 37298, f. 320; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.

Cavan, the southernmost county of the old province of Ulster, was a bleak inland region of limited agricultural and commercial development, but it was populous and contained the disfranchised boroughs of Belturbet and Cavan, where county meetings and elections were held. The Catholic population greatly outnumbered, yet were electorally in thrall to, the almost exclusively Protestant gentry, of whom none individually had a sufficient interest to return a Member.Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), vi. 221; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), i. 314-18; Hist.

Lisburn, six miles south-west of Belfast on the north bank of the Lagan, was described by Henry David Inglis in 1834 as ‘a clean, neat and lively town, enjoying a good trade’, primarily in linens.Belfast Dir. (1819), 147-58; H.D. Inglis, Ireland in 1834, ii. 272; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii. 278. The borough, which was unincorporated, lay in the parish of Lisburn (or Blaris) and the seneschal of the manor of Killultagh served as its returning officer. By the Irish Act of 35 George III, c.

York, a cathedral city situated in a ‘rich and extensive valley’ on the River Ouse, at the junction of the three Yorkshire Ridings, was the capital of the North Riding and a county in its own right; the boundary extended beyond the city liberty to encompass an area some 30 miles in circumference, mainly to the south and west, which was known as the Ainsty. The city exuded an ‘air of great respectability’ and the streets were ‘embellished with many elegant public as well as private buildings’.

Ripon, a ‘very respectable and wealthy’ country town ‘celebrated for the manufacture of its sharp rowels’, remained a pocket borough until the Reform Act, providing a berth for some leading figures. Although it was governed by a self-elected corporation, which admitted resident and non-resident freemen, the parliamentary franchise had long been restricted to the occupiers of certain burgage properties, not exceeding 146 in number.

Pontefract, a market town situated near the confluence of the Rivers Aire and Calder, in the West Riding of the county 13 miles south-east of Leeds, had ‘never ... been noted’ as a centre of manufacturing, but a ‘considerable trade’ in malt was carried on there and it possessed an ‘excellent’ general trade, which was ‘much advanced by the highly respectable neighbourhood’. Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1828-9), 1041-2; PP (1835), xxv. 271. The borough was coextensive with the township, but it covered only about one third of the parish.