Viscount Corry, heir to estates worth about £12,000 p.a. in counties Tyrone and Fermanagh, was Member for the former in the last Irish parliament. His father, previously a government supporter, received £30,000 compensation for the disfranchisement of his two boroughs by the Union. Despite this, the family opposed the measure and Corry’s motion of 15 Feb. 1799 was a bid ‘to league the country gentlemen who had voted against the measure of Union in a general opposition to government’. Corry had not taken his seat at Westminster by 25 Mar. 1801 and the Castle noted ‘stays away—anti-Unionist—led by Foster on the Union’ and queried whether he would not remain in opposition.
There is no evidence of Corry’s parliamentary activity, but he requested government neutrality at the next election, without promising friendship, in November 1801. When he advertised his candidature, 1 Jan. 1802, he claimed that peace would release him from his ‘military avocations’ and enable him to display his lack of ‘servility towards power’, as well as his imperviousness to ‘licentious agitators’. He had just commenced his canvass when his father died, putting him out of the running, with an infant heir and no brother to represent his interest. His ambition now became a representative peerage, which his father had also requested of government on 8 Aug. 1801.