Prittie’s succession to the Irish peerage conferred on his father in 1800 in recognition of his own political services removed him from the Commons as Member for Carlow on the Charleville interest, only two days after the United Parliament had come into existence. For the next 18 years Dunalley, as he now was, lived mainly in Ireland, ‘always zealous’, he later boasted, ‘to maintain the peace’ and to assist in promoting local improvements.
On 4 June 1818 he wrote to Peel, the Irish secretary, with whom he had recently corresponded on the Irish grand jury bill:
Not differing, I believe, materially in politics from ... government, and having always felt dissatisfied with the situation of an Irish peer out of Parliament, I have a wish to get into the House on the present occasion, and shall be much obliged by your letting me know how far government may be inclined to forward this measure.
He later claimed that the Regent had been ‘pleased to express that my return would be agreeable to him, if consistent with ministerial views’; but Peel replied that nothing could be done for him.
Almost a year later he was returned on a vacancy for Okehampton as the nominee of Albany Savile. Although his brother continued to act with opposition, Dunalley sat on the other side of the House and supported government. He voted against Tierney’s censure motion, 18 May, but was ‘erroneously inserted’ in the list of the ministerial majority on the foreign enlistment bill, 10 June 1819, ‘not having been in the House at the time of the division’.
He achieved his ambition of becoming a representative peer in 1825, supported the reform bill and died 19 Oct. 1854.