By the late 18th century the earls of Ormonde and the Cuffe family (later ennobled as earls of Desart) had come to dominate the returns for this predominantly Catholic city, a major centre of woollen manufacture. Their interests were based upon their general standing in the county and their particular influence within the corporation which, through its capacity to create freemen, resident and non-resident, easily overcame the freeholders in effectively making the return.
The prevailing interest in the fairly prosperous port of Tralee during this period was that of the most substantial landowner in the area, Sir Edward Denny, 3rd Bt.: his family’s influence was so strong that Peel once compared it with Lord Caledon’s in Old Sarum.Add. 40280 f. 48. Denny made a point of being present during at least one election, but he did not himself take a leading part in the choice of those who were elected. This was entrusted to his father-in-law, Judge Robert Day, who took upon himself the role of adviser on matters of state to a number of Kerry dignitaries.
At the Union the patrons of the medium-sized port of Galway were Denis Bowes Daly and, prospectively, his cousin James, then under age. Their influence derived from their property in and around the town and their traditional domination of the exclusively protestant corporation. For example, every mayor of Galway from 1776 to 1820 was either a member of the Daly clan or one of their nominees. It was the freeholder element within the electorate that had prevented the borough from ever being entirely close.
Enniskillen, a burgess borough by prescription, was completely in the pocket of the earls of Enniskillen (Cole). It had been since the 17th century, and in 1836 the report on Irish corporations stated that, of the 15 members of the governing body, four were the earl’s relations and the rest his private or professional friends, so that his influence was still ‘paramount’.Rep. on Munic. Corps. in Ireland (1836), xxiv. 1085.
On the death of the provost John Hely Hutchinson in 1794 the Marquess of Abercorn’s plan, hatched three years before by his adherents the brothers Thomas and George Knox, to assume the patronage of Trinity College went into operation.
Despite its being a freeman-freeholder constituency Dublin had, in practice, a largely protestant freeman electorate. Of just over 3,000 electors in 1806, only 382 were freeholders and by 1820 the number had dropped to 138.Dublin SPO 522/913/9, ‘Contested elections for Dublin City, 1806 and 1820’. It is also significant that the majority of freeholders had freeholds worth £20 or more.
Newry, a port and commercial town near the borders of counties Down and Louth, was the largest householder borough in Ireland and had a population said to be equally divided between Catholics and Protestants. The principal personal interest in the borough belonged traditionally to the Viscounts Kilmorey (Needham) who possessed a large estate near and in the town, together with the local turbary (the right to cut turf on common land).
The principal property interest in the householder borough and county town of Downpatrick belonged to the Southwells, an Anglo-Irish family whose base was in Limerick. In 1776 one of their number, Edward Southwell, succeeded to estates in Gloucestershire and the distinction of becoming 20th Baron (de) Clifford. From 1777, when he died, until the end of this period his heir, another Edward, was the nominal patron of the borough, although in practice his interest declined and fell under the control of his relations, the Rowley family of Leitrim, and, by 1812, of his agent, Miller.
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.
