County

Donegal was a windswept and infertile Ulster county, heavily dependent on flax production, linen manufactures and fisheries. Largely Protestant in character, it saw little unrest in this period, apart from the disturbances over the distillery laws at its beginning and during the tithe war a decade later, but the revival of Orangeism in the late 1820s created greater sectarian tension. The usually uncontested elections took place at Lifford, which, like the boroughs of Ballyshannon, Donegal, Killybegs and St. Johnstown, had been disfranchised at the Union.S. Lewis, Top. Dict.

Sligo was ‘one of the most independent Protestant counties in Ireland’. Roscommon and Leitrim Gazette, 17 June 1826. It produced mainly potatoes and oats and had an ‘extensive’ but declining linen industry. There were several market towns, including Ballymote, Collooney, Coolaney, Dromore and the parliamentary borough of Sligo, the venue for county elections and an important fishery. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.

Wexford had a thriving fishing industry and was heavily agricultural, producing mainly barley for export. There were several market towns, including the disfranchised boroughs of Bannow, Clonmines, Enniscorthy, Fethard, Gorey, and Taghmon, the parliamentary boroughs of New Ross and Wexford, the venue for the county elections, and Newtownbarry.S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.

Down, which was sometimes referred to as the ‘Yorkshire of Ireland’, had a population of over 350,000 in 1831 and was one of the wealthiest Irish counties. In addition to the disfranchised boroughs of Bangor, Hillsborough, Killyleagh and Newtownards, it contained several prosperous market towns and ports, including Newry and Downpatrick, where the county elections were held.S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), i.

Worcestershire was ‘extremely irregular’ in shape, ‘having upon every side small portions detached and insulated by the adjoining counties’. PP (1831-2), xxxvi. 309; Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1822-3), 568. Its agriculture, which suffered periodically from distress, provided a living for 14,954 (33 per cent) of the county’s 45,512 resident families, but 19,030 (42 per cent) depended on the trade, handicraft and manufacturing concerns of its larger unfranchised towns. PP (1833), xxxvii.

The 1832 Reform Act split Yorkshire into its constituent Ridings for elections, thereby ending the united representation of Britain’s largest county. By this time its interests had become so diverse as to make it virtually impossible that any one Member could adequately address them all. The predominantly agricultural North Riding, which also encompassed shipping at Scarborough and Whitby, contained 14 per cent of the county’s total population of 1.4 million in 1831 and was home to much of the county’s aristocracy and gentry.

Kildare produced mainly oats, wheat and potatoes. There were several market towns, including Maynooth, home to the Catholic seminary, and Rathangan, and the disfranchised boroughs of Athy, Kildare, Naas and Harristown. The venue for county elections was that of the assizes, held at Athy in winter and Naas in spring and summer. S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), ii.

Fermanagh, ‘hilly, rugged and uneven’, was a small agricultural county in which the dominant Protestants clashed regularly with the equally numerous Catholic population.Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), vi. 232; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), i. 618-22; P. Livingstone, Fermanagh Story, 158-61, 169. The representation was effectively controlled by a handful of prominent Orange families, who invariably provided the Members from among their own number throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Lord Belmore, Parl. Mems.

Clare mostly belonged to a large number of ‘absentees and needy proprietors’, whose conflicting electoral ambitions provoked frequent contests both before and after the Union. NLI, Smith O’Brien mss 427/141; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), i. 329-35; Hist. Irish Parl. ii.

Glasgow, situated on the banks of the River Clyde, had been transformed since 1750 into a ‘major centre of international commerce and industry’. The North American tobacco trade, the source of much of the town’s prosperity in the eighteenth century, had collapsed by 1800, but the profits helped to finance industrial development, particularly in textiles. Since the 1790s the application of steam power had encouraged the concentration of cotton spinning and weaving into mills in and around the town, a process that was assisted by Glasgow’s proximity to the Lanarkshire coalfield.