Baltimore was incorporated by a charter of 1614, 11 James I; the corporation consisted of a sovereign, 12 burgesses and a commonalty. It was considered a potwalloping borough as the electors were the tenants at will, and the borough and the soil on which it stood were the property of the Freke (0821, 0822, 0823, 0824) family. In 1774, 23 voted, but by 1783 this number had declined to 11. From 1767 to 1773 their influence appears to have been temporarily shaken by Richard Tonson (2083), who was reported to have ‘cajoled the late Sir John Freke out of it’.

In 1784 it was stated ‘that there was formerly a Charter to this borough, which the late Sir John Freke destroyed’. Tonson died in 1773 and the Freke family assumed their full patronage. After the 1783 election it was sold to Richard Longfield (1263), who was declared not duly elected for Cork city because of proven bribery. Sir John Freke received the £15,000 for its disfranchisement at the Union.

Bandon-Bridge was incorporated by a charter of 1614, 11 James I, with a provost, 12 burgesses and freemen. This was originally a Burlington/Devonshire borough, but the Bernards had a local interest and appear to have kept their eyes on it. Francis Bernard (0124) sat from 1695 to 1727 and his brother, Arthur (0123), was returned with him in 1713. Stephen Bernard (0128) sat from 1727 to 1760.

But in September 1730 Andrew Crotty, one of Lord Burlington’s agents, wrote to Henry Boyle that Lord Burlington wanted the vacancy at Bandon-Bridge caused by the death of the sitting MP, Brigadier George Freke (0819), to be promised, because he did not want applications from the Chief Secretary - although parliament would not meet for another year! At this time, if parliament was adjourned, writs could only be issued after it had reconvened, hence the hiatus.

Another Francis Bernard (0125) sat from 1766 until 1776, and yet another (0126) from 1783 to 1790, while in 1766 the 2nd Earl of Shannon warned the guardians of the 5th Duke of Devonshire that Bandon-Bridge was in danger of falling into the hands of the Bernards as a result of the neglect of the Duke’s current and previous agents.

In 1767 Lord Shannon concluded an agreement with James Bernard (0127), father of Francis Bernard, 1st Earl of Bandon, whereby the Bernards and the Devonshires were to divide the borough between them. Lord Shannon appears to have considered himself the guarantor of this agreement, which continued until after the Union despite the continued negligence of the Duke’s agents. As Bandon-Bridge retained one seat at the Union, the question of compensation did not arise.

Castlemartyr was incorporated by a charter of 1676, 26 Chas II, with a portreeve, two bailiffs, 12 burgesses and freemen. Castlemartyr was the home of Speaker Boyle and his branch of the family, and their control over the borough was unquestioned. Richard, 2nd Earl of Shannon, received the £15,000 compensation for its disfranchisement in 1800.

Charleville, named for Charles II, was enfranchised by a charter of 1673, 23 Chas II, on the usual pattern - a sovereign, 12 burgesses and freemen. It originally belonged to the Earl of Orrery, the senior member of the Speaker’s branch of the Boyle family. After the death of Lord Burlington in September 1753 the earldom of Cork devolved on this branch of the family and the earldom of Burlington became extinct. Speaker Boyle also managed this political interest. By the end of the century Lord Shannon and Lord Cork nominated the return for one seat each, and at the Union the compensation was divided equally between them.

Clonakilty was founded by a charter of James I which ‘Constitutes Sir Richard Boyle, Knight, his heirs and assigns, Lord of the town of Cloughnakilty, giving him the power of appointment of several of the officers, and the direction to a certain extent of the affairs of the corporation’. In 1738 the estate of Clonakilty and the borough was purchased from Lord Burlington by Speaker Boyle, and he nominated the provost from three burgesses elected by the corporation and freemen.

At the 1768 general election Riggs Falkiner (0719) was ‘brought in by Lord Shannon who owed him money’. Irish peers were often penurious, and bankers could extract favourable terms to be returned to parliament. In Lord Shannon’s case this was unusual: his seats were usually used to return friends, family and political supporters. Clonakilty was disfranchised at the Union and Lord Shannon received £15,000 in compensation.

Cork city, the second city in the kingdom, grew in wealth, size and importance through the century, and apart from Dublin it was the only borough to send two members to the Westminster parliament after the Union. By the middle of the century its population was estimated at ‘above 100,000’. As a county borough it combined the characteristics of both electorates. The earliest charter found by the Commissioners to Inquire into Municipal Corporations was the 1242 charter of 26 Henry III.

The franchise was vested in the freeholders of land in or around Cork, and freedom of the city could be acquired by birth, marriage or grace, freedom by birth or marriage being confined to the freeman’s eldest son and eldest daughter’s husband. The influence of the corporation was probably in the hands of the merchants, who, as many were Roman Catholics, were prevented by denominational restrictions from exercising the full weight of their economic power. The Boyle/Shannon influence was also a factor; it was based on property, patronage and prestige. The denominational situation, which weakened the political power of the merchants, probably enhanced Lord Shannon’s.

All the members for Cork had personal influence within the city, and their selection was usually indicative of hoped-for advantages to the city. The Brodricks were possibly the most powerful politicians of the 1692 to 1715 period. Robert Rogers was Deputy Governor of Cork in 1799, a strong Protestant and a prominent city politician. Thomas Erle was Commander-in-Chief of the army in Ireland. He was a Lord Justice for a fortnight in 1702, and again in 1703/4.

Speaker Boyle and the merchants were usually in accord. Edmond Knapp was an Alderman and a former Mayor. Hugh Dixon was Colonel of the Cork Militia, and both he and Emanuel Pigott were involved with establishing the Workhouse and rebuilding Cork Cathedral. Edward Webber began, at his own expense, the Mardyke Walk, which was one of the amenities of Cork.

In 1761 Cork returned the greatest wheeler-dealer of all its sons, John Hely-Hutchinson, who represented the city in four successive parliaments and then ensured the return of his son in his place. Throughout his long political career Hely-Hutchinson was always mindful of the views and opinions of his constituents, and took a detailed interest in trade or anything, such as an embargo, that might affect them: for instance, he was deeply involved in the trade negotiations of the late 1770s, and in August 1782 the Chief Secretary, Richard Fitzpatrick, wrote to him that:

At all events … I flatter myself your constituents at Cork will see that their interests have been attended to, and that your influence with administration here has been so far successfully exerted in their favour as to procure a recommendation of the proposed means to the other side of the water, which was everything they had in their power to do.

It was said that ‘He recommended himself by his attention to the principle [sic] merchants, a man of eloquence and excellent persuasion, which talents operated wonderfully among the multitude at his beginning. Being ambitious to aspire and having no other means he absolutely practiced sedition; he would prostitute his conscience to advance his relations, who are very poor for he is but of mean rank and birth.’

In 1768 the electors of Cork, with a view to government patronage and commercial advantages, chose as their other representative William Brabazon Ponsonby, John Ponsonby’s eldest son. By so doing, ‘The citizens of Cork imagined to secure themselves great benefits by his interest.’ At this time Lord Shannon was allied with the Ponsonbys by marriage and also in politics. Under these circumstances it was unfortunate for them that the power of the Ponsonby family was so soon curtailed. In the election of 1776 Ponsonby was replaced by Richard Longfield, who was at that time ‘attached to Lord Shannon’, but afterwards Longfield became hostile to Lord Shannon and developed his own interest, ‘which is principally in the corporation’.

After 1783 the Shannon interest suffered a reversal from the Longfields, and three distinct interests then emerged: the Shannon, the corporation interest of the Longfields and the ‘popular’ interest of the Hely‑Hutchinsons, which they retained until well after the Union. Freemasonry also played a part in Cork city politics, but this is more difficult to assess.

Doneraile was enfranchised by a 1640 charter of 15 Chas I, granted to Sir William St Leger. It was a manor borough, and no corporation was created. In 1767 St Leger Aldworth (0026) succeeded to the estates of his uncle, Hayes, 4th Viscount Doneraile; he assumed the name St Leger and was elevated to the peerage in 1776 as Lord Doneraile and advanced to a viscountcy in 1785. In 1713 it was said that Lord Doneraile (1852) ‘has the whole interest’ for Doneraile, and at the 1790 election the then Lord Doneraile was reputed to have sold the seats. In 1800 he received £15,000 in compensation for its disfranchisement.

Kinsale was a medieval borough. The earliest charter extant is that of 1589, 31 Eliz. I, which refers to a 1334 charter of 7 Edw. III. At the beginning of the century it was probably in the hands of the Southwell family, who had founded a charity called the Gift House, said to be a handsome neat building erected for eight poor men who have each 2s per week and their clothing, and three generations of the family endowed and supported various charities in Kinsale. But the corporation, which included freemen, appears to have got out of hand early in the eighteenth century, when General Parker, the Governor of the fort, which also had an interest in the town, was threatening to make as many freemen as he pleased.

In February 1735/6 Southwell was anxious to sell his nearby estate and the borough with it, as he was tired of ‘a mixed interest’ and anxious to ‘slip my neck out of this noose’. He wondered whether Sir Richard Meade (1389), a local landowner, would be interested, but Southwell had to tread warily as Meade also had interests in the borough. In June 1729 the Dublin Gazette reported that Sir Richard Meade had been elected sovereign of Kinsale for the coming year by a majority of 95 to 52 over the present sovereign, William Bowler, and ‘There was a greater appearance of people than ever was seen here upon such occasions.’

In 1733 Southwell was warned that Meade was buying houses in the town, obviously with a view to increasing his interest. It was important to have an agent resident in the town, and in 1735 Southwell wrote to Coghill that ‘Mr Swift, Sir Richard Meade’s great agent in Kinsale is dead, which is thought will hurt his interest mightily’; in 1735–6 Southwell felt that his choice of a steward from among the residents of the town had given general satisfaction.

He was not on good terms with Henry Boyle - whom he had not supported for the Speakership – and it was thought that Boyle was supporting Meade, who successfully challenged the return in a 1725 by-election and sat for Kinsale until his death in 1744. His heir Sir John (1388), later 1st Earl of Clanwilliam, was only a few days old at the time of his death. In his maturity Sir John was a spendthrift who ran though a great estate, and the family was saved only by his heiress wife.

Kinsale had a comparatively large electorate for a borough, and the Southwells’ control was usually consolidated by the return of a local man: for instance, the two Jonas Stawells, father and son (1991, 1992), who sat for Kinsale in 1692 and 1745–60. Anthony Stawell (5025) was returned at the 1725 by-election but successfully petitioned against by Sir Richard Meade. Agmondisham Vesey (2145) sat from 1765 to 1783.

At his original election in 1765, William Dennis, Vintner, received £80 for Mr Vesey’s entertainment and three other innkeepers received a total of £760 3s 6d for providing ‘drink for Mr Vesey’s health’ and further £14 9s for beer to the populace. His election agent, James Dennis, spent £46 12s 2d to send a coach and post-chaise to Dublin to collect voters. He spent a further £12 7s 10d on ‘a notice to disqualify John O’Grady as a Papist from voting’. Ben Hayes, fiddler, was paid £5 13s 9d. His election breakages bill amounted to £7 8s, exclusive of fines for ‘a crowd of broke heads and crakt limbs’. James Kearney (1129) spent a further £16 4s 3d to bring voters to Kinsale on Vesey’s behalf. This included a post-chaise and hospitality on the four-day journey. He defeated the young Sir Richard Meade by 64 votes to 48.

Vesey, who was Accountant General for Ireland, was mindful of the need to look after his constituency and in 1766, after he had ‘represented to the Lord Lieutenant the great scarcity of provisions in the town, in consequence whereof his Excellency had been pleased to advance £500 to purchase provisions’, the corporation passed a vote of thanks to their MP ‘for his services to the town’.

From 1768 until 1797 James Kearney of Garrettstown, a popular member of a family that had settled in the area in Elizabethan times, represented the borough. In 1785 it was said that ‘The representation of this town, is supposed to belong to the family of Southwell, Lord De Clifford, but Mr Kearney represents it, through popular opinion and good liking and the Clifford family are too wise, to disapprove of the choice.’ In 1791, it was reported that ‘This is called Lord De Clifford’s Borough but Mr Kearney is supposed to have a much better interest in it. Mr Kearney is a very independent man, did not attend last session, rather inclining when he does vote to opposition.’ Kearney never married, and died in 1812.

In 1776 the ancient barony of de Clifford was called out of abeyance in favour of Edward Southwell, 20th Baron de Clifford, who also controlled the borough of Downpatrick in Co. Down from which it was said that he drew many of his electors, although distance would seem to have made this rather expensive. Lord de Clifford appears to have established his influence after the Union, when Kinsale returned one MP to the Westminster parliament.

Mallow was enfranchised by a charter of 1613, 10 James I ,and had a further (unacknowledged) charter of 1689, 4 James II. It was a manor borough, the franchise being vested in the freeholders of the manor and the returning officer its seneschal. Mallow was probably the most famous spa town in Ireland. Until the 1780s it was almost entirely controlled by the Jephson family, who lived at Mallow Castle. Eight of the family sat in parliament during the century. The family were, however, poor and by the 1780s the Longfields (1263) were making inroads into the borough.

In 1693 William Jephson had granted to John Longfield a perpetuity of lands in the manor of Mallow. This eventually led to Richard Longfield disputing the Jephson control over Mallow, and sometime in the 1780s Denham Jephson (1087) ceded one seat in return for £3,000 and allegedly Longfield obtained for him a government pension of £600. Denham Jephson and John Longfield (1260) were returned in 1790 and again in 1797. Mallow retained one seat at the Union and Longfield won the ensuing ballot, but the real post-Union influence appears to have lain with the Jephsons. Jephson retired in 1812 and died in 1813.

Midleton was enfranchised by the 1671 charter of 22 Chas II granted to Sir John Brodrick incorporating the corporation with a sovereign, two bailiffs and 12 burgesses. The borough appears to have been completely close and the seats filled by nomination, occasionally by members of the family. For instance, Edward Brodrick (0238) sat from 1768 to 1776, and Henry Brodrick (0239) was elected apparently aged 18 in 1776. After 1730 the Brodricks were absentees. Midleton was disfranchised at the Union, and the compensation of £15,000 was received by the then Viscount Midleton.

Rathcormack was a combination of a potwalloping and a manor borough incorporated by charter, which was produced at the Union. Some boroughs, particularly those enfranchised before or during the early years of the seventeenth century, evolved differently from the way their founders had envisaged: Rathcormack, which had been a manor borough, acquired a potwalloping aspect over time, but remained tied to the borough and its surrounding area. The franchise was vested in the £5 and, until 1793, Protestant freeholder; after 1782 a year’s residence was necessary.

Rathcormack had belonged to the Barry family, who owned the manor but neglected the borough. In the early 1770s it was said that James Barry (0094) ‘had the natural interest here but his father being idle and negligent and he not much better the interest has almost gone’. Sometime in the middle of the century Abraham Devonsher (0627) established an interest in it

by constantly residing and entertaining and drinking with the people. It is [c. 1772] a potwalloping borough. He was a Quaker and read out of Meeting. He lives a recluse life with a harlot. Is totally independent but wishes Lord Shannon well.

But in 1775 Lord Shannon wrote to James Dennis (0613) that ‘with respect to Devonsher I know of few men whose friendship is less worth cultivating. He was always supported by my father and by me as you know and now he will not attend … the last time he [did, he] was very near voting against us.’ About 1774 James Barry sold ‘the Rathcormack estate and borough’ to William Hull Tonson (1051), Richard Tonson’s (2083) illegitimate son and heir, and Tonson swiftly and completely reasserted the influence of the Lord of the Manor of Rathcormack - only seven voted in 1783 and in 1800 his son, or the son’s guardians, received the £15,000 compensation for its disfranchisement.

Youghal was at the beginning of the century controlled by Lord Burlington, the senior descendant of the great earl, and continued so until the reign of George II, whose long reign was unpunctuated by a by-election until 1758. This was a year of particular weakness for the Boyles as the Duke of Devonshire, whose late wife was the Boyle heiress, was involved in the Seven Years’ War and his mother-in-law, who had kept her eye on her grandchildren’s inheritance, died.

In any case the Boyle interest in Youghal had, by that time, probably passed to the Earl of Shannon. The Duke’s sister, Lady Elizabeth Ponsonby, recollected that the Burlington interest had been overthrown before Lord Shannon built up his influence in the borough. Considering that the Duke entrusted his other Irish electoral interests to Lord Shannon, it is unlikely that Shannon usurped it, although a later Devonshire agent, Knowlton, declared in 1812 that this was the case.

Youghal’s electors appear to have had an independent streak. Like Kinsale, it was a corporation with burgesses and freemen. In 1790 it was said that

this is commonly considered as one of Lord Shannon’s boroughs but the fact is otherwise. He certainly has an interest in the town and one that can be of great use to any candidate. But the Uniacke family have here such a prevailing interest as nothing can oppose and were his Lordship to venture a contest with them, he would soon experience the feebleness of his force. This he is much too prudent to hazard; he therefore enjoys the reputation of its patronage. Two Uniackes (2121, 2122) are returned for the town and they possessing the essentials, mind not a name.

However, the 1793 commentator favoured Lord Shannon while admitting that ‘The Uniackes have some power in Youghal.’ Before the 1797 election Lord Shannon reported to his son that

The Youghal seigniory met at Castlemartyr, some from their town and some from Cork … We went over the whole list of voters … [taking a pessimistic view] they concluded on a majority of 5 in the town, but they think possibly 10; but as the country [freemen] votes we shall overpower them. I ordered dinner at 4, on their agreeing to stay and talk matters over, but Sir Edward Crofton128 (0524) and a friend of his came at 2 o’clock and deranged our politics, so all ended in a sort of drinking bout, and by 8 I sent off the militia and the corporation very happy.

In 1797 Robert Uniacke (2122) and John Keane (1128) were returned – both were friends of Lord Shannon. Youghal retained one seat at the Union. In January 1800 Robert Uniacke was appointed Master General of the Ordnance and re-elected; however, John Keane won the Union ballot, was created a baronet and was re-elected in 1802.