Ardfert was probably a borough by prescription. It had no charter on record, nor is any known to have existed. As early as 1711 Andrew Young of Dublin wrote to David Crosbie at Ardfert saying that he has searched in vain the charters of James I and Charles I and he concludes therefore that the borough exists by prescription. It did, however, return MPs in 1639. Its corporation comprised a portreeve, 12 burgesses and an unlimited number of freemen.

Both Ardfert and Tralee appear to have been almost bargaining counters between the major interests in Co. Kerry. The 1727 compact gives some indication of this, and in 1715 Lord Shelburne wrote to David Crosbie asking him to return Mr Pratt (1721) for ‘one of your boroughs’. This was the famous John Pratt, who produced the financial chaos in the national accounts that Luke Gardiner (0841) was brought in to resolve. Pratt sat for Dingle from 1713 to 1727.

The Crosbies, Earls of Glandore, were notoriously short of money. Furthermore, Lady Glandore (the daughter of Lord George Sackville (1835)) was fond of gambling, and in 1790 a political commentator wrote that:

Since the present noble Lord succeeded his father, it [Ardfert] has regularly been exposed to sale and, notwithstanding that his Lordship has lately been appointed to a considerable office [Joint Master of the Rolls] … it will most probably, still continue a merchantable commodity, ready for the purchasers of parliamentary importance. Peers sometimes want money and according to the present market price, the sale of a borough brings in a sure £500 p.a.

In 1787 Robert Day (0598) warned Crosbie that he must retrench and put his finances in order, so that he would be spared his present hand-to-mouth shifts like the sale of seats: ‘a resource which, by the bye, you are no longer to look to’. However, Crosbie returned Day from 1790 to 1798, when Day, a safe pair of hands, was elevated to the Bench. Glandore, an enthusiastic Unionist, received the £15,000 compensation for Ardfert’s disfranchisement at the Union.

Dingle was incorporated by a charter of 1607, 4 James I, and comprised a sovereign, 12 burgesses and an indefinite number of freemen. It also had, not mentioned in the charter, a recorder, town clerk, two serjeants-at-mace, weighmaster and poundkeeper. In 1731 John Perceval (1665) was elected for Dingle without opposition, although not yet of age.

The election involved £87 for ‘treating’, of which it was considered that Perceval should pay £37, as a ‘great deal more treating has been done than it is fair that he should pay for’. ‘Treating’ was synonymous with elections and the voters would probably have felt deprived had it been otherwise. Dingle belonged to the FitzGeralds, Knights of Kerry, although they were always watchful for any attack on it – the Mullins showed an unwelcome interest in it from time to time.

In 1783 the town was estimated to comprise 200 houses and there were 200 electors, but only two were resident in the town and ten in the county. Richard Boyle Townsend (2101) inherited it from his mother Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of John Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry (0737) and sister of Maurice Fitzgerald (0738), who died childless on 24 June 1779. Maurice was succeeded as Knight of Kerry by his uncle Robert (0744), but the borough of Dingle was inherited by his nephew Richard Townsend (2100), although in 1778 Robert Fitzgerald was incorrectly thought to have half of the borough. Richard Townsend received the £15,000 for its disfranchisement at the Union.

Tralee was incorporated by a charter of 1613, 10 Jas I, to comprise a provost, 12 free burgesses, two serjeants-at-mace and some freemen. Tralee, however, was a thriving port and other officers included a town clerk, marshall keeper and a weighmaster.

County and borough politics were further complicated by the fact that the various interests were all intermarried: for instance, on 11 November 1711 Thomas Crosbie wrote from Dublin to his brother William Crosbie in Co. Kerry that ‘I have some reason to be apprehensive that Jack [Blenner]Hassett (0167) designs privately to match himself with Jenny Denny’, the daughter of Edward Denny (0619), and in 1713 the marriage did take place.

In Tralee, as in Ardfert and Dingle, county and borough interest were traded one against the other. For instance, in May 1743 Sir Maurice Crosbie wrote to a friend that ‘What interests our country now is the desertion of Ned Herbert and his interest from Jack [Blenner]Hasset’s to Thomas Denny’s side, and that on a promise of Denny’s that Herbert or his son shall come in for Tralee the next vacancy that shall happen after the present one occasioned by the promotion of the Prime Serjeant [Arthur Blennerhassett, 0163] to the King’s Bench.’

There was a follow-up to this arrangement in 1760 when Herbert wrote to tell Sir Thomas Denny of the king’s death and remind him of his promise! In 1790 Tralee was described as follows:

This close Borough, whose electors consist of twelve Burgesses only, is the sole property of Sir Barry Denny, Baronet, who in fact nominates both the electors and the representatives. Sometimes it is sold and sometimes bartered, to secure its proprietor’s return for the County, as was the case at the last general election when Sir Barry Denny gave a seat for it to Sir William Godfrey (0855), for a thousand pounds, which Mr Richard Herbert (1009), the other County Member paid, in order to induce Sir William to resign his interest in their favour and by that means to secure their success.

But should Sir Barry be elevated to the Peerage, an elevation at which he has been eagerly aspiring ever since Lord Townshend’s Government, both seats will be given up to the nomination of the minister, for that is now the acknowledged price of being raised to the House of Lords.

Sir Barry Denny died in 1794 before his aspirations could be realised, and his son was killed shortly after in the fateful duel. At the Union Tralee retained one MP; Arthur Moore (1450), who purchased a seat in 1798, won the ballot and sat until the 1802 election, when George Canning purchased the return.