Callan was a medieval borough by prescription, with charters and grants from the reigns of Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV. Its corporation comprised a sovereign and an unidentified number of burgesses and freemen. The officers were a sovereign, two bailiffs and a town clerk. It was a much fought-over borough, as the interests in it failed to resolve themselves.

It also appears to have been the subject of various irregularities; for instance, in the first parliament of Queen Anne, Francis Flood (0760), who was a very rough character even for his time, was expelled from the House of Commons in June 1705 for abusing his authority both as an army major and as a magistrate, and John Pacey (1616), who was elected in his place, found that he could not take his seat until 1707 because the sub-sheriff of Co. Kilkenny had sent him only the indenture of his return, and not the writ for the election which was necessary to satisfy the Committee on Privileges and Elections that he had been duly elected.

In 1710 the Wemyses, the Agars and the Floods had entered into an agreement to share the representation, but while the Duke of Ormonde enjoyed political power his influence was dominant. At the 1713 election Silvester Crosse (0543), who was private secretary to Ormonde, was returned, but the election was contested: Crosse received 53 votes, Francis Flood 47, and they were elected. The other candidates were Captain Thomas Chandler (23 votes) and John Cuffe (0554) with 7 votes.

Once Ormonde had left the stage the problems emerged. Never a family for half-measures, the Floods had prophetically declared that they would go ‘knee deep in blood’ to overcome their rivals. The Floods were the weakest members of this combine but they had managed to ensure that their nominee, Henry Chandler, was sovereign. In 1735 John Cuffe, created Lord Desart in 1733, purchased the Ormonde estate in the town and liberties of Callan from Charles Butler, Earl of Arran, but the control of the Floods prevented him from achieving his political intentions for the borough.

In the 1750s the compact began to break up. James Agar (0014) had died in 1733 and subsequently his two sons, Henry and James, fell out. As the Agar family power grew, and their control of the boroughs in south Kilkenny increased through judicious purchases of land, they no longer needed the alliance with the Floods. Moreover, after the Agars quarrelled among themselves the unsuccessful branch of the family turned its attention to Callan, where the increasing friendship of the Wemyses and Agars endangered the control of the Floods.

Henry Chandler died in January 1758, and the Floods with difficulty maintained their position. At the sovereign’s election in 1759 the situation came to a head and two sovereigns were appointed, James Wemys and Charles Flood. The Irish Court of the King’s Bench decided in favour of Wemys, whereupon the Floods appealed the case to England. In the meantime Charles Flood continued to act as sovereign, being acrimoniously re-elected in 1760. He fought a duel with Matthew Keogh in which the latter was killed. There had been two similar duelling deaths in the preceding year as a result of duels fought by Flood’s brother and nephew, making a total of three so far.

The County Sheriff supported the Agars and sent the writ for the 1761 election to James Wemys, as sovereign. Wemys returned his brother, Patrick Wemys (2209), and James Agar (0015) of Ringwood. Henry Flood petitioned against the election on the grounds that the Sheriff had misdirected the writ. The Committee on Privileges and Elections upheld the petition and a new writ was issued to Charles Flood, who returned Henry Flood and Patrick Wemys.

The dispute smouldered. Given that the cost of a parliamentary seat was now at least £2,000, the Floods could not afford either this or the even greater expense coupled with the uncertainty of standing for the county. Hoping to ally the Wemyses firmly behind the Floods, Henry Flood, who now headed the family struggle, agreed to the appointment of James Wemys as sovereign. Wemys went over to the Agars, and admitted 27 Agar freemen to the corporation. In 1765 Agar further strengthened his position by purchasing the Manor of Callan from Lord Desart for £17,120.

Flood, meeting Agar in the street in Dublin, assaulted him, and Agar challenged him to a duel; both were bound over but went to England, where the duel took place and Agar was possibly slightly wounded. James Wemys died in 1765 and as the legal cases were still undetermined the writ was sent to George Flood – for most of the 1760s there were two corporations for Callan. Jocelyn Flood (0763), Henry’s younger brother, although under age, was elected, but he died two years later. As the final decision had still not been made, the writ was again delivered to Charles Flood, who duly oversaw the election of his nephew, John Flood (0764).

The passing of the Octennial Act and the 1768 election finally brought matters to a head. Henry and John Flood were returned ‘by a fair and large majority of legal voices’. Agar petitioned against this and lost. Events then moved on to the inevitable duel. Agar had armed some of his supporters with a set of pistols, and in a fracas these were lost. Agar accused Flood of stealing them, and called him out. Agar fired first and missed; Flood then fired and shot him dead.

In 1776 the writ was again delivered to Flood’s sovereign, Ambrose Smith, who duly returned Henry Flood and Sir Hercules Langrishe, but this time Pierce Butler and George Agar successfully challenged the return.211 Thereafter the Agars controlled Callan; George Agar, Lord Callan, received the compensation for its disfranchisement in 1800.

Gowran was an ancient borough with a charter dating from the reign of Henry V, but the charter of incorporation appears to have been that of 1609, 6 James I. It was incorporated with a portreeve, 12 chief burgesses and an unlimited number of freemen. In 1783 the town had about 700 inhabitants, but voting was confined to the burgesses.

The borough belonged to James Agar, Lord Clifden (0016), who, much to the annoyance of Primate Stone, was returned for it in 1753 when he was 17, or at most 18, years of age. Although this practice was illegal, the uncertain length of parliament encouraged it. The under-age MP usually did not take the oaths until he had attained his majority. The compensation for its disfranchisement in 1800 was received by his son, Henry Welbore, 2nd Viscount Clifden (0013).

Innistiogue in the early part of the century appears to have been dominated by the Deanes: at least one member of the family (0599, 0600, 0601, 0604, 0605, 0610) sat continuously from 1692 until 1768. However, there was an ongoing dispute over the control of the borough between the Deanes and the Fowneses (0812). It is recorded that:

On one occasion the clan [Deaneites], having mustered in force … is said to have marched towards Innistiogue from the direction of Graigue in full battle array and determined to carry the borough by storm. However, at that time, no goodly bridge spanned the Nore at this point, and the staunch supporters of Sir William Fownes having by a grand stroke of generalship removed all the boats to the Innistiogue side of the river, the followers of the rival Knight were stopped short in the midst of their career, and were obliged to content themselves with assailing the enemy by showers of stones across the water, after the fashion of Homer’s heroes.

The foe no less heroically returned the compliment; volley after volley of stones flew across Nore’s classic stream, but as the combatants were unable to come to close quarters, their ammunition was expended without any serious results, and the patience of the Deaneites having at length become exhausted, they retired ‘boatless home’ and the doughty Burghers of Innistiogue, in the Fownes interest, remained masters of the day.

Sir William undoubtedly strengthened his position when, in 1739, he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Brabazon Ponsonby. He appears to have further increased his hold on the borough about 1754 when 35 people were elected freemen; as residence was no longer required, they included many far-away freemen, for instance Shapland Carew of Waterford and James Smyth of Limerick. In 1755 a further 80 freemen were elected.

The Deanes appear to have quarrelled among themselves, as in 1759 Joseph Deane Sr and Joseph Deane Jr stood against each other for portreeve, which Deane Jr won by a large majority. Then from 1761 to 1769 Sir William Fownes was portreeve, and this probably marks his final triumph. There may also have been a financial element in Fownes’ triumph, as in 1756 he complained that ‘Ned Deane’ (0601) had promised to give Fownes the borough and Fownes had maintained his family and him for a long time. Then Deane had allowed himself to be arrested for debt and refused to vote for Fownes unless paid £800.

On Sir William’s death in 1778 the borough was inherited by his heiress daughter, Sarah, who had married William Tighe (2072); their son, William (2073), received the £15,000 compensation for the disfranchisement of the borough at the Union.

The Ponsonbys had a certain amount of interest in Kilkenny city of a similar nature to that of Lord Shannon at Cork, although it was hardly so powerful after John Ponsonby (1702) lost the prestige of the Chair and the patronage of the Revenue Board. Both Haydock Evans Morres and Sir John Blunden, who represented this city in the 1768–76 parliament, had a strong personal influence, and both were supported by the Ponson by interest. The following comment on the electoral state of the city in 1784 appeared in the Belfast News Letter:

Electors by the old charter, consist of a mayor, two sheriffs eighteen aldermen, and the commons at large; but by a byelaw the mayor, two sheriffs, eighteen aldermen, and 36 of the commons, are so constituted to do all corporate acts, whereby the leading men by undue influence over the majority of the above mentioned number, and taking advantage of the said byelaw, have transferred the power of electing members to strangers and occasional freemen; there appearing on the books lists of freemen to the amount of fourteen-hundred of whom two-hundred only are resident.

The use of by-laws and the creation of absentee freemen were the usual means by which the political control of a corporation was acquired and maintained: Kilkenny was by no means unique in being a self-perpetuating body; it was just larger and more important than most.

The real interest in the city belonged to the Butler and Cuffe (from 1733 Lords Desart) families. The Cuffes had exerted theirs from time to time throughout the century, but, although the Butlers’ great medieval castle dominated the town, for most of the century they were Catholics and their interest was dormant. This led to a wide variety of MPs being returned.

At least six MPs were mayors of Kilkenny (0992, 2188, 1493, 0876, 0873, 2207); two were Recorders (0983, 0693); two were relations of the Butler family (1950, 1230). However, from 1783 their interest, and that of the Cuffes, was fully exerted and controlled the returns for the city. In 1785 it was reported that ‘The representation of this city at present belongs to Mr Butler (0322), the head of the Ormonde family. He returns himself together with a brother of Lord Desart’s (0558) who assisted him to obtain the representation.’ In 1790:

Kilkenny city – the right of election in this City is entrusted to the Freemen and Freeholders and, though from the peculiar state of religion here, the residents of neither class are numerous, yet the electors of the City outreckon the Freeholders of the County, as was fully experienced on the contested election which Mr Mossom carried against Mr Bushe.

This circumstance has been caused by the families of Morris, of Blundel, of Gore, and of Cuffe having had at different times a prevailing interest in the Corporation and each of them, to strengthen their party, made crowds of honorary Freemen, who, by a very absurd local regulation, are entitled to vote for the representatives of the City. Hence the non-residents Freemen much exceed in number the residents and can ever outpoll them when the election is contested from whence the fate of the contest must always depend more on a greater weight of purse than on the warm affection of the inhabitants. As the expense of bringing such outlying voters into the field must prove ruinous to a man of moderate fortune, his merits may be infinitely superior but if his means are less, it will be but common prudence in him to avoid the combat.

Mr Butler, the representative of the great Ormonde family and Lord Viscount Desart, at present divide the city between them, each returning one Member for it. The former, from his name, his fortune, his situation and old established prejudice, ought, in this place, to possess the most commanding influence but the latter from address, from management and from some other circumstances needless to mention, obviously enjoys rather a superior interest in the corporate body. United as they now are, their nomination of the representatives of Kilkenny is irresistible.

Kilkenny retained one seat at the Union. William Talbot won the ballot but decided to retire. Richard Archdall was then elected with the support of the government. His seat was purchased and the money paid to James Wemys, who had lost the ballot but presumably had paid for his seat in 1797. Then at the 1802 general election Charles Harward Butler, the brother of the Marquess of Ormonde, was elected.

Knocktopher was a borough by prescription and the only charter extant was one of 1690, 5 James II, which states the corporation to be the sovereign, burgesses and commonalty of Knocktopher. Knocktopher’s origins appear to have been dubious, and a James II charter of 1690 was hardly a recommendation. In 1692, following a report from the Committee on Elections and Privileges, the House found Anthony Maude (1365) not duly elected for Knocktopher, and Blayney Sandford (1864) also not duly elected.

The House ordered that the Committee of Elections and Privileges consider whether Knocktopher ‘hath any, and what, Right or Title to elect, or send, Burgesses to serve in Parliament’. Parliament was prorogued five days later, never to meet again. The query lapsed and Knocktopher returned two members in 1695 and at every vacancy in the borough until 1800. There was never another controverted election. In was said in 1783 that the borough once belonged to the Ponsonbys, but, if it did, it is unlikely that Lord Bessborough would have let it slip out of his grasp.

By 1783 and certainly by 1790 the borough belonged to Sir Hercules Langrishe (1200). Earlier the Ponsonbys may have supported Langrishe and possibly they came to an agreement that John Ponsonby should be able to command one seat in the borough for his lifetime. Also, Langrishe’s principal estates were in Kilkenny and he may have supported Bessborough in the county.

The picture is obscured by the fact that Langrishe and Ponsonby were friends and Langrishe, except when the demands of office required otherwise, supported Ponsonby anyway. Langrishe returned himself and his son (1201) in 1783; John Ponsonby died in 1787. In 1790 Langrishe had indisputable control of the borough when it was noted that:

The electors of this place ought to be composed of the Protestant inhabitants, six months resident before the election but as Sir Hercules Langrishe has, by management and money, contrived to gain the property of all the houses in the town, which he lets only during pleasure and never to Protestants, the right of election is concentred in his family and immediate connections. Hence his dominion over the Borough is absolute, notwithstanding there is an apparent freedom in its constitution.

Sir Hercules is too well skilled in the value of proper parliamentary services to sell a seat for it, since he has had a son old enough to co-operate in his labours as its representative. He and his son at present enjoy the honour and certainly will continue to enjoy the honour, of jointly representing this unadulterated branch of the constitution in the House of Commons.

The following year another commentator said that: ‘This may be called a close Borough. It belongs to Sir H. Langrishe.’ In 1797 Sir George Shee (1910) purchased one of the seats and at the Union he received £1,137 10s in compensation for the disenfranchisement of Knocktopher; the remaining £13,862 10s was awarded to the Rt Hon. Sir Hercules Langrishe.

St Canice was a very ancient borough and thought to have been from remote antiquity part of the see of Ossory. In 1606 a patent appears to have been granted by James I, 3 James I, whereby Irishtown was to be a corporation consisting of a portreeve, burgesses and commons, but, the muniments of the temporalities of the Bishops of Ossory having been lost during the troubles, in 1678 Charles II made a new grant of a corporation comprising a portreeve, 18 burgesses and freemen.

The borough appears to have always been under the control of the Bishop of Ossory for the time being. He had to approve the portreeve, and to this end he was usually presented with two names: for instance, in 1732 he was given a choice between Sir John Denny Vesey (2148) and Caesar Colclough (0435), and appointed the latter. Elections were held in the Palace yard, and other corporate meetings in his hall.

The corporation, unusually, was composed of clergymen from the diocese, and both bishop and clergy hoped for advancement – so much so that in 1800 the recently appointed Bishop of Ossory, Hugh Hamilton, endeavoured to claim the compensation for its disfranchisement on the grounds that all his predecessors, by insisting that the MPs for this borough should support the government of the day, had been rewarded with preferment to higher and more lucrative sees.222 The claim, which had some veracity, was disallowed.

Although apparently easy for the bishop to control, ecclesiastical boroughs required care and maintenance. For instance, in 1779, one of Bishop Hamilton’s predecessors, Dr William Newcome, ‘a very learned man’ and later Bishop of Waterford, wrote to John Hely‑Hutchinson (1001) giving this picture of St Canice borough management:

Now I have … supported an interest in this borough at a great expense, for a year before the last General Election [1776]; absolutely preserved the borough by making forty new freemen in the midst of the greatest obloquy and newspaper abuse (for our majority on the poll was only 19), and returned two members recommended by Government, after a well contested opposition, headed by Mr Ponsonby, in favour of Mr Mossom (1501), a popular candidate, and a native of this place.

In 1783 it was thought that the number of freemen was 12. In 1790 the bishop was William Beresford, the brother of John Beresford (0115), First Commissioner of the Revenue, and it was commented that:

the electors of this town consist of the Freemen and Freeholders, whose number is indefinite and its representation is commonly considered as depending on the influence of the Church, it forming part of the of the Bishop[ric] of Ossory. But such legions of Revenue Officers and placemen have, for sometime past, been introduced among its Freemen, that it may much more properly be now deemed ministerial, than ecclesiastical property [the sitting MP was the bishop’s son, Marcus Beresford (0120)].

Between the place and its representatives no manner of connection exists; it is prostituted, they are aliens and that to such a degree, that it is a well known fact, that, at the general election, a certain noted Commissioner of the Revenue, going down to the country to be elected for this place, enquired of a gentleman, whom he accidentally met, the way to this town. And what was ridiculous enough, the gentleman of whom the enquiry was made, happened to be a candidate against him, being supported by the virtuous remnant of a once independent interest, that had often elected his father and were from affection attached to himself [?1501].

Two Commissioners of the Revenue at present represent St Canice and at the next election two Tide-Waiters may be their successors, if the minister so chooses, but we apprehend there will be no change, as no Secretary could possibly find two more obsequious adherents than the present Members.

Among those who sat for St Canice was the Under-Secretary, Thomas Waite (2154) (1761–8); and he was succeeded by the Chief Secretary, Lord Frederick Campbell (0341) (1768–76). Government often used the ecclesiastical boroughs to return essential officials. Sometimes a bishop would be allowed to return a relative – it was thought that Richard Dawson (0592), the banker, who sat for St Canice for the entire parliament of George II, was returned by the influence of his wife’s half-brother Sir Thomas Vesey, Bishop of Ossory.

St Canice/Irishtown was disfranchised in 1800 and the £15,000 compensation was paid to the Trustees and Commissioners of First Fruits ‘to be used in such a manner as shall tend most to promote the constant residence of the clergy’.

Thomastown was possibly a Tudor borough incorporated by a charter granted to Thomas FitzAnthony and preserved on the 1541–2 patent roll of 32 & 33 Henry VIII. There was a further charter of 1 Mary I (1552) and Thomastown was enrolled at the insistence of the inhabitants in a charter of 28 Eliz. I (1591), which granted to the provost and burgesses of Thomastown and their successors the right to be a body corporate consisting of a provost and burgesses.

Then there were two Stuart charters, 13 James I (1616) and 5 James II (1690). The corporation consisted of a sovereign and up to 12 burgesses. The sovereign was a Justice of the Peace within the borough and acted as such. By 1783 it was described as ‘a venal rotten borough’, and in 1790 as:

a close Borough in the strictest sense of the words, its only electors being six Burgesses, constituted by the fiat of Lord Clifden (0013), whose pleasure consequently nominates its representatives. Between these worthy wights and the place of which they are electors, there is not the slightest connexion, Lord Clifden not possessing a single foot of property in the town: the whole of that being vested in Eland Mossom (1501), Esq. in right of his wife.

They are the confidential depositaries of his Lordship’s power, not the honest dischargers of a constitutional trust. Its fate is similar to that of the Borough of Gowran, both being the property of the same person. Its representatives either accelerate, by their pliant parliamentary votes, the creation of Peers and Archbishops, or the purchase of their stations swells the coffers of the noble Lord who appoints them.

Very little is known about the borough. In 1713 it was considered ‘well secured for government’. Henry Agar (0012) became sovereign of Thomastown in 1744. It was formerly under the control of Sir William Fownes (0812) backed by his allies, the Ponsonbys (1696, 1702), but after 1744 Henry and his brother James Agar (0015) united to ensure their dominance of the corporation and by 1760 the Agars were in sole control of the borough. The £15,000 compensation for its disfranchisement in 1800 was paid to Henry Welbore Agar, Viscount Clifden (0013).