Askeaton was incorporated by a charter of 1613, 11 James I, on the usual pattern. It had a provost and 12 burgesses, and presumably a commonalty which vanished. By 1783 it had 13 burgesses including the provost, all non-resident. The town comprised about 30 Protestants and 300 Roman Catholics. The patrons and proprietors were Lords Carrick (0316) and Massy (1355). However, Sir Joseph Hoare (1025) who represented the borough from 1761, had a seat for life under an agreement with Edward Taylor (2040), to whom it belonged.
Taylor, who died in 1760, resided locally. He was succeeded by his only son, Edward, who drowned in the Isis in 1769 while pursuing his studies at Oxford, and following his death the borough was vested in Carrick and Massy, who married his two sisters. During Hoare’s life, they were elected alternately to one seat; after his death they would each have a seat. Hoare did not die during the lifetime of the Irish parliament, although the agreement must have been made before Taylor’s death in December 1760. Taylor’s mother was Sarah Hoare, which may explain the arrangement.
When it was his turn, Lord Carrick usually sold his seat; for instance, in 1790 he sold it to the newly ennobled Lord Caledon, who brought in his nephew, Henry Alexander (0028). In 1800, when the borough was disfranchised, the Commissioners awarded him £200 for the agreement. The sitting MP, Sir Vere Hunt (1057), who had purchased his seat received £1,100, Lord Carrick £6,850 and the trustees of the will of Hugh, Lord Massy, £6,850.
Kilmallock. At the Union there were three charters of Kilmallock extant, and copies of these were submitted along with the consent of the sovereign and council of the borough and the corporation books of the borough. Loveday, writing in 1732, said that:
Kilmallock, in Camden’s Time [sixteenth century], was second in this country [county] to Limerick only, both for plenty and populousness, is now a row of ruin’d houses in w[hi]ch notwithstanding there appears an air of grandeur for they are several stories high, and very deep of a durable handsome stone, the doorcases &c. all of stone. Cromwell burnt the town, since which it never recovered itself to any great degree, and the Duke of Berwick completed its desolation by burning what remained; it is now a very poor place but its walls are pretty entire and its gates.
Kilmallock was probably a borough by prescription backed up by later charters. In 1783 it had a ‘Sovereign and Burgesses not confined as to number, at present under 20, non-resident. About 20 Protestants and 300 Roman Catholics. Patron, Mr Oliver (1585).’
In 1790 it was recorded that ‘Its only electors are the Burgesses, who are always chosen according to the recommendation of the Rt Hon. Silver Oliver, its sole proprietor, whose pleasure is, consequently, omnipotent in its elections of Members of Parliament. Since Mr Oliver has chosen to retire from political life, it has commonly been sold but we think that its lot will be different at the next general election, as it may possibly influence the contest for the County.’
It was not unusual for a borough seat to be traded against county interest, but this was probably not the case at the 1790 election. On an earlier occasion, before the 1715 election, Robert Taylor wrote in January 1714/15 to Perceval in anticipation of the forthcoming election that ‘Sir Thomas Southwell (1968), Mr Oliver (1583) and young Mr Evans (0704) will stand for Co. Limerick. Mr King (1152), who supported Evans last time, now supports the other two, who are likely to win. In return King is to be brought in for Kilmallock.’
Southwell and Oliver were duly returned for the county at the 1715 general election, and George King for Kilmallock. The borough appears to have belonged to the Olivers throughout the century. They sold the seats for the last time in 1799 and in 1800 Richard Oliver, the son of Silver Oliver, was awarded the £15,000 compensation. Only the year before government had arranged a profitable sale of both seats to the Unionist Valentine Richard Quin (1753).
Limerick in the eighteenth century was a prosperous and thriving town described as ‘populous and has much trade’. As a county borough it was a mixed constituency, combining the characteristics of a large corporation with those of a county. Admission to the corporation was by birth, marriage or grace especial, which could be modified by restrictive by-laws or simply by custom. The county element was the 40-shilling freeholder. In the 1780s it was thought to have about 800 freemen and freeholders, which rose to about 1,000 in 1818.
At the beginning of the century the interests were varied. The Ingoldsbys were prominent and connected by marriage to the Bishop of Limerick, Bishop Smyth. The Ingoldsby family died out in the male line with the death of Henry Ingoldsby in 1731, when Charles Smyth was returned and the Smyth interest in the corporation became established. The other long-term interest, that of the Perys, appeared with the election of Edmond Sexton Pery in 1761.
That election was hard fought as the interests attempted to establish dominance. On 18 May at the close of the poll and after scrutiny the numbers were: Edmond Sexton Pery 753, Charles Smyth 373, Hugh Dillon Massy (1357) 408 (reduced to 362 on the deduction of 46 voters who had applied for freedom and were not admitted). The battle had been resolved and in 1768 and 1776 Charles Smyth and Edmond Sexton Pery, ‘our late worthy members were unanimously elected to represent this city in the next Parliament’.
The Perys owned ‘a considerable Estate in and about Limerick’ and therefore came to control the freeholders. For the remainder of the century and beyond the Smyth-Prendergast-Vereker interest prevailed in the corporation and the Pery interest in the county. The Pery influence was greatly enhanced by their shrewdness and ability, particularly that of Edmond Sexton Pery, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1771 to 1785. The following assessment of his political and personal talents was given by one of his contemporaries:
He looks well to his own profit, and has risen his estate £900 per annum by parliamentary grants to the lands about Limerick without having his name mentioned, is rather bold than bashful; patient, wary and of few words, he is knowing both in the nature of men and in the nature of the state, [a] Privy Councillor [and] a shrewd and long sighted politician.
He was responsible for the development of Newtown Pery on the outskirts of the city. His brother was Bishop of Limerick from 1784 until his death in 1794. His nephew, Edmond Henry Pery, was returned at the by-election which followed Edmond Sexton Pery’s resignation from the Chair and his elevation to the peerage in 1785.
Edmond Sexton Pery had two daughters and no male heir. However, Bishop Pery was elevated to the secular peerage in 1790 as Lord Glentworth and in 1794 his son succeeded him. John Prendergast (-Smyth), the other MP, was the second son and heir of Charles Smyth (his heiress mother was Elizabeth Prendergast), and he succeeded his brother, Thomas Smyth, who died unmarried in 1785. John Prendergast then resumed the name of Smyth.
In 1810 he was created Baron Kiltarton and in 1816 Viscount Gort, with remainder – he was unmarried – to his nephew, Charles Vereker, the son of his sister, Juliana Vereker née Smyth. Limerick retained one MP after the Union and Grady, the Pery MP, was successful at the ballot. However, shortly after he accepted legal office and Vereker was returned unopposed in 1802. Great care and personal acceptability were required to create and sustain an interest in this type of constituency, while prestige and residence also helped.