The corporation of Ardee is first mentioned in a charter of 1378, 51 Edw. III, when it consisted of a portreeve and commonalty. At one point the corporation consisted of two portreeves, 23 other burgesses and an unlimited number of freemen. The freemen and burgesses were conjointly the electors in parliamentary elections. In 1711 the corporation employed Richard Tisdall, then one of the portreeves, to secure a modification of the borough charter which would reduce the number of portreeves from two to one. The freemen lost their right to vote by a by-law of 1771.

Given the curious nature of the borough’s corporate structure, it is not surprising that a number of different but usually local families sat for it in the early years. From 1692 to 1726 a member of the Tisdall family was returned, and two Tisdalls, James (2075) and Michael (2077), sat for the borough in the brief 1713 parliament. James Tisdall and John Ruxton were portreeves in 1712. After the new charter in 1713 Richard Tisdall was the sole portreeve, as was William Ruxton the following year; Robert Parkinson was portreeve in 1722 and William Aston in 1723.

One of the cadet branches of the Moores, Earls of Drogheda, purchased land from the Commissioners for Forfeited Estates, possibly including the Ardee estate. The Moores over-extended themselves and had to sell land to meet their debts. Among the buyers were the Fosters and the Ruxtons. Brabazon Moore (1451) sat in the 1695 parliament and William Moore (1484) for the parliament of George I, 1715–27. In 1727 John Donnellan (0651) and Robert Parkinson (1629) were elected. Donnellan’s connection with the borough is not clear, but the Parkinsons and the Ruxtons were related by marriage. When Donellan died in 1741 Tichborne Aston (0061) replaced him, and when he died in 1748 William Ruxton (1832) succeeded him.

Thereafter, except for the 1776–83 parliament, there was always a Ruxton in parliament. The 1776–83 gap is probably explained by the need for the family to recoup their finances after their defence against the formidable Philip Tisdall’s (2078) attack on the borough following the 1768 election, claiming irregularities in the corporation. However, Tisdall failed, and in 1769 Anne Ruxton married Arthur Wolfe (2243), later Lord Kilwarden, who in 1770 was appointed Recorder of Ardee.

It was a borough in which control was delicate, and the Ruxtons usually ensured that at least one of the family represented it; for instance, in 1783 it was noted that: ‘This Borough belongs to Mr Ruxton (1831) but some opposition has started in it which will prevent his selling. Mr Ruxton and Captain Ruxton (1830) are returned.’ In 1800 the Commissioners had specifically to disallow the claim of certain burgesses and freemen to a share of the £15,000 compensation, which was paid to Charles Ruxton and William Parkinson Ruxton in trust towards reduction of their encumbrances.

Carlingford was another ancient borough, with charters going back to the reign of Edward II. A charter of James I stated that the corporation ought to consist of a sovereign, 12 burgesses274 and an unlimited number of freemen - the last of whom was admitted in 1754. The burgesses were to be elected by the commonalty and were to elect the sovereign annually. In 1783 it was estimated to have ‘12,000 inhabitants. Electors, a Portreeve, 12 Burgesses and some Freemen and Common Council. Pretty similar to Ardee.’ In 1790 it was described as follows:

This close Borough, whose electors have been long reduced by the usual arts to the Burgesses only, is the joint property of Mr Ross Moore and Colonel Robert Ross (1816) they alternately filling up with their confidential connections all vacancies in these nominal electors and unitedly appointing its representatives. It is now regularly sold Mr Moore being more pleased with its price than with political distinction and Colonel Ross having, by his various merits, which we know not how to enumerate, wormed himself into the Borough of Newry.

In 1796 Col. Ross sold his half of the borough of Carlingford to the Marquess of Downshire (1016), reputedly for £7,000. Four years later the Marquess received £7,500 for its disfranchisement – the other £7,500 was paid to the guardians of Ross Balfour Moore, who was then a minor.

Drogheda was a county borough and its electors were both 40-shilling freeholders and freemen. The town probably had a larger electorate than Co. Louth. Its first charter dated from 1230, 13 Henry III, which envisaged a split town with two corporations. These were united by a 1413 charter of 14 Henry IV. The corporation was composed of a mayor, two sheriffs, 24 aldermen (including the mayor) and an unlimited number of freemen. Freedom was by ‘right of birth and apprenticeship’ as well as grace especial. It had the following guilds: Bakers, Butchers, Carpenters, Shoemakers, Skinners, Smiths, Taylors and a guild of Merchants which became defunct.

There was also a governing body called ‘the Assembly’ composed of the mayor, sheriffs, aldermen and common councilmen (14 of whom were elected by the guilds), the remainder being the sheriff’s peers or persons who had served in the office of sheriff. The town was described in 1708 as ‘a pretty large town, larger houses and every way [more] like Dublin than any one I have seen in Ireland. It stands on the famous river Boyne which is navigable within the walls to boats of 40 or 50 tons.’ In 1785 John Wesley considered Drogheda ‘a large handsome town, which seemed to me to be little inferior to Waterford’.

The town was built around two main streets which intersected at the Thosel or Town Hall. In 1798 its population was given in a census as 15,225 persons. It was probably about the same size as Belfast and Kilkenny and smaller than Dublin, Cork, Waterford or Limerick. The linen industry was well established by 1760, when it was valued at £50,000 p.a., and by 1783 it was valued at nearly £130,000. Cotton, although expensive to establish, had made a beginning by 1780. Its other activity was related to the Boyne navigation, which brought grain from the Navan area and flour from the Slane Flour mills owned by Blayney (Townley-) Balfour (2094) of Townley Hall, while coal was a convenient back-cargo.

Drogheda’s MPs were largely local men. The Moores were Earls of Drogheda, and Charles Moore, the heir of the 3rd Earl, represented Drogheda until his death in 1714, in his father’s lifetime. Edward Singleton was an alderman and his son, Henry Singleton, a leading legal figure of the mid-eighteenth century, sat from 1713 until his elevation to the bench as Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas in 1740. Thereafter it was the turn of the Leighs and the Grahams.

In 1717 John Leigh had been expelled from the House of Commons ‘for his notorious Disaffection to the Protestant Succession in the illustrious house of Hanover’. His son Francis was more fortunate, and represented Drogheda from 1741 to 1776. He was a free merchant of Drogheda and elected to represent the Butchers’ Guild on the Common Council of Drogheda; he was Sheriff of Drogheda in 1729 and Mayor in 1732. John Graham, first returned in 1710, was a prominent Drogheda merchant and alderman. His son William, also an alderman and Mayor in 1731, sat from 1727 until his death in 1748/9, when he was succeeded by his son John Graham.

In 1761 John was returned, along with Francis Leigh, at a strongly contested election. The unsuccessful candidate was Graves Chamney, and all the candidates had large numbers of voters disallowed. At the close of the poll the numbers were: Leigh 172, Graham 140, Chamney 53. Voters claiming by birth and service, but disallowed by the Sheriff as being refused admittance by the corporation, were: Leigh 121, Graham 86, Chamney 75. Leigh and Graham were declared duly elected.

Shortly before the 1768 election, the main interest appears to have shifted from the Grahams to the Leighs and the Meades. In this election Francis Leigh and William Meade(-Ogle) were returned, but a petition complaining of an undue election was made by Graves Chamney, and raised the question of ‘who was entitled to vote in a parliamentary election for the town’. The citizens had been inclined to waive their right to the freedom except when an election was pending, and then they immediately attempted to demand it. However, the Committee on Privileges and Elections upheld the return, and stated in its report:

that persons entitled to the Freedom of the town of Drogheda and who demanded their Freedom in 1761, and have never since prosecuted any Suit for the Establishment of their Right, though they were at that Time refused by the Corporation to be admitted, had not a Right to vote at the late Election for Members of Parliament for the said Town.

The House agreed without a division that William Meade, against whom the petition had been aimed, was duly elected. Meade had been supported by his own ‘good interest’ and also by that of Francis Leigh, the other member, whose interest was ‘now the greatest’. In the general election of 1776 Drogheda was uncontested, and in 1783 there were approximately 500 electors. In 1785 the town was described as ‘open and popular’. From 1768 until 1797 it invariably returned one of the Meade-Ogle family for the one seat.

From 1783 to 1796 Drogheda was represented by John Forbes, its Recorder from 1782. Forbes belonged to a prominent Drogheda family. His father had been an alderman. In 1790 he and the other representative, Alderman William Meade-Ogle, were unanimously elected. Forbes was a genuine Whig and described as ‘decidedly a Portland man’. An ardent reformer, he introduced and gave his name to the 1793 Place Act, which required MPs to seek re-election on appointment to an office of profit under the Crown. In 1800 John Foster (0805) had sufficient popular interest in the town for Lord Cornwallis to refer to ‘the Speaker’s Town of Drogheda’.

The corporation of Dundalk was said to have existed ‘from the time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary’. It had a charter dating from the reign of Richard II. Dundalk was under the influence of the Hamiltons, Earls of Clanbrassill, but its composition of burgesses and unlimited freemen made it vulnerable to attack, as happened in the late 1770s when Clanbrassill’s agent endeavoured to manipulate its composition.

In 1783 its electorate comprised 16 burgesses and 700 freemen. Its patron was the Earl of Clanbrassill (0936) and the town had ‘5,000 inhabitants. Electors, 16 Burgesses and 700 Freemen, 100 where of are disputed with Earl Clanbrassill who claims the patronage of the remaining 606 electors, who are struggling for their with-held franchises.’ In 1790 it was reported that:

A short time previous to the last general election [1783], Mr Read, his Lordship’s agent and then Chief Magistrate of the town, admitted in right of his office a large body of Freemen, without the noble Lord’s knowledge and all of them inimical to his interest. Their right to the freedom of Dundalk has been strongly litigated and more than one decision has been given in the law courts on that subject but as it yet remains to be finally determined, we shall avoid expressing any opinion about it, merely stating the matter of fact, that should these Freemen be established in their franchise and their suffrages be allowed, the Borough is lost to Lord Clanbrassill.

After great expense and much litigation – the case eventually went to the House of Lords – Lord Clanbrassill regained his control but both he and his heirs, the Earls of Roden, were very cautious thereafter. Lord Clanbrassill returned his nephews,Lord Jocelyn (1100) and the Hon. George Jocelyn (1096), in 1783. The unsuccessful candidates, John William Foster (0808) and Richard Dawson (0593), petitioned against the return claiming that 18 freemen, admitted on 29 June 1782, who wished to vote for them had been rejected by the deputy bailiff. The corporation books from 1760 were produced and earlier books were requested. Various freemen were called to give evidence, and a picture emerges of general neglect which left the borough wide open to manipulation.

Apparently Read had held an illegal meeting on 29 June 1782: the meeting had been held at 9 a.m., when the corporation had never previously met before noon, and the bell calling the corporation had not been rung. It was thought that Read had held a private meeting in the Presbyterian meeting-house where everything had been arranged. There appeared then to have been an ‘illegal’ meeting at 9 a.m. which had rubber-stamped these decisions, followed by an official meeting called by the bell at noon, which was presented with a fait accompli.

Apparently Read had been appointed bailiff (sovereign) with his father as deputy. But Read was removed from the office of bailiff on 1 August 1782. Furthermore, William Green, a witness, declared that he never knew the corporation to meet except on 29 June (to choose the magistrates for the ensuing year etc.) or to return members to serve in parliament. This was the first petition to be held under the ‘very great amendment of the law’, 21 & 22 Geo. III, introduced by John Fitzgibbon (0749) to tighten up committees appointed to try election petitions.

Lord Clanbrassill was childless, and his estate and claim on the borough passed to the children of his sister Anne, Countess of Roden. For the remaining decade of the Irish parliament the borough was represented by two of Lord Clanbrassill’s nephews (1096, 1097, 1100). Dundalk retained one seat after the Union, and Lord Roden remained anxious ‘not to endanger the borough which was once so nearly lost to my family’. Even in 1799 it was described as ‘frequently contested’.

Dunleer was enfranchised by Charles II in 1679, by letters patent of 30 Chas II with a corporation comprising a sovereign, 12 burgesses and as many freemen as it was seen fit to admit. The original patron of the borough was Lord Dartmouth, who sold his estate to the Tenisons. Both were negligent, and elections for the borough were disputed in 1715 and 1727. This insecurity enabled the Fosters, who were tenants of the Tenisons, to gain control of the borough.

In 1735 the two families came to an agreement each to have one seat; this was sustained until the Union, when the borough was disfranchised and John Foster (0805) and Henry Coddington (0428) (through his mother Mary née Tenison) shared the £15,000 compensation equally. The importance of the arrangement was that it gave both Anthony Foster (0804) and his son John (0805) a safe seat.

Anthony Foster sat for Dunleer from 1738 to 1760 and for Co. Louth from 1761 until 1766, when he became Chief Baron of the Exchequer. His more famous son entered politics as an MP for Dunleer when barely of age in 1761. In 1768 he was returned for Co. Louth, which he represented for the remainder of his very long parliamentary career; he became Speaker in 1785 and by 1818 the Father of the House (i.e. taking his Irish and United Kingdom service together, he was the longest-serving MP). He finally retired in 1821 when he was created Lord Oriel; he sat in the House of Lords for a further seven years.