So attention must be paid to the size, value and descent of family estates, to the leasing policy of their owners, and to the success with which they responded to ever-changing and -tightening regulations governing the unique Irish system of freeholder registration. Family finances are another important consideration, because men could not fight elections if they could not afford election expenditure. The book addresses all aspects of the lives of Co. Louth’s aristocracy and gentry, since electoral alliances and manoeuvrings were only one aspect of their inter-relationship. They had to co-operate with each other in county administration, which, as well as infrastructure and law and order, included architectural initiatives such as the design and building of Dundalk’s iconic courthouse. There were denominational as well as political differences between and among them, and class solidarity smoothed religious antagonisms, even in the era of Catholic Emancipation. That era did, however, usher in one of the most dramatic changes of the period – the transition from a paternalistic style of politics to a new paradigm in which national issues and national party politics played a decisive part.
To compare the Hogarthian affray which took place after the formative election of 1768 with the mobbing and intimidation of the freeholders at the famous election of 1826, is to compare two different political worlds.