Forty Shilling Freeholders - Ireland

Ireland

Similarly in Ireland before 1829 the franchise for county constituencies was restricted to Forty Shilling Freeholders. This gave anyone who owned or rented land that was worth forty shillings (two pounds) or more, the right to vote. As a consequence they were given the nickname, the "Forty Shilling Freeholders". This included many Roman Catholics who obtained the vote under the 1793 Catholic Relief Bill, at first for the Parliament of Ireland and then from 1801 for the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

The Catholic Relief Act 1829 raised the franchise qualification to ten pounds, excluding many previous voters, Protestant and Catholic, and this remained the basis of the county franchise in Ireland until it was widened in 1885.

The forty shilling qualification continued after 1829 in Irish boroughs, which had the status of a Corporate county (a county of itself). An example was Cork City (UK Parliament constituency).

A Topographical Directory of Ireland, published in 1837, describes the area covered by the Cork borough constituency.

The county of the city comprises a populous rural district of great beauty and fertility, watered by several small rivulets and intersected by the river Lee and its noble estuary: it is bounded on the north by the barony of Fermoy, on the east by that of Barrymore, on the south by Kerricurrihy, and on the west by Muskerry: it comprehends the parishes of St. Finbarr, Christ-Church or the Holy Trinity, St. Peter, St. Mary Shandon, St. Anne Shandon, St. Paul and St. Nicholas, all, except part of St. Finbarr's, within the city and suburbs, and those of Curricuppane, Carrigrohanemore, Kilcully, and Rathcoony, together with parts of the parishes of Killanully or Killingly, Carrigaline, Dunbullogue or Carrignavar, Ballinaboy, Inniskenny, Kilnaglory, White-church, and Templemichael, without those limits; and contains, according to the Ordnance survey, an area of 44,463 statute acres, of which, 2396 are occupied by the city and suburbs.

The Directory also has a passage on the representative history. Other, more modern, sources ascribe an earlier date to the start of the parliamentary representation of Cork; but the passage confirms the survival of the 40 shilling qualification..

The city first sent members to the Irish parliament in 1374, but representatives who appear to have served in London were chosen previously. The right of election was vested in the freemen of the city, and in the 40s. freeholders and £50 leaseholders of the county of the city, of whom the freemen, in 1831, amounted in number to 2331, and the freeholders to 1545, making a total of 3876; but by the act of the 2nd of Wm. IV., cap. 88 (under which the city, from its distinguished importance, retains its privilege of returning two representatives to the Imperial parliament, and the limits of the franchise, comprising the entire county of the city, remain unaltered), the non-resident freemen, except within seven miles, have been disfranchised, and the privilege of voting at elections has been extended to the £10 householders, and the £20 and £10 leaseholders for the respective terms of 14 and 20 years. The number of voters registered up to Jan. 2nd, 1836, amounted to 4791, of whom 1065 were freemen; 2727 £10 householders; 105 £50, 152 £20, and 608 forty-shilling freeholders; 3 £50, 7 £20, and 2 £10 rent-chargers; and 1 £50, 26 £20, and 95 £10 leaseholders: the sheriffs are the returning officers.