Number of members Two | ||
Cork City was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. From 1880 to 1922 it returned two members of parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. From 1922 it was not represented in the UK Parliament, as it was no longer in the UK.
Contents
- Boundaries
- Elections
- Elections of the 1910s
- Elections of the 1900s
- Elections of the 1890s
- Elections of the 1880s
- Elections of the 1870s
- Elections of the 1860s
- Elections of the 1850s
- Elections of the 1840s
- Elections of the 1830s
- Elections of the 1820s
- Elections of the 1800s
- References
Cork City was the only constituency in Ireland to return the same number of members, in each general election, from the Act of Union in 1801 until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.
Boundaries
This constituency comprised the whole of the County of the City of Cork, which was part of County Cork. Cork had the status of a county of itself, although it remained connected with County Cork for certain purposes.
The definition of the constituency boundary, from the Parliamentary Boundaries (Ireland) Act 1832 (c. 89 2& 3 Will. 4), was as follows.
The County of the City of Cork.
A Topographical Directory of Ireland, published in 1837, describes the area covered.
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 is useful for information about the 19th century position.
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.
Elections
Candidates referred to as Non Partisan, did not have a party allegiance specified in either Stooks Smith or Walker (see reference section below for the sources) or capable of being inferred by disaggregating different groups incorporated under one label by Walker (such as Whigs before 1859 being listed as Liberals).
In multi-member elections, a change in vote percentage is only calculated for individual candidates not for parties. No attempt is made to compare changes between single member by-elections and previous or subsequent multi-member elections.
Turnouts, in multi-member elections from 1832, are calculated on the basis of the number of electors Stooks Smith records as voting. In some cases estimated turnouts are obtained by dividing the ballots cast by two, to obtain the lowest possible turnout figure. To the extent that electors did not use both their votes, the estimate will be less than the actual turnout.