Sligo (UK Parliament constituency)

Its boundaries were reviewed in January 1832 and found that there was no boundary to the borough defined by charter, but considered that it could be defined relative to the Sligo Town Government Act 1803.^[4] It was defined in the Parliamentary Boundaries (Ireland) Act 1832, which defined the area of the parliamentary borough as:^[5]

Such Part or Parts of the Town or Precincts of the Town of Sligo as lie or are situate within the Distance of One Mile, Irish Admeasurement, of a certain Spot in Market Street in said Town on which a Building or Erection formerly stood, called the Market Cross, being the Space defined in the Seventeenth Section of an Act passed in the Forty-third Year of the Reign of His Majesty King George the Third, intituled 'An Act for repealing so much of an Act made in the Third Year of the Reign of King George the Second, intituled 'An Act for cleansing the Ports, Harbours, and Rivers of the City of Cork, and of the Towns of Galway, Sligo, Drogheda, and Belfast, and for erecting a Ballast Office in the said City and each of the said Towns,' as relates to the Port and Harbour of the Town of Sligo; and for repealing an Act made in the Fortieth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, intituled 'An Act for paving, cleansing, lighting, and improving the Streets, Quays, Lanes, and Passages in the Town of Sligo in the County of Sligo, for establishing a nightly Watch in the said Town for supplying the said Town with Pipe Water, and for improving and regulating the Port and Harbour thereof,' and for making better Provision for the paving, lighting, watching, cleansing, and improving of the said Town of Sligo, and for regulating the Porters and Carmen employed therein, and for the better Regulation and Improvement of the Port and Harbour thereof,' as the Part or Parts of the Precincts of the Town of Sligo which shall be or be deemed to be within the Intent and Purview of the said Act of the Forty-third Year of the Reign of King George the Third, for the several Purposes in the said Seventeenth Section specified.

Under the Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1868, its boundaries were extended to include all of the municipal borough of Sligo. These had been defined in the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 as:^[6]

From the Northern Angle of the New Stone Quay called Ballast Bank, Eastward, in a straight Line to the Centre of the Bridge on the Road leading from Old Bridge across the Townland of Cartron to the Townland of Ballincan; thence, Eastward, in a straight Line to the Centre of the Bridge on the Road leading from Old Bridge to the Townland of Carcash; thence, South-eastward, in a straight Line to the North-eastern Angle of the Sligo Fever Hospital; thence, Southward, in a straight Line to the Point where the Boundary between the Townlands of Abbey Quarter and Cleveragh meets the Southern Bank of the River Garvoge; thence in a straight Line to the South-eastern Angle of the County Gaol Enclosure Wall; thence, South-westward, in a straight Line to the North-eastern Angle of the House called Peterville, on the Western Side of the Boyle Road; thence, North-westward, in a straight Line to the North-western Angle of the House called Rose Hill, now in the Occupation of Thomas Read, Esquire; thence, Northward, in a straight Line to the Point at which the North-western Face of Ballast Bank Quay terminates, being about Eighty Yards South-westward of the Point first described; thence along the North-western Face of such Quay to the Point first described.

Numerous elections were overturned on petition by the losing candidate; after the 1868 election was overturned, a Royal Commission established under the Parliamentary Elections Act 1868 examined the matter and reported that "at the last three elections of members to serve in Parliament for the Borough of Sligo, corrupt practices have extensively prevailed."^[7] Parliament passed the Sligo and Cashel Disfranchisement Act 1870 which was given royal assent on 1 August 1870.^[8][9] The act disfranchised Sligo as well as Cashel, another Irish borough. The area of Sligo became part of the County Sligo constituency. In 1881 Thomas Sexton, one of two MPs for County Sligo, introduced a private member's bill to re-enfranchise the borough, which was defeated on second reading.^[10]

Supplemental Note:-

• ¹ Walker (like F. W. S. Craig in his compilations of election results for Great Britain) classifies Whig, Radical and similar candidates as Liberals from 1832. The name Liberal was gradually adopted as a description for the Whigs and politicians allied with them, before the formal creation of the Liberal Party shortly after the 1859 general election.