Sligo Borough (UK Parliament constituency)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Sligo | |
|---|---|
| Former borough constituency for the House of Commons | |
| County | County Sligo |
| Borough | Sligo |
| 1801–1870 | |
| Seats | 1 |
| Created from | Sligo Borough (IHC) |
| Replaced by | County Sligo |
The parliamentary borough of Sligo, County Sligo, Ireland, was represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as a borough constituency from 1801 to 1870 by one Member of Parliament (MP), elected by the first past the post system of election.[1][2] It succeeded the two-seat constituency of Sligo represented in the Irish House of Commons until the abolition of the Irish Parliament on 1 January 1801 under the Acts of Union 1800.[3] It was disfranchised under the Sligo and Cashel Disfranchisement Act 1870.
The boundaries of the constituency were defined as:
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.
Abolition
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."[4] Parliament passed the Sligo and Cashel Disfranchisement Act 1870 which was given royal assent on 1 August 1870.[5][6] The act disfranchised Sligo as well as Cashel, another Irish borough. The area of Sligo borough 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.[7]
