Carlow Town Administration in the 1830s

The earliest charter on record relating to the borough is that of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, granted about the close of the 13th century. It created an open community of burgesses endowed with considerable privileges, including a guild mercatory and other guilds, with exemption from tolls and customs throughout the earl's whole lands, except the towns of Pembroke and Wexford; it also mentions a hundred court as being then in existence in the town, and ordained that it should be held only once in the week. James I., in 1613, granted a charter of incorporation, conferring, among other privileges, a right to return two members to Parliament; and the present governing charter was obtained on petition from Charles II., in 1674. James II. granted a charter founded on a seizure of the franchises by a decree of the exchequer, which being declared void, it soon became inoperative. Under the charter of Charles II. the corporation is styled "The Sovereign, Free Burgesses, and Commonalty of the Borough of Catherlagh;" and consists of a sovereign, twelve free burgesses, and a commonalty, assisted by a town-clerk, two serjeants-at-mace, a weighmaster of butter, and a bellman.

The sovereign is annually elected by the sovereign for the time being and a majority of the burgesses from their own body, on the 24th of June, and enters upon his office on the 29th of September: he is ex officio a justice of the peace for the borough and the county, and clerk of the market, and with the approbation of the burgesses may appoint one of them to be his deputy. The burgesses are elected from the freemen by a majority of the sovereign and burgesses; the town-clerk and serjeants-at-mace are chosen by the sovereign and burgesses, and the weighmaster of butter is appointed by the sovereign. The freemen are elected by the sovereign and burgesses. The borough returned two members to the Irish parliament till the Union, since which period it has sent only one to the Imperial parliament.

The right of election, previously confined to the sovereign and burgesses, was, by the act of the 2nd of Wm IV., for amending the representation, extended to the resident freemen and £10 householders, of whom, including the suburb of Graigue, which has been comprised within the new electoral boundary (of which the limits are minutely described in the Appendix), the number is 383, of which 380 are householders, and three freemen resident within seven miles; the sovereign is the returning officer. By the charter the corporation had power to hold a court of record for pleas to the amount of five marks; but they at present exercise no jurisdiction whatever, either civil or criminal. The assizes, and also the quarter sessions for the county, are held here; and petty sessions are held every Thursday before the sovereign and county magistrates. The manor court has jurisdiction to the amount of £10 late currency over the entire town and an extensive rural district; it had fallen into disuse prior to 1833, when the lord of the manor, B. Hamilton, Esq., appointed a seneschal, and the court was revived, but few cases have been since determined in it.

The court-house, a newly erected building at the junction of the Castledermot and Athy roads, near the entrance of the town, is a handsome octagonal edifice with a fine Doric portico, in imitation of the Acropolis at Athens, resting upon a platform to which is an ascent by a broad flight of steps; the whole is of hewn granite of chaste design and execution, and forms a striking ornament to the town. Near it is the county gaol, well adapted for the classification and employment of prisoners, who are engaged in useful labour and are taught trades, to qualify them on their discharge for a life of useful industry; the female prisoners are carefully instructed and employed under a duly qualified matron; a school has been established, and the sick are carefully attended by the medical officer; but the hospital is not yet sufficiently prepared for the reception of patients. There is a tread-wheel, which is worked for raising water to supply the gaol.