Athlone (UK Parliament constituency)
Athlone was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, which from 1801 to 1885 returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. History Prior to 1801, the town of Athlone was a two-seat borough constituency in the Irish House of Commons. Under the Acts of Union 1800, which united the Kingdom of Ireland with the Kingdom of Great Britain to form the United Kingdom, the 33 most populous boroughs (including Athlone) continued to return MPs, but except for Dublin and Cork, they were reduced to one MP. Its first MP in 1801 was chosen by lot. As was customary in Irish boroughs, created before the reforms of the nineteenth century, Athlone had an oligarchic constitution. The borough existed as a local government unit until it was abolished by the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840, but the parliamentary borough was not affected by this change in administrative arrangements. The style of the corporation was "The Sovereign, Bailiffs, Burgesses, and Freemen of the Town of Athlone". The officers were a sovereign, two bailiffs, thirteen burgesses (including the constable of the castle, who in 1837 was Viscount Castlemaine), a recorder, town-clerk, serjeant-at-mace, and