This study examines parliamentary politics in Carlow county and borough between the middle of the eighteenth and the middle of the nineteenth centuries from a phase of secure Protestant ascendancy in the eighteenth century to one of corrosive contestation in the 1830s. Chapter one seeks, firstly, to describe the operation of the electoral system in the eighteenth century when Protestant ascendancy was secure, and the electoral and parliamentary systems essentially represented property. This system was not free from challenges, initially from within (by those who aspired to ‘reform’ the system) and subsequently from external interests (excluded from participation) which sought to change the system. Up to the general election of 1830, parliamentary elections in county Carlow were characterised by a remarkable stability and were decided largely by agreement between the electoral ‘interests’ of the land-owning elite in the county. Major political developments such as the impact of the Patriots, the campaign to reform the present system, the admission of Catholics to the franchise, the 1798 insurrection and the change to the representation wrought as a consequence of the Act of Union all had a negligible impact on the conduct of electoral politics in the county. While Catholic Emancipation did become an issue in Carlow in the 1820s, electoral politics in the county remained largely undisturbed there in contrast to, for example, county Waterford in 1826 or county Clare in 1828. The first serious challenge to the aristocratic long term hegemony, with reform as the central issue, emerged in the 1830 general election. Although the ascendancy prevailed, the challenge heralded a decade of bitterly contested and extremely close elections in the county with clear lines drawn between Liberals and Conservatives. The influence of Bishop James Doyle was clear in the Liberal victories in the county in 1831 and in the borough and county in 1832. The Liberal side also challenged the repositories of conservative elite power such as the magistracy. The pendulum of electoral success swung between the two sides for the rest of the decade with, on the death of Bishop Doyle, an enhanced if not always successful role being played by Daniel O’Connell. By the beginning of the 1840s the Protestant ascendancy had reorganised and re-energised and was prepared to use the influence of landlord over tenant openly to secure electoral advantage at the polling booth. Nevertheless, electoral politics in the county had changed forever, as the long era of uncontested Protestant control sustained through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries gave way to an era of contestation that was to endure until the later nineteenth century.