URBAN ADMINISTRATIONlower social levels (by apprenticeship) and from out-
side the city.
Waterford had a similar set of by-laws modeled on
those of Dublin, as well as a tripartite structure of
councilors. In the city’s records, there are comparable
signs of the difficulties experienced in persuading
leading citizens to serve in high office. A serious
deterrent was the need for mayors of Waterford to be
proactive militarily from circa 1320, as the position
of the colonists steadily worsened; the unfortunate
John Malpas was actually killed while on campaign
in 1368. For its citizens’ heroic services to the English
crown, Waterford was conferred with a civic sword
for ceremonial purposes in 1462, as Dublin already
had been in 1403. Apart from these two cities, how-
ever, the mechanisms of urban administration are not
well recorded. One unusual survival is a mid-fifteenth-
century land-gavel (“ground rent”) roll for Cork. It is
unfortunately incomplete, but the fact that nine indi-
viduals held between them 40 percent of the recorded
properties may point toward a sharp reduction in the
city’s population. Indeed, Cork’s fee farm payments
to the central administration declined from the 1340s
and ceased altogether after 1416. Over forty functioning
cities and towns survived in Ireland into the sixteenth
century, but the degree of competence and diligence
with which most of them were administered is virtu-
ally impenetrable.
H. B. CLARKE
References and Further Reading
Bateson, Mary, ed. Seldon Society, Vols. 18, 21,Borough Cus-
toms.London: Bernard Quaritch, 1904–1906.
Clark, Mary, and Gráinne Doran. Serving the City: The Dublin
City Managers and Town Clerks, 1230–1996. Dublin: Dublin
Public Libraries, 1996.
Clarke, H. B. “The 1192 Charter of Liberties and the Beginnings
of Dublin’s Municipal Life.” Dublin Historical Record 46
(1993): 5–14.
Edwards, R. D. “The Beginnings of Municipal Government in
Dublin.” Dublin Historical Record1 (1938–1939): 2–10.
Gilbert, J. T. “Archives of the Municipal Corporation of Water-
ford.” In Historical Manuscripts Commission, Tenth Report,
app., pt. 5, pp. 265–339. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery
Office, 1885.
Lennon, Colm, and James Murray, ed. The Dublin City Fran-
chise Roll, 1468–1512. Dublin: Dublin Corporation, 1998.
McEneaney, Eamonn, ed. A History of Waterford and its Mayors
from the 12thCentury to the 20thCentury. Waterford:
Waterford Corporation, 1995.
Mac Niocaill, Gearóid. Na Buirgéisí XII-XV Aois. 2 vols. Dublin:
Cló Morainn, 1964.
———. “Socio-economic Problems in the Late Medieval Irish
Town.” In Historical Studies,vol. 13, The Town in Ireland,
edited by David Harkness and Mary O’Dowd, pp. 7–21.
Belfast: Appletree Press, 1981.
Thomas, Avril. The Walled Towns of Ireland. 2 vols. Blackrock:
Irish Academic Press, 1992.
Webb, J. J. Municipal Government in Ireland, Mediaeval and
Modern. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1918.
See alsoCharters and Chartularies; Fraternities
and Guilds; Local Government; Ports; Records,
Administrative; Walled Towns