Forty Shilling Freehoders in Cavan 1825-1826

Here is a very interesting resource which lists all the voters in Co Cavan for the year 1825-1826. Voting was far from being a democratic process as the landlord controlled the votes of his tenants. Catholics renting or owning property of a value more than forty shillings could vote but not enter parliament but in a curious twist these votes were worth money to the landlord and the more forty shilling freeholders he had on his estate and could deliver to a prospective parliamentary candidate meant a tidy source of revenue at election times.

So landlords more than often ignored the valuation qualification creating as many forty shilling freeholders of all religions as they could decently manage on their estates.
Daniel O’Connell ended this cosy scheme by standing for Parliament in 1828 in Co Clare where enough Catholic forty shilling freeholders defied their landlords and voted for him. This ultimately led to the government giving into the demand for Catholic Emancipation and granting it. Incidentally this  act of parliament  allowed dissenting Protestants and Jews to become members of Parliament at Westminister.
However the sting in the tail was that forty shilling qualification for having a vote was abolished and replaced by a ten pound valuation qualification. Thus doing away with a large segment of the electorate but safeguarding the landlords’ control of parliamentary seats for another fifty years.
If you want to see this listing for Co Cavan –

http://www.cavanlibrary.ie/file/Local-Studies/Library-Scanned-Docs/Registry-of-Freeholders-in-the-County-of-Cavan.pdf