[2] In 1776 Corry succeeded his father as Member of Parliament for Newry,[2] sitting in the Irish House of Commons until the Act of Union in 1801.
Sylvester Douglas as "a well-bred man...He has no brogue...He once acted as a sort of groom of the bedchamber to the late Duke of Cumberland.
Finally in 1799 he was appointed Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Lord High Treasurer of Ireland in place of Sir John Parnell, who quarrelled violently with Pitt over the projected union, which he categorically refused to support.
However, Lady Downshire was inclined to support the Grenville ministry and came to a formal agreement with Corry to give him £1000 towards his expenses should he be successful in Newry, and, if not, to bring him in for another borough.
[5] Corry's residence in Newry was the Abbey Yard, now a school,[6] and Derrymore House, Bessbrook,[7] which he had inherited from his father and sold in 1810.
A local legend has it that the road was constructed after an incident in which Corry's stagecoach was stoned while passing through Newry by people angry at an unpopular window tax he had introduced.