As well as their original judicial functions the grand juries had taken on the maintenance of roads, bridges and asylums and the supervision of other public works.

A similar system operated at this level, with the justices of the area empowered to meet in baronial presentment sessions to raise a cess to fund minor works.

[6] By 1880 the members of the grand juries and baronial sessions were still overwhelmingly Unionist and Protestant, and therefore totally unrepresentative of the majority of the population of the areas they governed.

The Representation of the People Act 1884 created a much larger electorate that had very different needs and inevitably wanted to elect local representatives from outside a narrow social élite.

With the growth of population a need to create authorities to administer public health and provide or regulate such services as sewerage, paving and water supply arose.

The Public Health (Ireland) Act 1878 created sanitary districts, based on the system already existing in England and Wales.

Unionists, increasingly losing seats to members of the Irish National League at elections of guardians, also sought to delay implementation.

The announcement was met with protests from Unionists and landlords who predicted that the new authorities would be disloyal and would monopolise their power to drive them out of the country.

With the Irish Parliamentary Party split into "Parnellite" and "anti-Parnellite" factions, he was encouraged to believe that the bill could be used to destroy the demand for Home Rule and further splinter the Nationalist movement.

[5] When the bill was introduced to Parliament early in 1892, it was clear that the Unionists had successfully watered down many of its provisions by securing safeguards on their hold on local government.

Gerald Balfour, brother of Arthur, and nephew of the new Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland on 4 July 1895.

While he claimed that the extension to Ireland of the local government reforms already carried out in Great Britain had always been intended, the sudden conversion to the "alternative policy" was in fact a way of solving a political crisis at Westminster.

Landlords, already angered by the 1896 Land Act, were enraged by the refusal of the Treasury to extend the agricultural rating grant to Ireland.

Instead, an equivalent sum had been given to the Dublin Castle administration, who had decided to use the money to fund poor law reform and a new Agricultural Board.

The introduction of democratic county councils along with a substantial rates subsidy was felt to be sure to placate all Irish members of the house.

The creation of the new councils had a significant effect on Ireland as it allowed a much larger number of local people to take decisions affecting themselves.

The county and the sub-county District Councils created a political platform for proponents of Home Rule, displacing Unionist influence in many areas.

Some were aligned by the Representation of the People Act 1918, where the county divisions were being altered for other reasons; for example Kilculliheen was transferred from Waterford City to South Kilkenny, but Ardnaree remained in North Sligo rather than East Mayo.