From the dissolution of 1922, shortly before the establishment of the Irish Free State, the area was not represented in the UK Parliament.
Under the Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918, the parliamentary representation of the administrative county was increased from two to four divisions.
[3] At the general elections of 1885 and 1886, the Irish Parliamentary Party candidate gained a majority of the votes cast.
When the seat eventually fell to the nationalists in the second election of 1910 the successful candidate was William Cotton, a leading figure in the business community whose patriotism was broad enough to allow him to support motions for loyal addresses to the monarch at Dublin Corporation meetings ... many nationalists were suspicious of Cotton's conservative views'[4] At a by-election in July 1917, the Irish Parliamentary Party candidate was returned unopposed.
Following a redrawing of boundaries, the seat was won by the Sinn Féin candidate at the general election of 1918.