Description
This manuscript, still in private hands, records the decisions taken by the Common Council of Coleraine for the period 1623–1669. For the ten years prior to 1623 all significant decisions regarding Coleraine’s development and administration were taken in London; after this time Coleraine’s Common Council had greater scope to direct the expansion of the town and create a new urban centre and community in the north of Ireland. This edition provides a complete listing of the membership of the Common Council and a full account of their decisions.
Acts of the Corporation of Coleraine, 1623–1669 records the Council’s attempts to control trade, its relationship with the merchant community and the military, its methods of raising taxes, its response to the upheavals of the 1640s, adjustment to the Commonwealth and the Restoration. Through it we also see the councillors’ concern with their own interests and social status, including the annual mayoral elections and their precedence within the Council, but also their acquisition of status symbols such as official dress and town silver. This edition will be of particular interest to scholars working
on urban history, early modern Ireland, early modern social structures, military historians and local historians.
