Meticulously researched, densely written and handsomely produced, Murphy's book is an excellent addition to existing literature in the field of local government. Much of this prevailing historiography uses the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, as a starting point, often ignoring the period covered by Murphy, i.e. from the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act, 1840, to the end of the century. The 1840 legislation reformed municipal government in the cities and boroughs. In Dublin, the power of the trade guilds had kept the Corporation exclusively in Protestant hands, but this changed with the 1840 Act and, especially, with the election of October 1841. Prior to this ground-breaking legislation, Dublin Corporation was bicameral – a fact that may come as a surprise to many. Murphy accurately describes the pre-1840 Corporation as ‘an arcane body which was oligarchical and to a large extent self-perpetuating’ (p. 15) Following the reforms, Corporation members were drawn from 15 electoral wards, with an alderman (who topped the poll) and three councillors. The electoral mechanism was convoluted. Every three years, half of the aldermen would face re-election, whereas one third of the councillors (one from each ward) faced re-election every year. Essentially, this gave councillors a term of three years, but aldermen a term of six years.

Murphy's writing style is extremely pleasing; he describes, for example, the old Corporation as living out its days and ‘descending into internecine vindictiveness’ (p. 23). The 1841 election was a watershed and a personal triumph for Daniel O'Connell with 47 Liberals elected, compared to 13 Tories. The chapters dealing with O'Connell's time as lord mayor of Dublin are informative, if at times complex – particularly in relation to financial matters. O'Connell described Dublin as the most taxed city in the British empire, referring to people paying ‘the poor rate, the police tax, the paving tax, the watering tax, the grand jury cess, the parish cess, the wide-street tax, the pipe-water rent, the ministers’ money, the cholera tax, the Fitzwilliam Square tax, the Merrion Square tax, the Stephen's Green tax, the Rutland Square tax, the north and south quay-wall tax, and some other taxes’ (p. 32). A major focus of O'Connell and the Corporation in the early 1840s was to streamline finances and make savings. The Great Famine passed the Corporation by to a large extent, with Murphy astutely commenting: ‘the Corporation did not rise to the occasion’ (p. 50). By the end of the decade, the financially impoverished Corporation was under threat. A suggestion by the solicitor, Frederick Jackson, that the Corporation should be replaced by a three-man commission gained traction but did not come to fruition. Instead, under the mayoralty of John Reynolds, the Corporation entered a period of expansion with a boundary extension and an increase in powers, due to the consolidation of many hitherto independent boards.

After a few decades of (relative) calm, the period of the 1880s marked a change in Dublin Corporation. Here, Murphy comes into his own as he describes the ‘Parnellite takeover’. He notes that Dublin Liberalism was gradually swept away on the Corporation, replaced by ‘a nationalism that was beholden to the outside control of the national leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party’ (p. 147). When the Conservative members of the Corporation proposed the freedom of the city for the Dublin-born general, Sir Garnet Wolseley, the move was defeated – an indication of what was to come with a Corporation that was increasingly nationalist and keen to debate national political issues. The municipal election of 1883 significantly altered the political composition of the Corporation. There were six alderman vacancies – positions that had been held by two nationalists, two Liberals and two Conservatives. After the election, there were five nationalists and one Liberal. The Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, set up a new and more democratic system of local government and increased pressure for reform in Dublin. The municipal franchise rose from 8,000 to 38,000 and now included women ratepayers. Despite some significant reforms between 1840 and 1900, Murphy's conclusion is that at the beginning of the twentieth century many of the problems in Dublin remained the same – poor housing, poverty and disease. His damning verdict is: ‘The Corporation certainly never lived up to the much-vaunted aspiration of some that it would be proven to be Ireland's civic parliament and thus a harbinger for Irish self-rule’ (p. 189).

As a comprehensive study of the politics of Dublin Corporation over a 60-year period, this book is highly recommended. Though limited mainly to reports from the Freeman's Journal (due to minimal archival records), the level of Murphy's research is astounding. He claims that the Freeman's Journal published nearly 30 million words about Dublin Corporation over the period covered by his book. I was interested by the commentary running through the book about the negative relationship between the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and the Corporation. It is worth reflecting on the fact that in the decades after 1900, the Corporation became increasingly political, much to the irritation of central government and, indeed, the business community in the city. This culminated in the dissolution of the Corporation in 1924 (until 1930). What Murphy describes as ‘the most important and prestigious deliberative body in Ireland’ was replaced by three commissioners – as had been suggested as far back as 1848!