Carrickfergus Castle was the stronghold of the
Earl of Ulster in the
Anglo-Norman period, and Carrickfergus or Knockfergus was one of the medieval counties into which the Earldom was divided. After the
Tudor reconquest of Ireland, the east coast of Ulster was rationalised into counties Antrim and
Down, but Carrickfergus retained its ancient status as a separate
corporate county. Whereas most such counties comprised an urban
municipal borough and surrounding rural
liberties, the
royal charter of
James I made the
borough of Carrickfergus coterminous with the county of the town. The
Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 formally abolished the borough, and replaced its
corporation with
town commissioners. The
parliamentary borough of Carrickfergus was coterminous with the county of the town from the
Parliamentary Boundaries (Ireland) Act 1832 till it was abolished under the
Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. There were two
sheriffs of Carrickfergus chosen annually by the corporation, reduced to one after the corporation was abolished. There was no separate
county governor or lieutenant, the
Lord Lieutenant of Antrim having authority within Carrickfergus; the "
governor of Carrickfergus" was not a county or town official, but rather the
garrison governor of Carrickfergus Castle. Similarly, for purposes of
Civil Bill Courts and (from 1793)
militia, Carrickfergus was treated as part of the barony of
Belfast Lower in county Antrim. In 1899, under the terms of the
Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, the Local Government Board for Ireland combined the judicial county of the town of Carrickfergus and most of the judicial county of Antrim into the
administrative county of Antrim. Thereafter the area was sometimes but not always considered as a barony. In the topographical index of the 1926 census, Carrickfergus is not in the list of baronies, and the "barony" value listed for the corresponding townlands is blank. However, notices in
The Belfast Gazette from the same era refer to the "barony of Carrickfergus", and it is listed on the
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland website. Under the
Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 the whole barony forms part of the jurisdiction of
Carrickfergus Borough Council, which in 2015 merged into
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. ==Settlements==