Carrickfergus (barony)
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Carrickfergus Carraig Fhearghais (Irish) |
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 Location of the barony of Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. |
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| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Country | Northern Ireland |
| County | Antrim |
Coordinates: 54°44′13″N 5°50′56″W / 54.737°N 5.849°W
Carrickfergus is a barony in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is bounded on the south-east by Belfast Lough, and otherwise surrounded by the barony of Belfast Lower. It is coextensive with the civil parish of Carrickfergus or St Nicholas and corresponds to the former county of the town of Carrickfergus, a county corporate encompassing Carrickfergus town.
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 grand jury of the county of the town of Carrickfergus was unchanged by the 1840 act. Till 1850, Carrickfergus was also county town of Antrim; the Town Gaol and Town Courthouse were for the county of the town, while the County Gaol and County Courthouse were separate buildings within the town regarded as exclaves of county Antrim, but from 1800 both counties used the same facilities. The parliamentary borough of Carrickfergus was coterminous with the county of the town from the Act 2 & 3 William IV c.89 till it was abolished under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.
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