Dungarvan Town Council

Dungarvan Town Council, previously known as Dungarvan Urban District Council, was responsible for administration and some public services in Dungarvan, County Waterford. It was abolished in 2014 as part of reforms under the Local Government Reform Act 2014.

Town records date to the establishment of the Town Commissioners in 1855, but many have been destroyed over the years. The earliest Dungarvan local council in surviving records is The Portreeve & Commons of the Town of Dungarvan, which was mentioned in an act of Edward IV's parliament held in Wexford in 1463, as follows:

"As the Seigniory of Dungarvan was the most great and antient honour of the King of Ireland, which through war etc., was for the most part destroyed...it was ordained that the Portreeve and Commonalty may have and enjoy all manner of free grants, liberties, privileges and customs as the tenants and inhabitants of the honourable Manor of Clare in England enjoyed, with a further power to take customs of all kinds of merchandise bought and sold within the franchises as the Mayor and Commons of Bristol did, the profits to go to the reparation of the walls and towers under the survey of the Earl of Desmond."

The earliest portreeve in surviving records was Jermyn Tuke of 1511. The earliest known native Irishman in the commons was Teigh O'Molgan, found in a list of jurors in the 1537 document Presentment of the Tenants and Burgesses of the Manor of Dungarvan.

James I granted a charter to Dungarvan in 1609 or 1610 to establish an elected corporation. This corporation consisted of a sovereign, twelve brethren and various burgesses. These positions were elected from and by the burgesses annually. The burgesses would, in turn, appoint positions of Recorder, Town Clerk, two "Serjeants [sic] at Mace and a water bailiff," and this body had the power to hold a Court of D'Oyer Hundred twice annually to make by laws. The sovereign and recorder had the role of Justices of the Peace and would hold a Court of Record every Monday and a Court leet twice annually. The ultimate duties of this corporation included building a prison, making reparations to "the walls" and oversight and taxation of the local market. As its capture was recorded in 1642, we know that a town hall was in existence at that time and it is believed some of that building was incorporated into the Old Market House on the Main Street.

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