MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND.
431 GALWAY.
TUAM.
BOROUGPI OF TUAM.
1.
THE Limits of this borough are not defined by charter or ascertained by perambulations, Limits.
but are generally considered to extend about two miles round the town.
2.
The inhabitants of Tuam were first incorporated by a Charter of James L, in the Charters.
eleventh year of his reign, (1613,) enrolled in Chancery (Pat.
11 Jac.
I.
p.
1, m.
20,) and the constitution thereby created corresponds with that generally given to the new boroughs then made by this monarch.
Its provisions will be noticed in the course of this Report, as it is the charter by which the corporation professes to be governed at the present day.
James II.
granted a charter to this borough, in the fourth year of his reign, which has not been acted on since the Revolution.
It is enrolled in Chancery (Pat.
4 James II.
p.
1, m.41.)
3.
The corporation consists, by the charter of James L, of a sovereign, 12 free burgesses, Classes,.
and a commonalty.
4.
The Title is " The Sovereign, Free Burgesses, and Commonalty of the Borough of Title-Tuam."
5.
The officers named in the charter are,
' Officers named in A Sovereign,
the Charter' Twelve Free Burgesses, Two Serjeants at Mace.
6.
Other officers appear at times to have been appointed, namely, Other Officers.
A Town Clerk, Recorder, Treasurer, Constables, Scavengers, Inspectors of Markets, Bellman, Weiffhmaster.
7.
There are not at present any Freemen regularly admitted as such, except one honorary Freemen, freeman, the Marquis of Anglesea.
The members of the corporation of late years have admitted the inhabitants of the borough to act as the commonalty on some occasions in which that body has by the charter a right to interfere.
8.
The Sovereign, formerly called " the Superior," is elected annually by the majority of Sovereign, how an assembly consisting of the sovereign and free burgesses, on the feast of the nativity of elected-St.
John.
He must be a free burgess.
He is to hold the office for one year from the feast of St.
Michael, and until another shall be duly elected and sworn.
His oath of office is to be administered on the feast of St.
Michael by the sovereign of the preceding year.
Power to fill a vacancy happening in the office during the year, is given to the free burgesses ancl commonalty.
"Notwithstanding the provision of the charter which requires the sovereign to be sworn before his predecessor, the same individual has been frequently re-elected.
The present sovereign has been re-elected successively for the last six years.
A resolution of the sovereign and burgesses was made in the year 1699, against the practice, but repealed in 1736.
The resolution of 1699, was revived in 1818, and again repealed in 1823.
In 1822 an election of the sovereign occurs by the free burgesses alone, the sovereign having refused to attend.
9.
There is no power given by the charter to appoint a Deputy Sovereign, but numerous Deputy Sovereign, instances of such appointments occur in the records of the corporation; the last we find in 1812, when the appointment is stated to have been made by the sovereign and burgesses, agreeably to u antient usage and a bye4aw of the corporation."
We have not found the bye-law referred to.
10.
The sovereign is the chief officer of the corporation, and presides at all corporate Functions of the meetings.
Sovereign.
Pie is the judge ofthe Borough Court.
He acts under the charter as clerk ofthe market, and appears in that capacity to exercise a discretionary power of fining persons committing nuisances or yiolating the regulations of the markets.
Although nominally chief magistrate ofthe town, the sovereign is not, as such, a justice of the peace, and does not act in that character.
It has been stated to us as very desirable that the sovereign should be ex officio a magistrate of the county.
The present sovereign was appointed a county magistrate on the petition of the burgesses in 1828, being then sovereign, but afterwards superseded on a representation being made of his acting as a proctor in the Consistorial Court ofthe Archbishop of Tuam.
