This thesis examines the evolution of local politics in Fingal through the experiences of its political elite, who exercised varying degrees of power and influence through local government in the generations from 1870 to 1948. It concentrates on local political leaders, their personalities, motivations, ideals, activities, alliances and rivalries and their responses to and relationship with a changing national political landscape. It explores the effect of reforming legislation on political life in Fingal, enquiring whether a measure of autonomy was achieved through local government before independence, and whether this continued after 1922. The thesis also examines the nature and extent of the social as well as the political revolution that occurred, and attempts to determine the extent to which a counter-revolution followed in independent Ireland. The period from 1870 to 1948 can be characterised as one of continuity and change, frequently local continuity at a time of national change. The significance of intervening periods of progress and consolidation between momentous episodes are often underestimated. The questions of land, class and nationalism permeate the entire period, but not in lockstep with the national narrative. In the mid-nineteenth century, Fingal was home to some of the most senior figures in the Conservative party and governments in the United Kingdom, including George Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Edward Taylor. Individuals 'from Fingal played leading roles in the Land War, but their native region was quiet. It was the :pnly rural location involved in the Dublin Lockout in 1913. Fingal men were military participants in the Easter Rising, but the area remained relatively quiescent thereafter. This thesis examines the debates and conduct on these local government bodies as a window on what was happening in local society Local government can be a bridge between the state and local society, a visible manifestation of the state in people's lives.