Urban and rural districts (Ireland)

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Urban district
Local Government Areas in 1898
Category	Local government area
Location	Ireland
Found in	Administrative county
Created by	Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
Created	1899
Abolished by	Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 Local Government Act 2001 Local Government Reform Act 2014
Abolished	Northern Ireland: 1973 Ireland: 2002/2014
Government	Urban district council

Urban and rural districts were divisions of administrative counties in Ireland created in 1899. These local government areas elected urban district councils (UDCs) and rural district councils (RDCs) respectively which shared responsibilities with a county council. They were established when all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom.

In Northern Ireland, both urban and rural districts were abolished in 1973. In the Republic of Ireland, which had left the United Kingdom in 1922 as the Irish Free State, rural districts were abolished in the Irish Free State in 1925, except in County Dublin, where they were abolished in 1930. Urban district councils continued until 2002, when they were replaced by town councils. These were abolished in turn in 2014, resulting in a single tier only of local government in the Republic of Ireland.