Land and property records and our Ballyduff
family
By Rod O’Donoghue
Originally published November 2012
Originally published November 2012
In previous
blogs I have referred to some of these records.
Recently the full entries in the Tithe Applotment Books were made
available in digital form (summary data was available before) and I thought it
might be a good idea to show those for our family. They do raise issues with my previous thoughts,
but that is inevitable as knowledge evolves, it does not appear all at once! As all sorts of uncommon words crop up so I
have provided some explanations (thanks to the net).
This article
leads to a discussion of the Famine and its effect on our family. I will deal with that in detail in a later
article, so only peripheral comments will be made here.
Landholding
There was a layered class structure: head landlords, gentry farmers,
middling farmers, small tenant farmers, conacre cottiers and landless labourers.
A cottier in Ireland
(c.1700–1850) was a person who rented a simple cabin and between one and one
and a half acres of land upon which to grow potatoes, oats and possibly flax. The ground was held on a year to year basis
and rent was often paid in labour. Usually,
the land available to the cottier class was land that was considered
unprofitable for any other use.
The cottier existed at subsistence
level because of high rentals and the competition for land and labour. The more prosperous cottier worked for his
landlord and received cash after rent and other expenses were deducted. There was no incentive to improve a holding as
any such improvement usually prompted a rent increase.
During the early decades of the nineteenth
century, the situation for cottiers worsened considerably as the population
continued to expand and in turn led to the dramatic events of the Irish Famine of 1845–49. After the Famine,
the cottier class almost completely disappeared (as did our family).
Conacre
(a corruption of corn-acre), in Ireland, is a
system of letting land, formerly in small patches or strips,
and usually for tillage (growth of corn or potatoes).
During the 19th century, conacre land was
normally let on an eleven month system - considered to be of sufficient length
to sow and harvest a crop but without creating a relationship between landlord
and tenant. Holding the land under
conacre granted no legal rights to the land with rent being paid in cash, labour
or a combination of both. Some
historians believe that it was one of the factors responsible for the Great Irish Famine.
The land owner would manure the land before
letting, usually at a rate of between £6 and £14 per acre in 1840. The principal defect in the practice was the
nature of its speculative system; the labourer who took the land was frequently
an indigent speculator who, dependent on the weather, either made a profit or
faced ruin. During the 19th century,
there were many cases of middlemen renting the land and then sub-letting on
conacre to desperate landless labourers or cottiers at a high profit.
The percentage of all families residing in the different classes of
housing in County Kerry are shown below
Class One: Houses of superior standing with ten rooms or more 1.5%
Class Two: Houses with five to nine rooms either a good farm or town
house 11.1%
Class Three: Mud cabins/cottages with two to four rooms or windows
29.8%
Class Four: One-roomed mud cabins 57.6%
A farmer would have been considered comfortable on
50 or more acres. While the average small tenant farmer on 5 to 30 acres could
usually provide a basic living for a family, the prospect of poverty always
remained.
By 1841 40% of
all land holdings in Kerry were between 1 and 5 acres and a further 30% in
category of 15 acres or more
On the eve of famine in Kerry 87.4% lived in poor
circumstances – exceptionally high compared to national figures. While small tenant farming families were
increasingly susceptible to poverty by mid 1840s this generally fell short of
excessive and oppressive destitution experienced by landless labourers.
Tithe Applotment Books
The Tithe Applotment Books (TABs) are a vital
source for genealogical research for the pre-Famine period, given the loss of
the 1821-51 Census records. They were compiled between 1823 and 1837 in order
to determine the amount which occupiers of agricultural holdings over one acre
should pay in tithes to the Church of Ireland (the main Protestant church and
the church established by the State until its disestablishment in 1871).
There is a manuscript book for almost every civil (Church of Ireland) parish in the country giving the names of occupiers of each townland, the amount of land held and the sums to be paid in tithes. Because the tithes were levied on agricultural land, urban areas are not included. Unfortunately, the books provide only the names of heads of family, not other family members.
The books have been digitally imaged, and a database giving surname, forename, county, parish and townland created. All of these fields can be searched, and there is also a browse facility, which allows users to survey entire parishes and townlands.
The population of Ireland was recorded in 1841 as 8.2 million. It would have been somewhat less than this during the 1820s and 1830s, when the Tithe Applotment Books were compiled.
Land measurement has changed a lot since the early
19th C. I do remember being
taught about acres, rods, poles and perches at school, but then I am in my 70s!
Rods, poles and perches used in the TABs are
different names for the same unit sometimes!
Other times the rod or rood is a separate measurement. Confused?
So am I!
I read that medieval ploughing was done with oxen,
up to 4 pairs at a time. The ploughman
handled the plough. His boy controlled
the oxen using a stick, which had to be long enough to reach all the oxen. This was the rod, pole or perch. It was an
obvious implement to measure the fields, such as 4 poles to the chain (another
measurement!). A BBC webpage about
allotments says that ‘an allotment plot is 10 poles’ and claims that ‘A
pole is measured as the length from the back of the plough to the nose of the
ox’. I suppose that if you wanted to
control the front ox, you needed a pole long enough to reach! The perch was used in the reign of Henry II
(1154-1189), the pole since the 16th C, and the rod since 1450. In the 16th century the lawful rod was decreed
to be the combined length of the left feet of 16 men as they left church on a
Sunday morning! In North Devon there is
a tradition that fencing, that is to say the cutting and laying of a hedge,
would be done at so much a land yard, which seemed to be about 5 paces or 5.5
yards, which would equate to a rod, pole or perch. An earlier name for a rod
was a gyrd which is the derivation of a yard. Feel better?
Good...
The Donoghue
siblings
Some recall on our earliest generation
Sylvester Donoghue = Mary Flahive
BartholomewJohn = Mary Scanlan or Ellen Johnson
James Donoghue = Juliana Boyle
Ellen = Maurice Nelan
Thomas = Ellen Loughnane?
Catherine
It is this group who will have been the heads of
households when the TABs for Rattoo and Killury civil parishes were recorded in
1825. All the townlands mentioned are
very close to Ballyduff.
Sylvester and
Bartholomew Donoghue
The entry covering Sylvester is on the top line on
the sheet below and he is named as Silvy.
He was living in Chapel Land which would have been right behind the
church. His holding was only 1 acre - 0
r (rods) - 36 p (perches) and rented at £1-12s per acre. It also says that the 36 perches were left
for the Chapel, which implies some sort of relationship. This amount of land would classify Sylvester
as a cottier and very poor, so how could he have afforded a large mausoleum in
Rattoo Churchyard? The TABs only covered
agricultural land and I suspect that he actually lived in Ballyduff village and
like his brother James did some sort of trade. Perhaps this was his allotment.
A Bartholomew or Bat, as he is shown, also lived on
Chapel Land and occupied 1 acre - 0 rods - 4 perches and paid £2/acre. Similar comments probably apply to him as to his
brother, Silvy; he was probably an artisan rather than a farmer.
But there is also another Bartholomew shown as
living on East Benmore (ie in the immediate village area) who is occupying 6
acres at a rent of £1-17s/acre, and I am not sure if that is the father or the
son, but suspect he is the son of Bat in Chapel Land
Whichever was the son married Bridget Ferris and there is a John Ferris in Lacka (again very close to Ballyduff) who occupied 110 acres rented at 15s/ acre because the land was poor with about half being coarse and bog land.
John Donoghue
Bishopscourt is the townland where one of the three major landlords lived, Thomas Stoughton, and is right on the edge of the village. John occupied 14 acres and paid £1-12s/acre which is the same rent as Sylvester.
Also we find Michael Ryle in Bishopscourt with a holding of 24 acres. He is almost certainly the father of Thomas Ryle who married James’s daughter Mary.
Ellen Donoghue = Maurice Nelan
Maurice Nelan occupied 64 acres at a rent of £1-14s/acre in East
Knoppoge, which is also right on the edge of the village. This holding would suggest a comfortable farmer
and a good marriage for Ellen.
Griffiths Valuation
In
1825 Richard Griffith was appointed by the British Government to carry out a
boundary survey of Ireland. He was to mark the boundaries of every county, barony, civil parish and townland in
preparation for the first Ordnance Survey. He completed the boundary work in 1844.
He was
also called upon to assist in the preparation of a Parliamentary Bill to
provide for the general valuation of Ireland. This Act was passed in 1826, and
he was appointed Commissioner of Valuation in 1827, but did not start work until
1830 when the new 6" maps became available from the Ordnance Survey and
which he was required to use as provided for by statute.
He
served as Commissioner until 1868, when he was succeeded by Sir John Ball
Greene CB, who then took charge of the ongoing revisions of the valuation on an
annual basis. Griffith also served as Chairman of the Board of Works. He
conducted two major valuation surveys. First, was the townland valuation, which
was completed in the 1840s and which took the townland as the geographical unit
of valuation. The second and more extensive, was the tenement survey which
valued individual property separately for the first time and which also valued
all buildings in the townland for the first time, whereas, heretofore only the
larger houses, principally those of the gentry had been valued in the first
valuation.
Julia Donoghue and Mary Ryle
Ballyduff was valued in 1853 by which time most of
our family seems to have left Ireland.
However, as the Griffiths record shows (see at the end), James’s wife
Julia (or a daughter of the same name) was still living in the village. And Mary Ryle, her daughter (or sister), was
living down the road in Benmore. Both
were occupying houses with a garden.
Sean Ryle, Mary’s descendant, tells me that by 1864 Mary had taken over
Julia’s house.
Future research
There is a lot more for me to do with the TABs and
Griffiths. I will research all the other
names with which we are associated.
My next visit to Ireland will be to Dublin to look at the available
land and will records.
The Registry of Deeds was founded in Dublin in 1708 but its heyday, in
terms of popularity, was 1750-1830. Most
deeds in the Registry concern leases
of land and property rather than ownership
so the Registry of Deeds is not the exclusive preserve of the aristocracy or
gentry.
For a lease to require
registration, it needed to be for 31 years or three lives; such leases were
more likely to involve 'second level' landlords. Most farmers and small holders, had leases
for a year (or 'at will') which were not registered. It is probable that our ancestors fell into
this category but it will be worth a look.
After the Famine, many landowners found
themselves financially if not morally embarrassed. Parliament set up a Court to
administer the sale of these insolvent estates in 1848/9 and pre-sale
catalogues were produced to entice prospective buyers.
These sale particulars provided details of
tenants on the land, together with the value and terms of their tenancy or
rental commitment. They cover the entire island of Ireland. Genealogical potential
is significant, since more than 500,000 tenants are recorded in the collection.
These records are known as the Landed
Estates Court Rentals and again are worth looking at.
The National Archives
also holds many relevant records on wills and testamentary records and I will
go through them. To date I have felt
that our folks and their spouses’ families were not wealthy enough for wills to
be relevant but now I am not so sure. We
will see...
Sources and acknowledgements:
http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/tithe-applotment-books-and-the-primary-griffith-valuation/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conacrehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotter_(farmer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith's_Valuation
http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/units/length.htm
Kerry during the Great Famine 1845-52 by Kieran Foley, UCD July 1997
The Great Famine in the Poor Law Unions of Dingle and Killarney 1845-52,
Shane Lehane M.Phil. UCC
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