There are a whole series of records that need to be pulled together to do a major study of a town for research purposes. Such a study will, in passing, result in a considerable amount of family history detail which is not always of particular interest to urban historians, unless it should, for example disclose the career of a developer who was responsible for a number of building projects or an architect or a merchant involved in enterprising schemes. An aspect of course, that will be important is the study of population in regard to family size, age at marriage, number of assistants helping, servants, style of house, intensity of land use and so on.

I would like to recommend to you as a good basis for research that the work commence with either the current situation or the position in 1901 as and from the census of that year and also the 1911 census. The 1901 and 1911 censuses will provide a benchmark for research and provide much valuable family history information along the way. My own approach to a fact-gathering exercise that I am involved with at present for Tullamore (prior to an analysis) I set out below, and it is a course that I would recommend for family history enthusiasts seeking to unearth either:

1. the history of a particular family, or
2. the history of a particular house and its various residents.

I will start with the present situation and work back using Co. Offaly material to illustrate the variety of sources many of which are applicable to all towns.
Because my interest in family history is a sidelight to urban history and Irish historical studies generally, I want to particularly recommend the following publications:
Studying Family and Community History: 19th and 20th centuries (4 volumes, Cambridge, 1994).

• Volume 1 From family tree to family history (Ruth Finnegan and Michael Drake, editors)
• Volume 2 From family history to community history (W.T.R. Pryce, ed.)
• Volume 3 Communities and families (John Golby, ed.)
• Volume 4 Surveys and methods for family and community histories: a handbook (Michael Drake and Ruth Finnegan, editors).

The fourth volume in the series is particularly useful for United Kingdom and Irish readers.
For the general background to Irish towns one can consult the two volumes of Thomas Davis lectures on the subject edited by Anngret Simms and J. H. Andrews:

Irish Country Towns (Dublin, 1994)
More Irish Country Towns (Dublin, 1995)
See also Howard B. Clarke (ed.) Irish Cities (Dublin, 1995)
Also emerging as a valuable source is The Atlas of Irish Historic Towns: editors J. H. Andrews, A. Simms, H. B. Clarke, R. Gillespie, no. 1 Kildare by J. H. Andrews (1986), no. 2 Carrickfergus by P. Robinson (1986), no. 3 Bandon by P. O'Flanagan (1988), no. 4 Kells by A. Simms with K. Simms (1990), no. 5 Mullingar by J. H. Andrews with K. M. Davies (1992), no. 6 Athlone by H. Murtagh (1994), no. 7 Maynooth by A. A. Horner (1995), no. 8 Downpatrick by R. H. Buchanan and A. Wilson (1996), Royal Irish Academy, Dublin.

Town Records:
For general and valuable material on the growth and development of Irish towns see the select bibliography in B.J. Graham and L.J. Proudfoot (eds.)
Urban improvement in provincial Ireland, 1700 - 1840 (Athlone, 1994).
Records of the manor courts and councils of Irish towns, where available, contain useful genealogical material. See, for example, T. Fogarty (ed.), Council Book of the Corporation of Drogheda from the year 1649 to 1734 (Drogheda , 1915 reprinted Cork 1988). Another example is Brian O' Dalaigh (ed.) The Corporation Book of Ennis. (Dublin, 1990) Philomena Connolly and Geoffrey Martin (editors), The Dublin Guild Merchant Roll, 1190 - 1265 (Dublin, 1992) - lists some 8,400 men and three women. Jean Agnew, 'Sources for the history of Belfast in the 17th and early 18th centuries' in Familia, vol. ii, no. 8 (1992), pp 150 - 158. 'An alphabetical list of the Freemen of the city of Dublin, 1774 - 1824' in The Irish Ancestor, vol. xv, numbers 1 and 2 (1983), pp 1 - 133. See also Mary Clark, 'Sources for Irish freemen' in Aspects of Irish genealogy (Dublin, 1993), pp 44 - 53. This is a useful source list for a number of cities and towns in a book which alongside Falley, Begley (ed.), Grenham and Ryan is very useful. Finally reference should be made to the county history series pioneered by William Nolan of Geography Publications.

1. William Nolan (ed.) Tipperary History and Society (Dublin, 1985)
2. Kevin Whelan (ed.) Wexford: History and Society. (Dublin, 1987)
3. William Nolan and Kevin Whelan (editors), Kilkenny History and Society (Dublin, 1990)
4. F.H.A. Aalen and Kevin Whelan (editors), Dublin: city and county: from prehistory to present. (Dublin, 1992)
5. William Nolan and Thomas P. Power (editors), Waterford: History and Society (Dublin, 1992).
6. Patrick O' Flanagan and Cornelius F. Buttimer (editors), Cork:History and Society (Dublin, 1993)
7. Ken Hanigan and William Nolan (eds), Wicklow: History and Society (Dublin, 1994).

1. CENSUS DATA

There is little need for me to elaborate on what is contained in the 1901 and 1911 censuses, save that these are, as you know, extremely valuable sources for urban history. They have been used to a small extent in urban studies, but have not been used to any significant extent in family history studies as yet. The 1901 census, for example, will provide a snapshot of the resident of every household in an urban area in 1901. The picture can then be compared with that in 1911, for continuity of occupancy, change in family size and family circumstances.

For those fortunate enough to have the 1821 census, (the Ballybritt barony including Birr town survives for 1821), one has an immediate connection through an urban study with occupancy and family history over a span of almost 100 years.
Recently published guides to Irish census material include the following:

1. Sean Murphy 'A primer in Irish genealogy' in Irish Roots (1995, no. 3), pp 10 - 11.
2. Rosemary ffolliott 'Irish census returns and census subsitutes' in Donal Begley (ed.) Irish Genealogy: a record finder (Dublin, 1981), pp 51 - 74.
3. James G. Ryan Irish Records: sources for family and local history (Salt Lake City, 1988).
4. John Grenham Tracing Your Irish Ancestors (Dublin, 1992), pp 13 - 21.
5. Judith Eccles Wright 'Census substitutes' in Irish Roots (1995, No. 2), pp 6-7 - deals principally with the locations of Grand Jury presentment books.
6. S. A. Royle, 'Irish Manuscript census records: a neglected source of information' in Irish Geography vol. II (1978), pp 110 - 125. This article besides being the first in the field has a useful bibliography.

The above are but the useful introductory pieces. Numerous books and articles have been published by way of regional studies, for example, the Farrell guides to exploring family origins in Cavan, Longford and Leitrim and on the 1841 census Kevin O'Neill, Family and farm in pre-Famine Ireland: the parish of Killashandra (Wisconsin, 1984)..

2. ORDNANCE MAPS

This is an important source for the reason that we are getting a grip on each property, its exact location, and using the valuation numbers which I will deal with in a moment, it is possible to plot each house number and accord it a number consistent with the primary valuation records of 1843/60s. I need not here elaborate on the various guides that have been published to the ordnance maps. Suffice it to say that important surveys will include the following:

1. the town plans of the 1830s, which are (or were) housed in the Ordnance Survey and were done at the same time as the six inch maps.
2. the six inch maps themselves published in the 1830s and 1840s. However, these maps lack the large scale detail which can be useful.
3. the valuation maps of the 1840s and 1850s are an essential source for use in conjunction with Griffith's Valuation.
4. the large scale town plans which were carried out in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s for certain towns are extremely useful.
5. the six-inch and twenty-five inch scale surveys at the turn of the century. These surveys were the last conducted until the Ordnance Survey prepared new town maps on the metric scale in recent years. The conjunction of all these maps and their close study will pinpoint ancestor residences, the types of houses, number of extensions to a property and other improvements.

I have found the most useful guide to the Ordnance Survey maps to be that of J. H. Andrews History in the Ordnance Map (Dublin, 1974). There are also valuable pre-Ordnance Survey estate maps for many towns which can often include tenants' schedules.

3. VALUATION RECORDS

After the census and maps I would put valuation records as an important source, again because of the effective coverage of these records. In this regard I would mention the manuscript town surveys housed in the National Archive which, in the case of Tullamore, for example, provide details of the quality and type of house occupied, rental values in the 1840s and can be compared and contrasted with the valuations provided in the printed valuation, known as Griffith's Valuation, of the 1850s.

Griffith's Valuation
The primary valuation of rateable property in Ireland otherwise known as Griffith's valuation is another source which is comprehensive in its coverage. Andrews in his History in the Ordnance Map (Dublin, 1974), p. 56 states:

'With the introduction of a new local rating system as a result of the Irish relief act of 1838 the State assumed responsibility for the valuing of single tenements as well as whole townlands. At first this duty was delegated to the county authorities but later it was transferred to Griffith, whose valuators now began to map farm boundaries instead of soil boundaries. Where necessary these boundaries were established by means of a pecial chain survey, but most of them coincided with streams or fences already on the maps.'

In 1852 the government resolved to complete the valuation of the whole country on a uniform plan. The new figures were printed and published in books [over 200 were published] containing the name of every occupier of land or buildings, the name of the immediate lesor, a brief description of the tenement (distinguishing industrial and public buildings from dwelling houses), the area of the tenement in statute measure to the nearest perch, and separate valuations for land and buildings. There were also references to the appropriate sheet of the published six-inch map and to the number assigned by the valuators to each tenement within its townland. The same tenement numbers appeared again on the Valuation Office copy of the map as a handwritten annotation in red ink. 'Taken together, the printed book and the annotated map gave an almost complete picture of the tenurial geography of mid-nineteenth century Ireland.'

The valuation maps are housed in the Valuation Office at Ely Place Dublin (students may consult them and other records for a fee). The King's County (County Offaly) valuation, for example, is covered in several volumes classified by poor law union and townland, and in the case of towns street by street; see the valuation books for the unions of Tullamore, Parsonstown, Edenderry, Roscrea and Mountmellick. No overall valuation of the country has been carried out since the 1850s but the primary valuation has been revised many times which makes it possible to trace the successive occupants of houses and land after 1860 and up to the present day and also in some cases the reason for an increased valuation such as a new shop front or improvements to a dwelling. This information is available in manuscript books at the Valuation Office.

The manuscript valuation which preceeded the printed valuation can be consulted at the National Archive and is of great importance. In the case of towns not only are the occupants given but also the use to which the house was put if other than a private dwelling. Of course, the occupant in the period when the manuscript valuation was carried out (Tullamore 1843 and revised 1844) may differ from the occupant in 1854 when the printed valuation appeared. Good descriptions are given of houses and their class (according to a system which the valuators used) and industrial concerns are often well described. The numbering system in the manuscript valuation may differ from that in the printed valuation but after a little study it becomes easy to establish on what side and at what end of the street the valuator started, it can be then linked up with the printed valuation. Apart from the general guides to sources such as Falley (1962, reprinted 1988), and Grenham (1992). I would commend the short piece on 'The Valuation Office' in Irish Roots (1993, number 3), pp 10 - 11.

Tithe Composition applotment books
The tithe composition applotment books provide a detailed account of the occupiers of land with the extent and value of their individual farms at a point within the period 1823 to 1837. Simington in his article 'The tithe composition applotment books' in Anal. Hib. (no. 10, July, 1941), pp 295 - 8 stated:

'The origin of these books descriptive of every parish in Ireland, excepting cities and the larger towns, resides in the act of parliament of July, 1823 providing for the substitution of a money payment in respect of tithes in the place of that formerly rendered in kind. The new method of tithe payment involved a valuation of the country, parish by parish.... The Tithe Composition Books [now in the National Archive].... are the record and expression of that valuation, and as such uniformly show the denominations of land, titheable, comprising each parish, the landholders, the areas of the farms, their valuations and the proportion of future tithe payable.'

Sometimes a map will be found with a parish survey. Another useful article on the books appears in Ir. Geography, iii, no. 5 (1958), pp 254 - 62. The article by J. H. Johnson is concerned with the applotment books as a source for land use, farm size and their use in placename study and the reconstruction of parish boundaries.

4. LEGAL RECORDS

Legal records are difficult to access and not always easy to understand or use unless one is in the business of conveyancing and transferring of land. However, the essentials are clearcut enough. First of all it should be said that most land in urban areas in Ireland is what is known as unregistered land as distinct from registered land which is that which has a folio and file plan, i.e. a large book with separate maps contained in a register which will be found in the Land Registry and which for registered land provides clear authority for the ownership and mapping of property. However, outside of the counties of Meath, Carlow, Laois (the three compulsory registration counties), most of the current transactions for urban areas still involve what is known as unregistered land. Unregistered land is essentially where one gets a bundle of deeds for a property and these documents provide not certification but prima facie evidence that the title is as represented in the deeds and documents. Some of these documents will have maps attached which will be extremely helpful in identifying the plots of ground involved in the conveyancing transactions. However, it should be pointed out that the originals of these documents are not easily accessed as they are generally held by building societies and banks or by the owners of the properties and all that the researcher can get access to usually are memorials or summaries of these documents from the Registry of Deeds. Almost all unregistered land transactions nowadays are registered in the Registry of Deeds but this was not always the case, particularly in relation to what might be regarded as second-rate property in the nineteenth century and certainly so in the eighteenth century.

The Registry of Deeds
A small amount of legal knowledge is required to distinguish between conveyances of freeholds, conveyances of fee-farm grants which are virtually freeholds subject to a rent and assignments of leaseholds which can be what are known as long-leases and rack-rent leases. The long leases are the format under which apartments are sold nowadays and are effectively freeholds but subject to various covenants and rents. The short leases are what are used for shopping centres where the rent is increased every five years or so and often times these sort of leases are not registered in the Registry of Deeds because they may not exceed twenty-one years. Only when a lease was in excess of twenty-one years was there an obligation to register. I should also say that the onus is on the purchaser of property to ensure that he/she registers the transaction in the Registry of Deeds. The Registry of Deeds, certainly for main street houses such as one would find in Ennis or Galway or the city of Dublin will provide a fairly comprehensive picture of land transactions for over 300 years or from the time that the house was constructed or the headlease granted up to the present day.
Some leases are quite informative as to

1. witnesses
2. consideration
3. the various covenants

However, the current trend is to keep the memorials as short as possible which may be suitable to lawyers but is not going to help in historical research. For certain towns and cities the Registry of Deeds will be a mine of information, for example, a place such as Dawson Street, Dublin or Ship Street, Galway will probably have a Registry of Deeds history back to near the founding of the registry in 1708, in terms of the registration of transactions.

The preservation of legal records is of the utmost importance because a bundle of title documents will usually disclose information additional to what would be registered in the Registry of Deeds and as such will give a more comprehensive picture and probably a better history of the familes involved. Associated documents will be marriage settlements, wills, family settlements, receipts and so forth.

The registry was set up in 1708 'for securing purchases, preventing forgeries and fraudulent gifts and conveyances of land, tenements and hereditaments, which have been frequently practised in this kingdom, especially by papists, to the great prejudice of the Protestant interest thereof' or in short to supplement the penal laws, the number of which was increased in the period following the Williamite wars, though the amount of land in catholic hands by 1703 was no more than 14 per cent. For a guide to the registry see:

1. P. B. Phair, ' A guide to the registry of Deeds' in Anal. Hib., no 23 (1966), pp 259-76
2. Peter Roebuck, 'The Irish Registry of Deeds' in Irish Historical Studies, xviii, no 69 (March, 1972), pp 61-73.
3. Rosemary ffolliott, 'The Registry of Deeds for genealogical purposes' in Donal Begley (ed.) Irish Genealogy: a record finder (Dublin, 1981), pp 139 - 156.
4. Jean Agnew 'How to use the Registry of Deeds in Ireland' in Familia, voll. ii, no.6 (1990), pp 78 - 84.
5. Kevin O'Rourke and Ben Polak 'Property transactions in Ireland, 1708 - 1988; an introduction' in Irish economic and social history, volume xxi (1994), pp 58 - 71.

This article provides in the appendix the total number of property transactions in Ireland, 1708 - 1988. For anyone wanting to get heavily involved in property and not being clear about the significance of the deeds and their meaning one can look at Wiley's Irish Land Law and for short introductions to title deeds N. W. Alcock, Old Title Deeds (Phillimore, 1986) and Title Deeds A. A. Dibben (The Historical Association, 1971).

The registry is of tremendous importance to historians, especially those concerned with the eighteenth century, and there are some signs now that this is at last being realised. Besides its value to the student of family history it can be of use in tracing the pattern of urban settlement. To the historian of an estate it may help him to determine when additions to an estate were made, or perhaps portions sold. The registry is particularly valuable when the estate office type material no longer survives. For an example of its use in this area see Arnold Horner 'Carton, Co Kildare : a case study of the making of an Irish demesne' in Georgian Soc. Quar. Bull., xviii (1975), pp 55-104.

Regarding the registry and its procedures it may be said that a deed between the period 1708 and 1832 was any document signed sealed and delivered and as such was considered capable of registration. In 1832 an act was passed which in practice limited registration to deeds affecting lands in Ireland. Registration is effected by the enrolment in the registry of a memorial which contains the essential details of the original deed. By 1832 the number of memorials of deeds registered amounted to 588,983 and by the 1930s more than two and a quarter million documents were on record. Full copies of the memorial are contained in transcript books which date from 1708 and are indexed by place (generally, barony and townland , and corporate town ) and by name of grantor (there is no index of grantees). The place index is not now used and searches are carried out under the grantor's name and not that of the grantee. This is important to remember because you will need to know who granted the property, or search for a longer period in the hope of finding a grantee who eventually becomes a grantor with the deed reciting the history of the property. The registry is situated in King's Inn, Henrietta Street, Dublin. A scale of fees is in operation for members of the public who wish to search the registry.

The registry as a source for the economic development of towns, Tullamore in 1750:
'Thomas Wilson of Tullamore, wool comber, assigned to Benjamin Wilson of Mount Wilson, Farmer, all his, Thomas Wilson's interest in the house and concern at Tullamore in which he then dwelt... all his real estate in Ireland. Thomas also made over to Benjamin his personal estate....'all his stock in trade in the tanyard at Tullamore and all hides leather and bark therein, and all vatts and utensils then made use and contained in the said tanyard and also his stock in trade in the woolen manufacture consisting of wool worsted and other particulars ....(Wilson to Wilson, 13 June 1750, Reg. Deeds, mem. 81-457-121324)
In the case of the Wilson house the coverage in the registry seems to be very full but the original deeds often have maps which are absent from the transcripts in the registry together with additional material which may not have been registered.

The records of the Encumbered Estates Court
Landlords suffered in the depression which occurred after the Napoleonic wars: rents declined and arrears rose, but many landlords failed to realise the weakness in their position and continued to live as they had done before 1815. Estates were charged beyond their value with mortgage payments and payment due to widows and family members. The famine brought the situation to crisis point: the crippling poor rate and further diminished rent left many landlords with heavily embarrassed estates. It was to facilitate the conveyance of these estates that the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 was passed. The act empowered an 'Encumbered Estates Court' to sell estates either on application from the owners or those who had claims on the estate. Between 1849 and 1857 over 3,000 estates were sold under the terms of the act.

The records of the court are in the National Archive and are indexed. The particulars regarding each estate to be sold are useful, for example, in the town of Tullamore one estate was sold - the property of Robert Belton. The property consisted of houses in Patrick Street and Tea Lane, about 37 in all and let to tenants at rents from 4d to £2 per week. Many of the tenants held on a weekly basis their occupancy of a house being 'determinable every Friday'. the freehold reversion in the houses was sold in 1856 for £105. For an account of the background to the act see the article by Padraig Lane 'The Encumbered Estate Court' in The Economic and Social Review, iii no.3 (April, 1972), pp 413-53. See also Padraig G. Lane 'The impact of the Encumbered Estates Court upon the landlords of Galway and Mayo' in Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, vol. 38, 1981/82 pp 45 - 58 and Padraig G. Lane 'The management of estates by financial corporations in Ireland after the famine' in Studia Hibernica no. 14 (1974), pp 67 - 89.

5. LANDLORD ESTATE RECORDS

Landed estate records are of immense importance in that now, one is getting an overview of what went on in a particular town or estate with a series of lists of tenants names, rents being paid, improvements being carried out and policy relating to the estate. Typically landlords are giving leases for town plots as early as the 1720s and often these leases were for three lives and renewable forever. The leases themselves will, if registered recite who the lives were and a renewal fine may tell us who the lease was renewed in the name of and who the new lives are. The lives were often family members and relations and such information can also be helpful in trying to establish links within a family. Generally landlords did not dispose of land by freehold or 999 year lease, and instead in Ireland choose to lease for lives or let land on shorter terms. The benefit being to the landlord that:

1. through the covenants in the lease the landlord could control development in the town and try and bring it about in an orderly fashion.
2. it led to town expansion.
3. it provided a regular income over many years for the landlord.
4. it provided votes for political patronage.

Many of the large Dublin estates for example, Pembroke, Meath, Longford continue to sell the freeholds of leases which were created back two and three hundred years ago.
According to the 1876 list of landowners for King's County there were 785 persons with 491,527 acres of land or virtually the whole county. Lords Digby, Charleville and Rosse held 79,000 acres between them while Lieut. Colonel Thomas Bernard and the Marquess of Downshire held roughly 16,000 and 14,000 acres respectively. With the exception of the Downshire estate at Edenderry no work has been done on King's County estates. W. A. Maguire in his The Downshire estates in Ireland, 1801 - 45 (Oxford, 1972) provide valuable material on the situation at Edenderry before the Famine:

'The bottom layer of society at Edenderry was composed of landless labourers, many of whom were reduced to beggary by unemployment. Most of these beggars or near-beggars seem to have existed in the neighbourhood of the town, but some squatters were on the edge of the bog. In bad times the position of these unfortunates became desperate. In June 1817 a period of famine, Brownrigg [the agent] reported that about 100 families, excluding common beggars, were receiving relief from a local distress fund '.... Downshire estates p. 224.

Perhaps a more useful book for schools and the general reader is W. A. Maguire's Letters of a great Irish landlord (HMSO, 1974) where there are many letters concerning the Edenderry estates and some interesting illustrations.

Some information on King's County estates, and on estates in general will be found in the facsimiles of documents compiled by the National Library and published as The landed gentry (Dublin, 1977). Calendars of estate papers have been published, see for example, The Inchiquin manuscripts, John Ainsworth (ed.), I.M.C. (Dublin, 1961). Ainsworth and MacLysaght surveyed collections in many Irish estate offices and reports on the work will be found in Anal. Hib. no. 15 (1944), no. 20 (1958), no. 23 (1966) and no. 25 (1967). In no. 25 is a calendar of the Dunne papers, 1608 to 1886, while in no. 23 several collections relating to Offaly are listed as having been surveyed and reported on. Typescript reports on the estate collections will be found in the manuscripts reading room in the National Library. Those interested in Offaly estates, for example, should note the following collections:

Atkinson, Cangort, Shinrone, 1639 - 1856 (now in NLI)
Bennett, 1719 - 1836 (in private keeping)
Biddulph, 1650 - 1851 (in private keeping)
Bouchier (Charleville estate office, Tullamore), 1709 - 1871 (in private keeping)
Goodbody, 1788 - 1855 (in private keeping)
Hoey & Denning, Tullamore 1636 - 1898 (Offaly County Library)
Ridgeway, 1620 - 1836 (in NLI)
Rolleston, Dunkerrin, 1610 - 1870 (in NLI)
Sale, 1709 - 1865 (in private keeping)
Synge, 1670 - 1847 (part of in NLI and remainder in private keeping)
Walshe, Birr , 1706 - 1821
NLI = National Library of Ireland

Other references to estate material and to the above can be followed in Hayes, Manuscript Sources, which is useful for all counties.

Apart from its use in tracing landownership, estate office material may contain information on the problems of land-tenure and the management of the estate. Where the estate includes a town (very often) the surviving estate papers could be useful for tracing the building pattern; for articles looking at this aspect see W. A. Maguire, 'The 1822 settlement of the Donegall estates' in Irish Economic and Social History, iii (1976), pp 17 - 22 and C. W. Chalklin, The provincial towns of Georgian England: a study of the building process, 1740 - 1820 (London, 1974). Estate office material may also be of use to the historian of the landscape as shown by William Smyth in an article in Ir. Geography, ix (1976). See also: Susan Hood, 'Birr, County Offaly: its history and its records' in Irish Roots, 1995, No. 3, pp 27 - 29. Miss Hood also has a useful article on sources for estate towns, Susan E. Hood ' New sources for the history of estate towns in eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland' in M. D. Evans and Eileen O' Duill (editors) Aspects of Irish Genealogy: proceedings of the 1st Irish genealogical congress (Dublin, 1993), pp 150 - 161. James Donnelly made wonderful use of estate office records in his The Land and the people of nineteenth century Cork (London, 1975). See also 'The Land Commission' in Irish Roots (1994, No 4), pp 18-19. A recent publication is the Maynooth Studies in Local History series, Ennis in the 18th century: Portrait of an Urban Community by Brian O' Dalaigh (Dublin, 1995) which illustrates the difficulties of the impecunious earl of Thomond who sold much of his town property by way of fee farm grant over the years 1707 - 1712 (O'Dalaigh, p. 37). See also L. A. Clarkson 'An anatomy of an Irish town: the economy of Armagh 1770' in Irish Economic and Social History, vol. v. (1978) pp 27 - 45.

6. LANDOWNERSHIP CHANGES, 1550 - 1700

In 1557 the Irish parliament authorised the confiscation of Leix and Offaly. The confiscation and attempted colonisation was a new departure in English policy, an attempt to extend the borders of the Pale so as to include the area the inhabitants of which had been the greatest scourge to the Palesmen; for the general background see A new history of Ireland, iii (1976). Very little detailed work on the plantation is readily available but see Robert Dunlop 'The plantation of Leix and Offaly 1556 - 1622' in English Historical. Review., vi, (1891), pages 61 - 96 . In 1968 D. G. White completed his Ph.D. thesis which dealt largely with the Leix and Offaly plantation in its early stages - 'The Tudor plantations in Ireland before 1571' (University of Dublin, Trinity College, 1968). There is a massive amount of information in this thesis for historians of the two counties; for an indication of White's line of argument see D. G. White, 'The reign of Edward VI in Ireland: some political, social and economic aspects', in Irish Historical Studies, xiv, no. 55 (Mar., 1965), pp 197 - 211. For historians of south Offaly there is N. D. Atkinson's, 'The plantation of Ely O'Carroll, 1619 - 93' (M. Litt thesis, 1958, in Trinity College Library), which is useful for the events leading up to the incorporation of Ely O'Carroll into the King's County in 1605 but it could hardly be said to be the definitive work on the subject. A large part of the King's County was planted in the reign of James I; see the map in A new history of Ireland, iii (1976), p. 220 and the discussion by Aidan Clarke.

As to original material on the period the reader could start with Edmund Curtis (ed.), 'A survey of Offaly in 1550' in Hermathena, xlv (1930), pp 312 - 52 with an important map. This is a survey of the O'Connor lordship, by inquisition, and sworn before the King's surveyor, Walter Cowley. In his preface to the document Curtis said:

'The survey is the first detailed picture, I think, that we have on the English side for the powers and prerogatives of a typical Gaelic dynast of the days when the "lords of countries" flourished unbroken. It is the first statistical account of such a country carried out by legal forms, according to the newer methods of the Tudor age.' (Curtis, ibid., p. 316).

Fiants
A useful guide to the status and form of official records is Herbert Wood's, A guide to the records deposited in the Public Record Office of Ireland (Dublin, 1919).

'Fiants are warrants to Chancery, authorising the issue of letters patent under the great seal ... They took their name from the first word of the usual form "Fiant literae patentes," "Let letters patent be made," with which the instrument commenced. They were made for grants of land of office, leases of land, fairs and markets, presentations, pensions, pardons, inventions, leave of absence, charters, commissions, etc.... (Wood, ibid., pp 10 - 11).

The fiants were destroyed in 1922 but a calendar for the period Henry VIII - Elizabeth survives, see the Reports of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Record Office of Ireland, nos. 7 - 22 (Dublin, 1875 - 90). Eamonn De Burca did a great service to Irish history and genealogy with his reprint of the fiants of the Tudors in The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Soverigns. (four vols., Dublin, 1994). These Tudor fiants record an estimated 120,000 names of individuals. The reprint is prefaced by a useful introduction from Kenneth Nicholls. Fiants vary in the amount of information they give. For example, in fiant Elizabeth 474 are set out the terms of the grant of lands at Edenderry to Henry Colley in 1563; similar conditions applied to other soldier-farmers who were granted portions of the lands of the expropriated native Irish.

'Grant to Henry Cowleye [or Colley], of Castelcowl[eye], of lands of Eddendirry alias Cowleyston, King's co., the lands of Eddendirry alias Cowleyston, Dromcowley, half Bally-m'quillin, Ballyntogher, Aghergarrowe, all Ardevasse, Ballyekylln, Balleanam, Codd, Clonmollen, Clonmyne and Shanbally, and the Shean, same co. To hold in tail male, by the service of a twentieth part of a knight's fee, and a rent of £4 17s 10d., during the first seven years, and of £7 6s. 9d. thereafter. Grantee to attend when called on, with the greater part of his servants and tenants armed, with victuals for three days, for defence of the country, and after seven years to attend all hostings; to maintain four English horsemen; to give one ploughday for each plough on his lands, or to do such work as the constable of the castle of Phillipiston may appoint. The lord lieutenant to have power to take as much wood as may be required for buildings in the county. Grantee not to use the Breawne (Brehon) law against any subject answerable to the laws of the kingdon; his sons and principal servants to use the English language, dress and rule as far as they reasonably can. He is to appear before the constable or the sheriff, on the 1st September annually, with all the men under his government, between 16 and 60, who bear arms, and deliver their names, they answering for their deeds during the year, or in default he is to give satisfaction. He shall not maintain any man of Irish blood accustomed to bear arms born outside the county, without license of the constable and a majority of the free tenants of the county. He shall keep open or closed all fords on his lands as the constable shall appoint, shall not destroy any casle, bridge, pavement, or togher, except fords adjoining an Irish country; shall not receive or attend to anyone or assist in incursions....' (Appendix to the Eleventh Report of the Deputy Keeper of Public Records in Ireland (Dublin, 1879) page 83).

Patent Rolls
These are valuable historical documents which contain similar material to that in the fiants. The originals have been destroyed but calendars were printed in the last century. For a guide to what is in print see the bibliography in A new history of Ireland iii, (1976) p. 650 and Wood's Guide to the P.R.O.I. pp 14 - 15.

Those interested in the plantation of King's County which occurred under James I will find the Irish Manuscripts Commission publication Irish patent rolls of James I: facsimile of the Irish Record commission's calendar prepared prior to 1830 with a foreword by M. C. Griffith (Dublin, 1966) most useful despite the fact that no index has been provided. For a review of this which illustrates the shortcomings of the calendar with material relating to Birr see Irish Historical Studies, vol. xv, no. 60 (September 1967), pp 480 - 81. The grant of 'the castle and fortilage of Birr' (26 June, 18 James I, page 467) and the grant of Tullamore - 'the castle, town and lands of Tullaghmore and I water-mill...' (23 April, 20 James I, page 542).

Inquisitions
Broadly there are two types, Chancery inquisitions and Exchequer inquisitions. Printed calendars of the Chancery inquisitions are available for Leinster and Ulster while manuscript copies of the Exchequer inquisitions may be seen at the National Archive. The printed Chancery inquisitions published as Inquisitionum in officio rotulorum cancellariae Hiberniae asservatum repertorium, 2 vols, Dublin, 1826 - 9) contain two categories, inquisitions post morten and inquisitions on attainder. Of the former it may be said: 'These were taken under commissions directed to the Escheators of each province, and others joined with them, to find, by oath of a jury, what lands a person died siezed of, by what rents and services they were held, and who was the next heir and his age, by which the right of the Crown to escheat and wardship was ascertained. This class ceased soon after the accession of Chas. II when feudal tenure was abolished.' (Wood, Guide to P.R.O.I., p. 12).

A similar process was adopted regarding the second category, forfeited estates. The Chancery inquisitions and the Exchequer inquisitions are in Latin (mostly legal formulae) and should this present problems see Gooder, Latin for local historians (several reprints) and C. T. Martin, The Record interpreter.... (several reprints). Regarding the Exchequer inquisitions only the manuscript calendars survive but these are of great use. Alongwith the Exchequer inquisitions there may be deeds and wills concerning the lands upon which an inquisition was held. Before turning to the well known records of the mid - seventeenth century, I must mention two regional studies which show the complexity of pre-plantation land transactions:

1. Mary O' Dowd, Power, Politics and Land: early Modern Sligo, 1568 - 1688, Belfast, 1991.
2. Michael MacCarthy - Morrogh The Munster Plantation: English Migration to southern Ireland , 1583 - 1641, Oxford, 1986.
3. Brendan O' Bric 'Galway townsmen as the owners of land in Connacht, 1585 - 1641' (UCG M.A. thesis, 1974).
4. Mary O' Dowd, ' Land inheritance in early modern County Sligo' in Irish economic and social history vol. x, (1983), 5 - 18. The importance of the Irish genealogies are emphasised while the footnotes are helpful for sources for other counties.
5. Brian MacCuarta 'A planter's interaction with Gaelic culture: Sir Matthew De Renzy (1577 - 1634) in Irish economic and social history, xx (1993), pp 1 - 17.
6. K. W. Nicholls, Land, law and society in sixteenth-century Ireland (O'Donnell Lecture, 1976).

The Civil Survey
'The Civil Survey was an essential preliminary to the Cromwellian confiscation, and like Domesday Book was a stocktaking made by the conquerors with the help of the conquered. It was a survey by inquisition, not by mapped measurement, and was carried out in all counties of Ireland except five ( Clare, Galway, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo) for which the Stafford Survey was available.' (Quoted from J.G Simms, 'The Civil Survey, 1654-56' Irish Historical Studies, ix, no. 35 (March,1955), pp 253-63).

Less than half of the Civil Survey survives the rest was burned in a fire of 1711. In fact what survives now are copies of part of an original set - the surviving original volumes were destroyed in the Four Courts fire in 1922. The provenance of the documents need not concern us too much at this stage, what is of greater importance is some knowledge of what the books contain. The surviving Civil Survey material has been published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission under the general editorship of the late R.C. Simington. Regrettably the Civil Survey material for King's County has not survived with the exception of a description of the barony boundaries published in The Civil Survey, 1654-56, vol. x: miscellanea ( Dublin, 1961), pp 25-38.

'The information given by the Civil Survey varies greatly for different areas. For example, the topographical and economic information given for Tipperary and Wexford is much richer than that given for the Ulster counties. The content of the survey of a barony evidently depended largely on the jurors, who are sometimes described as "the most able and ancient inhabitants" or "the most knowing and sufficient men" of the locality. We have the names of the jurors for Limerick, Tipperary, Muskery and the South Liberties of Cork. Most of them seen to have been Catholics and many belonged to landowning families: Gaelic names are well represented. The general scheme of the survey gives the boundaries of each barony and parish (often at great length with a wealth of local landmarks) with the following particulars for each townland : the 1640 proprietor, the name of the townland, the estimated area subdivided into arable, pasture, woodland, bog, etc., and the 1640 valuation. Notes are attached giving particulars of leases, mortgages and other charges, and also of churches, castles, houses, cabins, mills, fishing weirs, etc. In addition the survey contains much incidental information of an economic, topographical of even antiquarian character......(Simms, ibid., pp 257-8).

A general introduction to the Civil Survey by R.C. Simington will be found in all ten volumes published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission. Use should also be murder of R.C. Simington (ed.), The Transplantation to Connacht, 1654-58 (I.M.C.), Dublin, 1990). And see Raymond Gillespie 'A question of survival: the O' Farrells and Longford in the seventeenth century' in Longford: essays in county history, Gillispie and Moran (eds.) Dublin, 1991.

The Down Survey
In 1654 William Petty was appointed by the commonwealth government to map the forfeited lands set apart for the soldiers in twenty-two counties. Petty's Survey is known as the Down Survey because the measurements were mapped "down" (see the article by Sean O Domhnaill, 'The maps of the Down Survey' in Irish Historical Studies, iii, no. 12 (Sept. 1943), pp 381-95.

'The Civil Survey (a survey of all lands, forfeited and unforfeited), which was a survey by estimation and unmapped and which was immediately antecedent to the work of the Down Survey, provided Petty with particulars of the situation and estimated extent of the forfeited lands and the names of the forfeiting proprietors. All the abstracts of the Civil Survey, technically called terriers, were supplied to Petty's surveyors for their measurement and mapping... In the Civil Survey the parish was treated as a unit; in consequence, the map of the parish became the official map of the Down Survey...'

The land to be surveyed was measured by chain, and rough 'plotts' made. Lists or Terriers, often following closely the material contained in the Civil Survey sources were made out, which, for the parish, gave the names of the townlands within the parish, the area in Irish plantation measure of the forfeited townlands (distinguishing between profitable and unprofitable land), the names of the forfeiting proprietors , with in a great many cases, the name of the proprietors of unforfeited lands, the acreage of the forfeited estates and in some cases the acreage of those unforfeited..... All or much of the information contained in the terriers was displayed on the parish maps, which, in addition showed for the forfeited areas the townland division. For the unforfeited lands little or no detail was shown, but churches and castles were shown pictorially wherever they stood (O Domhnaill, ibid.).

The provenance of the Down Survey parish and barony maps now in use is as interesting as it is complicated. The official barony and parish maps of the survey were destroyed in the fires of 1711 and 1922. Copies of the maps saved after the 1711 fire were discovered in the office of a firm of solicitors, Messrs Reeves, in the 1930s and have since been transferred to the National Libary. These copies were made in 1786-7 by Daniel O'Brien, a surveyor. Photostat copies of the Reeves set of parish maps can be purchased from the National Library. The barony maps of the Hibernia Regnum set are available from the Ordnance Survey and contain almost as much detail as is in the parish maps which makes them extremely useful to the local historian.

So much for barony and parish maps: in 1685 Petty published an atlas of Ireland, Hiberniae Delineatio, showing the provinces and counties of Ireland and based on the Down Survey work. This atlas has been reprinted many times. The map of King's County is in fact the first known map of the county (maps of part of it were made in the 1560s in connection with the plantation). For further material on the Down Survey maps see Charles McNeill, 'Copies of the Down Survey maps in private keeping' in Anal. Hib., viii (1938), pp 419 - 30 and the note following it by R. C. Simington, ibid., pp 429 - 30. McNeill examined the King's County maps in the Reeves set in the hope of finding the 'missing' Geashill barony (not published) in Hibernia Regnum and consequently not available from the Ordnance Survey) but he was unaware that the entire barony of Geashill (perhaps with the exception of one townland) was owned by Lord Digby and not forfeited and therefore it was left unmapped.

The Books of Survey and Distribution
The Books of Survey and Distribution of which several sets have survived record 'Parish by parish, on facing pages the pre-Cromwellian and post-Cromwellian holders of all the lands confiscated by the commonwealth and of much of the adjacent unforfeited land' (A new history of Ireland, iii (1976), page 426). A very full introduction to the Books of Survey and Distribution will be found in any of the four volumes prepared by the I.M.C. - Roscommon, Mayo, Clare and Galway. Records survive for all counties and photostat copies are available in many county libraries. A published volume for Westmeath was prepared in the last century- John Charles Lyons, The book of survey and distribution of the estates in the county of Westmeath forfeited in the year MDCLII (Ledestown, 1852). This book is very rare and deserves reprinting.
Landownership in the Books of Survey and Distribution is recorded parish by parish and the usual format is as follows:

Left-hand side columns

1. The number of the plot in the Down Survey map
2. The proprietor in 1640 and his religion
3. Land denominations
4. Number of unprofitable acres by Down Survey
5. Number of profitable acres by Down Survey

Right-hand side columns

6. Number of profitable acres disposed of by the confiscation acts
7. To whom so disposed with the instrument of their title (indicated by a symbol - for the key see the introduction to the I.M.C. volumes)

The main sources for the left-hand side of the book are the Civil Survey and the Down Survey. Regarding the sources for the right-hand side of the book it was stated: 'Most of these derive their authority from the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, whereby not only royal confirmation was afforded of the titles gained by the Adventurers and Soldiers, under the Commonwealth legislation, but provision made for the restoration of former owners and the satisfaction of additional claimants and interests.' (Quotation from Books of Survey and Distribution, i, Roscommon, R. C. Simington (ed.) p. xiv).

In seventeenth-century Ireland land was the source of nearly all wealth. The change which took place in the distribution of landownership in the sixteenth and seventeenth century was on a vast scale. As was already noted in the period 1641 - 1703 the proportion of land in protestant ownership rose from 41 to 86 per cent. The Books of Survey and Distribution document almost all the changes which took place and hence their importance. L. J. Arnold's The restoration Land Settlement in County Dublin, 1660 - 1688 (Dublin, 1993) is a valuable working out of the intricacies of the Cromwellian and Restoration land transactions. For a discussion of the various sets of Books of Survey and Distribution see G. Tallon, 'Books of Survey and Distribution, Co. Westmeath: a comparative survey' in Analecta Hibernica, no. 28, (1978), pp 103 - 115. See also J. G. Simms, The Williamite confiscation in Ireland, 1690 - 1703 (London, 1956).

7. MISCELLANEOUS SOURCES

7.1 Wills: a good place to look for quick return in research terms is Vicars, Prerogative Wills to see what family members of the major families left a prerogative will
and also to look at course at the abstracts in the National Archive. Original wills and copy wills are valuable and are worth collecting because of the dearth of same in the National Archive following on the fire of 1922. See Rosemary ffolliott and Eileen O'Byrne 'Wills and administrations' in Donal F. Begley (ed.) Irish Genealogy: a record finder (Dublin, 1981), pp 157 - 80.

7.2 Trade Directories: Again, a valuable source and available from 1788 onwards. The Lucas Directory of 1788 is useful but it is not really until c. 1824 when one gets the first Pigot Directory that trade directories come into their own as a source for family history. After that major directories were published in 1846, 1856, 1870, 1884 and 1894. Thereafter a number of directories are published, the best known being Thom's. Thom's Directory, as I recall it, goes back to 1844 but it is really only in the mid - 1920's that it becomes extremely useful for the county town. See Rosemary ffolliott and Donal F. Begley 'Guide to Irish directories' in Donal F. Begley (ed.) ibid, pp 75 - 106.

7.3 Tombstone Records: These sources are valuable as a supplement to the Registry of Deeds, census records and church records. Again, the preparation of these records in a research base should help to promote family history.

Reviewing the situation so far, the combination of census records, mapping, valuation, estate records and trade directories will throw tremendous light on the histories of families in a particular area or your chosen family if the family were living in the same town over many years. As one would expect with any study there are a host of other sources that can be drawn upon for reference when one has hit the main items. I now want to look at some of these.

7.4 Register of Professional Persons: The Medical Register as I understand has been issued since about 1860 and is useful for UK and Irish medical families. See also pp 105 - 106 of Rosemary ffolliott's article on trade directories cited above.

7.5 Thom's Directories are available from about 1844 and are particularly good for Dublin and for county administration but not particularly good for local data of a trade directory type until the 1920s.

7.6 Registers of Lawyers: An annual directory of solicitors is published by the Incorporated Law Society. The I.M.C. publications are a most useful work for records of lawers - See Keane, Phair and Sadleir (eds.), Kings Inn admission papers, 1607 - 1867 (Dublin, 1982). See also T.C. Barnard 'Lawyers and the law in later seventeenth century Ireland' in Irish Historical Studies vol. xxviii , no 111 (May 1993), P.P. 256 - 282. The notes to this article will provide further research avenues for the interested reader. Researchers should also consult The Irish Jurist and the publications of the lately formed Irish Legal History Society.

7.7 Clerics: Apart for the work of Erck, Leslie and others (see ffolliott, ibid, pp 105 - 06) one can consult The Catholic Directory, Almanack and Registry from c. 1836 annually. See also recent publications such as Patrick J. Hamell Maynooth Students and Ordinations 1795 - 1895 and also his Maynooth Students and Ordinations 1895 - 1984 both Maynooth, 1984. John McEvoy has lately produced Carlow College, 1793 - 1993, the ordained students and the teaching staff of St. Patrick's College, Carlow (Carlow, 1993). A recently published update of the Cogan and Brady histories of the diocese of Meath contains new biographical material on Meath clergy prepared by Paul Connell. See Oliver Curran (ed.) - History of the diocese of Meath, 1860 -1993, 3 volumes Mullingar, 1995. For a reference to the Skehan index of clergy of the archdiocese of Cashel and Emly see Christy O'Dwyer 'The Skehan index of clergy; a revised edition' in Tipperary Historical Journal, 1993, p. 199. Kenneth Milne's 'The Church of Ireland: a critical bibliography, 1536 - 1992' in Irish Historical Studies volume xxviii, no. 112 (November, 1993) will direct the enquirer to the sources. Also useful for the smaller churches is James G. Ryan (ed.), Irish Church Records, their history, availability and use in family and local history research (Dublin, 1992).

7.8 School Records: certain boarding schools have published lists of boys and so on and these may be consulted for particular families. This is aside from the original school attendance records where presentation is at risk.

7.9 Church Registers and civil records: This class of records needs no introduction but again they need to be consulted. The civil records, in particular, will be useful from 1864 and the death registers, for example, can help in the difficulties of the first half of the nineteenth century. See the general guides to Irish genealogy such as Grenham (1992), Begley (ed. 1981) and Falley (1962) and Ryan (1988).

7.10 The Modern Domesday Book A starting point is the list of landowners of one acre and upwards listed in alphabetical order by county and published as a parliamentary paper (H.C., 1876 (422), lxxx, 122). Baltimore reprinted this volume in 1988. The return showed, for example, that King's County had 785 persons who owned one acre of land and upwards held 491,527 acres, 353 owners who held less than one acre owned 102 acres (presumably this category includes those who held small plots in towns) the remaining land in the county 1, 360 was estimated extent of waste lands.

A useful and perhaps more readily available reference work is U.H. Hussey de Burgh's The Landowners of Ireland (Dublin, 1878) and to a lesser extent John Bateman's The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th ed., 1883, reprinted, Leicester, 1971): see the review of Bateman in Irish Historical Studies, xviii, no 71 (March, 1973), pp 469-72.

It is important to read the introduction to the 1876 returns for details of those entitled to be entered as owner. Those with leases of less than 99 years were excluded.

Sources for family history needs to be kept under constant review. An annual bibliography would be a preliminary to a comprehensive updatable source guide.

"Kilbeggan, a corporation and market town, sending two burgesses to our parliament. This town is seated on the Brosny before described, over which it hath an ancient bridge, but now of late repaired, of lime and stone. Here stood a monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary, founded anno 1200, and replenished with monks from the Cistercian abbey of Mellifont; of this abbey remains only the name of the structure, not so much as the rubbish to be seen this day, nor of the house built here by the late lord Lambert before the late war, more than the ruins; for it was burnt in the late war, and is not to this day repaired. In this town now stands a church in repair. Hence let us visit. Ardnorchor, in the same barony, called also Horse leap; an ancient stately structure, as the ruins thereof this day shew, founded, if not finished, by the fore-mentioned Sir Hugh de Lacy; tradition telleth us, that in this place and during the building hereof, the said Sir Hugh was unworthily slain, by a meer villain, a common labourer and a native; as he was stooping down to give some directions to the workmen, the villain taking advantage of his posture knocked out his brains with his mattock or spade: this gentleman is said of stature and limbs to have been but low and small, and hence by nick-name to have been called Petite, and from him for this reason the Petits of our country would fain derive their decent; he was an excellent horseman, and of him there is a tradition, that he leaped on horse-back over the drawbridge on this place; a thing altogether incredible; notwithstanding the name Horse-leap, is alleged for proof or countenance of the fact. Here is a late built church, but on old foundations, the roof whereof is a most curious frame, and according to the new model of architecture; this is a mother church in repair as also at Ballioughloe in the barony of Fertullagh. Let us now for a while look westward again as far as the Shannon, and on the eastern bank thereof we shall meet with Clonmacnois, now indeed reputed as part of the King's county, but of old not so, for this place and three hundred acres of land was in 1638, by the management and procurement of Mr. Terence Coghlan, through the favour of Dr. Anthony Martin then lord bishop of Meath, for what reasons I know not, taken from our barony of Clonlonan, and annexed to the barony of Garri-castle in the kings county, and much I fear to our great loss in all taxes and subsidies; for I am afraid this county bears the quota of this three thousand acres, on all occasions to this day. From hence we pass unto".

While there is much more on matters of interest to Westmeath, in particular, what he has to say of some social customs at the time has more general application.

Marriages: "In their marriages, especially in those countries where cattle abound, the parents and friends on each side meet on the side of a hill, or if the weather be cold, in some place of shelter, bout midway between both dwellings; if agreement ensue, they drink the agreement bottle, as they call it, which is a bottle of good usquebaugh and this goes merrily round; for payment of the portion, which generally is a determinate number of cows, little care is taken; only the father or next of kin to the bride, fends to his neighbours and friends, sub mutuae vicissitudinis obtentu, and every one gives his cow or heifer, which is all one in the case, and this portion is quickly paid; nevertheless caution is taken from the bridegroom on the day of the delivery for restitution of the cattle, in case the bride die childless within a certain day limited by agreement, and in this case every man's own beast is restored; thus care is taken, that no man shall grow rich by often marriages; on the day of bringing home, the bridegroom and his friends ride out, and meet the bride and her friends at the place of treaty, being come near each other the custom was of old to cast short darts at the company that attended the bride, but at such distance, that seldom any hurt ensued; yet it is out of the memory of man, that the Lord of Hoath on such an occasion lost an eye; this custom of casting darts is now obsolete.

Patron Day: On the patron-day in most parishes, as also on the feasts of Easter and Whit-suntide, the more ordinary sort of people meet near the ale-house in the afternoon, on some convenient spot of ground and dance for the cake; here to be sure the piper fails not of diligent attendance; the cake to be danced for is provided at the charge of the ale-wife, and is advanced on a board on the top of a pike about ten foot high; this board is round, and from it riseth a kind of a garland, beset and tied round with meadow flowers, if it be early in the summer, it later, the garland has the addition of apples set round on pegs fastened unto it; the whole number of dancers begin all at once in a large ring, a man and a woman, and dance round about the bush, so is this garland called, and the piper, as long as they are able to hold out; they that hold out longest at the exercise, win the cake and apples, and then the ale-wife's trade goes on.

Maybush: On May-eve every family sets up before their door a green bush, strowed over with yellow flowers, which the meadows yield plentifully; in countries where timber is plentiful, they erect tall slender trees, which stand high, and they continue almost the whole year, so as a stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all signs of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses.

Bonfires on St. John's Eve, etc.: On the eves of St. John Baptist and St. Peter, they always have in every town a bonfire, late in the evenings, and carry about bundles of reeds fast tied and fired; these being dry will last long, and flame better than a torch, and be a pleasing divertive prospect to the distant beholder; a stranger would go near to imagine the whole country was on fire.

Twelve Eve: On Twelve-eve in Christmas, they use to set up as high as they can a sieve of oats, and in it a dozen of candles set round, and in the centre one larger, all lighted; this in memory of our saviour and his apostles, lights of the world.

Wakes: At funerals they have their wakes, which as now they celebrate were more befitting heathens than Christians; they sit up commonly in a barn or large room, and are entertained with beer and tobacco; they lights are set up on a table over the dead; they spend most of the night in obscene stories, and bawdy songs, until the hour come for the exercise of their devotions; then the priest calls on them to fall to their prayers for the soul of the dead, which they perform by repetition of Aves and Paters on their beads, and close the whole with a de profundis, and then immediately to the story or song again, till another hour of prayer comes; thus is the whole night spent till day: when the time of burial comes, all the women run out like mad, and now the scene is altered, nothing heard but wretched exclamations, howling and clapping of hands, enough to destroy their own and other's sense of hearing; and this was of old the heathenish custom as the poet hath observed;

"The gaping crowd around the body stand,
All weep _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ his fate,
And hasten to perform the funeral state."
Dryden.

This they fail not to do, especially if the deceased were of good patronage, or of wealth and repute, or a landlord, &c. and think it a great honour to the dead to keep all this coyl, and some have been so vain as to hire these kind of mourners to attend their dead; and yet they do not bay all this attain the end they seem to aim at, which is to be thought to mourn for the dead; for the poet hath well observed, "The truly grieved in secret weep."

At some stages where commonly they meet with great heaps of stones in the way, the corpse is laid down, and the priest or priests and all the learned fall again to their Aves and Paters, &c. during this office all is quiet and hushed; but this done the corpse is raised, and with it the out-cry again; in this manner the corpse is brought to the grave, where during the office all is hushed again; but that done and while the corpse is laying down and the earth throwing on, is the last and most vehement scene of this formal grief; and all this perhaps but to earn a groat, and from this Egyptian custom they are not to be weaned.

In some parts of Connaught, if the party deceased were of good note, they will send to the wake hogsheads of excellent stale beer and wine from all parts, with other provisions, as beef, &c. to help the expense at the funeral, and oftentimes More is sent in than can well be spent.

Month's Feast: After the day of interment of a great personage they count four weeks, and that day four weeks, all priests and friars and all gentry far and near are invited to a great feast*, the preparation to this feast are masses said in all parts of the house at once for the soul of the departed; if the room be large you shall have three or four priest together celebrating n the several corners thereof; the masses done they proceed to their feastings; and after all, every priest and friar is discharged with his largess."

Gem O'Sullivan in his Handbook of Irish Folklore and Irish Wake Amusements among others, has written extensively of what was covered here.

*Usually termed the month's mind.