An Introduction to County Kerry Administrative Divisions And Genealogical
Records
7:30pm Wednesday 10 Apr 2013
The Seanchaí: Kerry Writers Museum, 24 The Square, Listowel, Co. Kerry
by Paddy Waldron
WWW version:
Introduction
- In your research, you will eventually come to an ancestor whom you cannot
find in the obvious place
- possibly because records have not survived
- possibly because of unexpected spelling variations in personal and/or
place names
- possibly because it is not obvious which of many individuals (or parallel
families) sharing a common name (or names) is the right one
- Searching by place may be the easiest way to find or identify your
ancestors
- The Gaelic Athletic Association has ensured that Irish people have an emotional attachment to their parish and county
- Tracing pre-G.A.A. ancestors requires a knowledge of several other layers of administrative divisions.
- Ireland has been partitioned in different ways at many different times in
history
- Making life simple for future genealogists was not important to those
creating records
- It is worth investing a little effort to learn about the different
subdivisions and their uses
- Understanding the system will save money squandered on ordering the wrong
records
- Local spelling variations can be encountered in placenames as well as
personal names
- Concentrate primarily on the PLACE itself on the map, placeNAMEs are
secondary
- A good ear and eye for Irish placenames will help to identify the
relevant records, but trial and error may be required, and a good knowledge
of administrative divisions certainly is required
- Some website designers risk causing confusion by inventing their own new
terms (or even duplicate terms) for historic subdivisions
- The following tips aim to prevent any possible confusion
- For example, 1911
Census Form N has spaces for eleven potentially overlapping layers of
subdivision:
- Parliamentary Division
- Constabulary District
- and Sub-District
- City, Urban District, Town or Village
- Parliamentary Borough
- Barony
- Parish
- Poor Law Union
as well as for
- District Electoral Division
- Townland or Street; and
- County
which may be familiar from the online transcriptions of the census. (Some
of the above are relevant only in urban areas; others only in rural
areas.)
- This talk is taking place in the townland of Listowel in the District
Electoral Division of Listowel in the Dispensary District of Listowel in
the Poor Law Union of Listowel
- In other places, these four layers all have different names.
- We are in the Civil Parish of Listowel, in the Barony of Iraghticonnor,
in County Kerry, in the Province of Munster
- Most of these subdivisions are not signposted today, if they ever were,
and their boundaries are, at best, familiar only to people living
locally.
- The existence of signposts generally requires strong local government or
community spirit, and a budget!
- Ideally, selected layers of subdivisions could be superimposed on online
maps
- Clare County Library has two such systems: mapbrowser
and GMaps
- Large subdivisions: Anglo-Irish Treaty 6 Dec 1921:
- 26 county Irish Free State and 6 county Northern Ireland
- Castleblaney Poor Law
Union was also partitioned, as it straddled the new border
- Armagh and Londonderry probate
districts were also partitioned
- so copies of some pre-1922 BMD and probate records may be found on
both sides of the border
- New administrative subdivisions almost never respected pre-existing
divisions, even ignoring major natural boundaries like the River
Shannon
- Let's start with small subdivisions, and concentrate on ancestors living
in more rural areas
Townlands
- Pre-Norman origins
- Boundaries mapped and spellings standardised by Ordnance Survey of Ireland,
Est. 1824, completed 1846
- Spellings still vary greatly in everyday usage
- 61,106(ish) townlands at logainm.ie
- Searchable IreAtlas database re-keyed from 1851
book by John Broderick R.I.P. (aka SeanRuad) (d.2001)
- For each townland, the database shows in which County, Barony, Civil
Parish, Poor Law Union and Province it lies
- Very few typos in
transcription and in 1851 book
- Names are not unique: 236 townlands called Glebe
- But Listowel
townland contains Listowel Glebe
- Parish name usually used to distinguish between two townlands with the
same name, e.g. Aglish
townland [Aglish parish] (near Killarney) and Aglish
townland [Minard parish] (Dingle peninsula)
- Townlands divided between different landlords: e.g. Skehanierin (Egan)
and Skehanierin (Stokes) in Kerry; Sallybank (Merritt) and Sallybank
(Parker) in Clare; Ballinacurra (Bowman), Ballinacurra (Hart) and
Ballinacurra (Weston) in Limerick
- To avoid ambiguity, one must use maps as well as indexes, lists and
databases
- Original maps, e.g. Milltown, St.
Peter's Parish, county Dublin
- Parish maps, e.g. townlands in
Listowel parish
- Note how the River
Feale has changed its course
- Traditional and ancient precursor of postcodes
- Appear in some parish register entries
- Appear on birth and death certificates, but not in indexes
- e.g., births
in Trineragh (official spelling Trienearagh; child's birthplace on
original record becomes father's birthplace on extract; doesn't find James Stephen
Costello)
- Used to organise Griffith's Valuation
- e.g., Gortcurreen
- Used to organise 1901 and 1911 census returns
- e.g., 1901
census of Islandganniv North townland
- Official names not always used locally - e.g. Rhynagonaught, Derryard,
Parkduff, Clohanes and Doughmore near Doonbeg, county Clare, are not
official townland names
- Of these, Clohanes comprises part or all of four townlands:
Cloonnagarnaun, Cloonmore, Carrowmore and Carrowmore North
- Subtownland names historically and even today used locally - e.g. in
Clare, Pulleen in
Glascloon, Clifden and Newtown Killeen near Doonbeg; Newtown in
Carrownaweelaun, Oldtown in Knocknagarhoon
- It is critically important to establish the official name of the townland
in which your ancestors lived and to locate it on the OSI map.
(District) Electoral Divisions (DEDs)
- Small groups of townlands (average c.18 townlands per DED)
- Boundaries established by Poor Law Boundary Commission in 1830s, major
revisions after the Famine
- Initially, each DED elected one or more Poor Law Guardian (PLG) to
the local Board of Guardians (comprising elected and ex officio guardians)
which administered the Workhouse
- After the post-Famine revisions, each DED elected exactly one
PLG
- Multi-seat constituencies were broken down into several smaller
single-seat constituencies
- Post-Famine DEDs did not respect the boundaries of the pre-Famine DEDs, e.g. in Moyarta civil parish, county Clare
- 3,491 electoral divisions at logainm.ie
- Names sometimes taken from a townland within the DED (e.g. Trienearagh,
county Kerry), sometimes not (e.g. St.
Martins, county Clare)
- Used to organise 1901 and 1911 census returns
- DED names are not unique - two
Castletowns in County Limerick
- Names can change - Mount
Elva in 1901 became Ballyvaghan
in 1911
- DEDs can be broken up - Dysert
in 1901 became Dysert
and Kilnamona
in 1911 (more details here)
- Also Kilkee
in 1901 became Kilkee
and Kilfearagh
in 1911
- Since 1994, known as Electoral Divisions
- Excellent maps at
logainm.ie
- Valuation Office cancelled books are bound by DED
- Use the census
search form to find the DED in which a given townland lies
- If your ancestors lived in a DED which shared its name with a townland,
make sure whether or not they lived in that townland
Dispensary Districts or Dispensary and Registration Districts or
Registrar's Districts
- Small groups of DEDs (approximately 798 in total; average c.5 DEDs per
Dispensary District)
- Boundaries established under the Medical Charities Act of 1851
- Used for registration of births, all marriages and deaths from 1 Jan
1864
- One book for each Dispensary District for births, for marriages and for
deaths in local (county) registration offices (Killarney?)
- Each Dispensary District had a Registrar, usually the local dispensary
doctor, who registered births and deaths; the clergy were involved in
registration of marriages.
- Sometimes took names of DEDs (underlined on
maps) and/or townlands within their boundaries
- Often took now obscure names, e.g. in county Clare: Annacarriga (includes
Killaloe), Killanniv (includes Kilmaley), Coolacasey (includes
Sixmilebridge), Cragaknock (includes Mullagh)
- Use the map to
find the Dispensary District in which a given DED lies
- Appear on birth and death certificates, but not in civil registration
indexes
- e.g., births
in Ballyhorgan from familysearch.org Ireland Births and Baptisms (1860s
and 1870s)
- Dispensary District boundaries usually respect DED boundaries, but not in
the case of Fontstown/Monasterevin/Athy
- If Ireland Births and Baptisms shows a three-digit page number (often
misrecorded as a christening location), then the placename always refers to
the Dispensary District.
- Further discussion on Clare
Past Forum and Clare
County Library website
- With common names, knowing the Registration District makes it easier to
locate the relevant birth records (1864-1881)
Poor Law Unions (PLUs) or Superintendent Registrar's Districts (or, at
familysearch.org and ancestry.com, mis-described as registration districts)
- Under Poor Law (in England), care of the poor was traditionally based on
parishes
- PLUs were (roughly) unions of parishes brought together to care for the
poor
- Boundaries of the original 130 PLUs were established by the Poor Law
Boundary Commission in the late 1830s
- But parish and county boundaries were not always respected
- e.g., in county Clare, Kilfinaghta parish split between Ennis, Limerick
and (later) Tulla PLUs
- In 1851, Kerry comprised part of Glin PLU and all of another
six Poor Law Unions: Cahersiveen, Dingle, Kenmare, Killarney, Listowel and Tralee
- Board of Guardians oversaw the running of the PLU
- Use the townland
index to find the PLU in which a given townland lies
- Boundaries of administrative divisions often changed over time!
- Dingle PLU formally came into being on 22 February 1848, created from the
western part of the Tralee Union
- Glin PLU formally came into being on 28 March 1850, created from the
eastern part of the Listowel Union and western part of the Rathkeale
Union
- Following a decline in the use of its workhouse, the Glin Board of
Guardians petitioned the Local Government Board to dissolve the union. This
took place on 30 September 1891 with the union's constituent divisions once
again divided among the adjacent Listowel and Rathkeale unions.
- Were the post-1891 boundaries identical with the pre-1850 boundaries?
- In the later years of Griffith's Valuation, the Valuation was printed one PLU at a time, so all entries within the PLU refer to the same date
- PLU appears in Civil
Registration Indexes of BMDs (see sample page from original
index (1866)), so search by PLU
- e.g., only
two registrations in Glin after 1892 (transcription errors or late
registrations?)
- With uncommon surnames, one can sometimes deduce that all occurences of a
name in a PLU are a single family, e.g. Brew
births in Killadysert
Civil Parishes
- 2,566 civil parishes in Ireland at logainm.ie
- 87 unique civil parish names in Kerry at Rootsweb
- many of these are split between PLUs or Baronies, giving 118 search
results at seanruad.com
- 89 civil parishes are listed by Ireland
Reaching Out - includes County Kerry within the parish list and both
Dyserts
- Several Kerry parishes are split into non-adjacent parts, e.g. Bunrower
townland and part of Cahernane townland and part of Castlelough Bay in
Lough Leane are in Aghadoe civil parish, completely
surrounded by Killarney parish
- Parishes a little bigger on average than DEDs
- Of early Christian origin
- Used as the basis of Tithe
Applotment Books (1823-1837)
- Used by the Established Church (Church of Ireland to 1800, United Church
of England and Ireland (1801-1870)), Anglican Church - but parishes with
small Anglican populations combined into Unions from an early date.
- Boundaries mapped and spellings standardised by Ordnance Survey of
Ireland
- Civil parish boundaries may not respect townland boundaries: e.g. Cahernane
above
- The townlands of Ballintogher and Dunguib on the Waldron estate at Helen Park
and the adjoining townland of Springhill on the Hemphill estate in county
Tipperary all straddle the boundary between the civil parishes of Graystown
and Killenaule
- Civil parish boundaries may not respect county boundaries: e.g. St.
Munchin's, St. Patrick's and Killeely all straddle the boundary between
counties Clare and Limerick which causes confusion
on the Tithe
Applotment Books website
- Lewis
(1837) says that Stradbally civil parish (Castleconnell) straddled the
boundary between counties Limerick and Tipperary, but the townland index
and OSI maps
show otherwise
- Use the townland
index to find the civil parish in which a given townland lies
Catholic Parishes
- Roughly based on civil parishes; boundaries diverged post-Reformation
- Gerard Curtin in Every Field Had a Name: The Place-names of West
Limerick (Sliabh Luachra Historical Society, 2012) writes (p.2):
The details on Catholic parish boundaries are taken from research work
done by the Limerick Archives and Family Ancestry when they were in
operation at The Granary, Michael Street, Limerick. Some of their
research may not be seen as correct in a small number of parishes, as in
my travels I came across varied opinions of Catholic parish boundaries.
In cases it was put forward that people in certain areas were paying
church dues to a certain parish or playing football or hurling with
another parish. However, where townlands are divided between parishes the
whole situation was locally generally confused and it was decided to let
the research stand ... the boundaries of the civil parishes and the later
Catholic parishes were in almost all cases totally different.
- Often known by the name of the main town or village
- e.g., Kilfearagh/Kilkee, Killard/Doonbeg, Moyarta/Carrigaholt,
Kilballyowen/Cross
- Most rural Irish parishes actually have at least three names:
- parish name
- town or village name
- the saint(s) (etc) to whom the church(es) in the parish are dedicated
(mainly used by the diaspora, mainly in U.S. cities, who have grown up
with an affiliation to their urban parish and the associated saint(s)
(etc); it generally rings no bells with the native Irish living outside
the parish)
- Two or more adjoining parishes were often split or merged
- See table with examples from Kilrush Poor Law Union on Kilrush and District Historical Society
website
- Shown on irishgenealogy.ie
as Parish/Church/Congregation when the Area is (RC)
- Marriages traditionally took place in the bride's home parish
- Many new brides also returned to their mothers' homes and parishes for
the birth of their first child
- But once railway transport became commonplace, strong farmers and the
merchant class often travelled to a more fashionable big town or city for
weddings, e.g. Ennis, Limerick, Dublin, even London, nowadays Rome
- Check whether the townland in which your ancestors lived was always in
the same Catholic parish that it is in today
- If PLU and Dispensary District boundaries did not respect parish
boundaries, then marriages in the local church could be registered in a
different PLU or Dispensary District from home births and deaths
- e.g., there are eight
townlands in Kilmurry Ibrickan civil parish which lie in Ennistimon
Poor Law Union, with the remainder of the civil parish, including the
churches, in Kilrush PLU
- 53 Catholic parishes in Diocese of Kerry (see map)
- traditionally every diocese had access to the coast or major inland
waterways, so that the Bishop could travel to Rome without passing through
another diocese
- Diocesan boundaries respect parish boundaries!
- 26 Catholic dioceses in Ireland at Catholic-Hierarchy
- 12 Anglican
dioceses
- see map of
Catholic Archdioceses, Dioceses and Provinces
- e.g., Killaloe is both a town in county Clare and a diocese extending over parts of
counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, Offaly and Laois, extending almost
(but not quite) as far as Borris-in-Ossory
in the Diocese of
Ossory.
- Kerry diocese was formerly known as Ardfert diocese
- Canon Law gives parish clergy responsibility for Catholic parish
registers, but they are usually influenced by diocesan policy
Baronies
- 346 baronies at logainm.ie (average c.7 parishes per
barony)
- may not respect other boundaries, e.g. Knocknahooan
townland (Moyarta/Clonderalaw) or Kilmacduane parish (Acres townland in
Ibrickan; remainder in Moyarta)
- Probate
districts, set up in 1858, appear to have respected baronial
boundaries, but not county boundaries
- In the earlier years of Griffith's Valuation, the Valuation was printed one barony at a time, so all entries within the barony refer to the same date
- used in lists of freeholders
- e.g. 1821
- fell into disuse after introduction of county councils in 1898
Counties
- Ireland was shired in the middle ages (Kerry and Wicklow in around 1606
were the last counties formally established)
- The only mention of counties (or any administrative subdivisions of the
State other than Dáil constituencies) in the Constitution
is the right of Councils to nominate candidates for the presidency
- Article 28A, inserted in 1999, provides for local government, but not for
any associated administrative subdivisions
- traditionally 32 counties
- "County Fingal" established c.1994, signposts didn't last long
- County Councils established 1898
- The area around Whitegate and Mountshannon moved from county Galway to
county Clare in 1898 (Clonrush parish and most of Inishcaltra parish)
Irish Family History Foundation (IFHF) Centres
- Be grateful that these are not relevant to Kerry!
- Based on a mixture of diocesan and county boundaries
- Most of Clare not covered at rootsireland.ie
- Cratloe and Parteen/Meelick parishes part of Limerick
Genealogy
- Different boundaries for different religious denominations
- e.g., St. Paul's Catholic parish in Dublin part of Swords Heritage Centre; St.
Paul's Church of Ireland parish part of irishgenealogy.ie
"City or Town" for "Last Permanent Residence" and/or "Place of Birth" on
Ellis Island Manifests
- Four McNamara siblings from the townland of Moveen West in the DED of
Moveen, dispensary district of Carrigaholt, parish of Moyarta, barony of
Moyarta, Poor Law Union of Kilrush, and County of Clare all gave their Last
Permanent Residence as Ireland, Kilkee. Catherine and Annie gave their
Place of Birth as Ireland, Kilkee, but John and Martin gave theirs as
Ireland, Moveen.
- Probably the same as Post
Town, as listed in Jane
Lyons's Catholic Parish index based
on A Complete Catholic Registry, Directory and Almanack (1836
edn.)
Provinces
- Four or five? (Meath)
- County boundaries are respected
GAA Provinces
- Galway are 2012 Leinster Hurling Champions!
Catholic Provinces
- Four, one under each archdiocese (see map)
- Diocesan boundaries are respected
Anglican Provinces
Electoral Constituencies
- Boundaries reviewed after each census
Telephone Area Codes
- Cuid a Dó last published 1985
- 01, 02, 04, 05, 06, 07/09
- A future genealogical source (after mobiles replace landlines!)
Examples
- Doonbeg
DED provides good examples of most of the anomalies that can arise in
dealing with Irish administrative divisions. Doonbeg DED comprises eight
townlands. Doonbeg townland is divided into two parts for the 1911 census,
Doonbeg Town and plain Doonbeg, the rural part of the townland. In local
usage, parts of Doonbeg townland are known by local names such as
Rhynagonaught. Five of the eight townlands are in Killard civil parish and
the other three in Kilmacduane civil parish. The Killard townlands and one
of the Kilmacduane townlands (Acres) are in Ibrickan barony; the other two
Kilmacduane townlands are in Moyarta barony. Three of the Killard townlands
(Cloonmore, Carrowmore and Carrowmore North), along with Cloonnagarnaun in
Cloonadrum DED, are known locally as Clohanes, and are separated from the
rest of Killard parish by the Scivileen river. The road from Clohanes to
the rest of Doonbeg parish goes through Kilmacduane parish. Carrowmore
South townland, which does not adjoin Carrowmore North townland, is in
Knocknagore DED but still in Killard civil parish.
- case study of Moyarta civil
parish in county Clare on Ireland Reaching Out website.