LOCAL STUDIES: SOME GUIDELINES FOR AMA liEUIR ILOCAl HISTORY RESEARCHERS

As County Librarian I am asked from time to time about Poor Law Unions approaches to local studies projects. Such requests are generated by people who have a special" interest in a Under the Irish Poor Law Act (1838) the country was locality, but who may not be faminar with either the divided up into 159 districts which were defined as Poor methodology of undertaking the task, or with source Law Unions. They were set up in an effort to relieve material available for their special study. This article is some of the abject poverty rife in Ireland at the time. intended to help "would-be" students of local history Workhouses were erected at central places in each of towards achieving a worthwhile compilation, and in so the Unions. Th Old Roscommon Workhouse is doing will discuss problems which may arise in the incorporated into the present Sacred Heart Home, and course of such an undertaking. remains one of the better preserved examples in the There are three critical aspects to be examined: country. Tax on property provided the financial basis for these are the definition of relief, and it was for this purpose that Griffith's Valuation was commissioned. Unions were subdivided 1. Place 2. Time 3. Theme into electoral divisions, which returned elected representatives to serve on the Board of Guardians. Taking "Place" as our first topic seems straight forward Parishes: enough. Most people are interested in a specific location for their special study. Yet we can encounter problems These were the smallest and most numerous unit in the when making decisions as to precise definition of place, administrative structure of the Catholic Church in Ireland. i.e. a place for which we are going to be able to find the Parishes were associated with the monastic and critical facts essential to complete our study. Let me episcopal church organisations and are obviously very explain by first of all defining the various territorial units, old divisions. The Anglo-Normans were familiar with the on which we might consider basing a local study. old parochial system, and made few alterations when they took over. The old divisions adopted by the Barony: Established Church were used as civil territorial divisions in the land surveys of the 17th. century. The absence of The Barony was introduced as a unit of land ownership, a strong Protestant presence in the greater part of the and may have consisted of several ''tuatha'', which were country meant that the old parish centre became land divisions held by Irish septs. New divisions devised neglected, and failed to attract settlement. by the English were often based on existing (old) It is interesting to look at the discrepancies between divisions. There were in total 273 Baronies in Ireland, the the Civil and Catholic parishes and to consider how Roscommon ones being: these arose. From the Reformation onwards, the two major religious communities in Ireland had separate Ballintubber (North and South) Boyle parish structures. The older parishes dating to medieval Ballymoe (Half Barony) Castlerea times and earlier were adopted by the Protestant Church. The Catholic Church, on the other hand served Roscommon Athlone (North and South) an impoverished people and, due to the Reformation, Moycarn (Half Barony.) had lost its great resources of land and wealth. The crushing poverty of the population, and the difficulty in From the sixteenth century onwards the Barony finding suitable priests, ensured that the new parishes was widely used as an administrative, taxation and were much greater in size. Population growth in the 18th. regional unit. Its use as a convenient division of the century led to the subdivision of large units. Therefore, County continued throughout the 17th Century.The three the evolution of the present day parish network of the great state ledgers, The Civil Survey, The Down Catholic Church has to be seen in terms of population Survey and The Books of Survey and Distribution growth, and had little to do with the pre-reformation mark out land ownership and changes in land ownership parish system. at this time. During the 18th. century, County rates were paid on a Barony basis, as levied by the Grand Jury. The Townland: barony was used as a census enumeration unit up until 1901 and Griffith's Valuation (1852) was both This was the smallest administrative division in the organised and published by barony.. The Local country, its main purpose being to distinguish between Government Act, 1898 brought an·end to the barony as different locations. It pinpoints the location of farms and a meaningful territorial division, with the re-organisation settlements. All other territorial divisions are composed of .LocalGovernment. of collections of townlands. The townland became the basic division of the countryside in the 17th century. The

115 association of the townland with landownership may date are chosen. This involves examining these themes from this period only. It is possible that the earli~r at significant points, historically speaking, and townland names referred to settlement rather than farms: defining them in relation to the major source Sir William Petty divided Baronies and parishes into bodies. townlands in the Down Survey. The name of townlands, their area, owners, land quality and settlement were Once the problems of place, time and theme have been recorded in the earlier Civil Survey, 1654-6. From this sorted out, it is time to have a look at source material, period onwards land was let by landlords on a townland and to try and put together an initial.list of secondary and basis, and townlands were recorded in a great variety of primary source materials. These lists or bibliographies documentation concerning land. In the 19th century the will not, of course, be exhaustive at this stage, but they townland was used in a number of surveys. The rental of will offer a starting point. By its nature one source leads estates was organised on a townland basis. to another, and by degrees a whole body of references Townlands were not created in a haphazard fashion can be compiled. and their shapes and sizes are related to local The local studies source material available in the topography and farming practices. Townland size is a County Library is comprised of several different reflection of land quality and density of settlement. Large elements: printed books, journal abstracts, local area townlands are usually found in hilly areas or boglands, files, newspapers on microfilm, photographs, prints, where there is no arable land. The irregular 'shapes of maps, some MSS. materials etc. The main collection is early townlands are due to the utilisation of rivers and hill held at the Library H.Q., in Roscommon town. It is crests as boundaries. advisable to telephone in advance 6f a visit, so that staff can assemble references of interest. Anyone In considering "place" we come up against the undertaking a local area study can be assured of a problems outlined above. The most socially significant welcome, and a guarantee that every effort will be made territorial unit is the Catholic parish, but as demonstrated to accommodate him/her in the pursuit of information. it is neither a mapping nor a census unit. A study of a The library H.Q. telephone number is (0903) 26100, Ext. Catholic parish will therefore lack precision in relation to 182, for advance notice of visit. Those who wish a less these two vital areas. Townland data will be available, but formal approach are free to visit at opening hours from then the problem arises of matching that data to the Tuesday to Saturday inclusive, as desired. All will be parish area. On the other hand the·Civil Parish has little welcome. social recognition, although it forms the basis for the by Helen Kilcline collection of' Census data, and is a recognised O.S. division. The barony may sometimes offer the best solution, as an area for a local study.

VISIT To consider the problem of Time, this is interconnected with place and theme. Broad studies which attempt too wide a coverage of a time span may be too general to be of great benefit, unless the "place" element is very confined. Smaller areas than a barony could warrant a profitable study over a longer period. I have heard it 1kate's suggested that a time span of 300 years or less in the case of a study on the scale of a barony or county is probably the maximum sustainable. These problems need to be considered in relation to source materials

~ THEME: To consider the problem of theme, t~e selection of a "Home is where particular theme or group of themes can avoid the problem of producing a mere reference list of events and the Hearth is" places. The idea is to consider dealing with limited topics within a confined area. There are two approaches which may be taken here:- (a) the vertical or (b) the cross-section approach. (a) In the case of the vertical theme one particular feature is taken and examined through time. (b) In the cross-section method a number of themes

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