Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History

by Joseph Byrne

  farra. A hen loft or roost in a house.

  fascicle. (L., fasciculus, pl, fasciculi) One of the divisions of a book which is issued in instalments.

  fassaghe lands. (Ir., fásach, a desert) Waste lands. The term was used to denote the land lying between the marches of the Pale and the lands of the native Irish which was frequently despoiled by native incursions. See maghery.

  fasti. (L., fasti dies, the authorised days, from fastus, lawful) A list or calendar of religious festivals, days on which the courts sit, anniversaries or historical events. Fasti of the churches contain episcopal and clerical succession lists. (Cotton, Fasti.)

  fealty. The oath sworn by a tenant to be faithful to his lord, to respect his person and property and to perform his feudal obligations. It was not required to be performed in the presence of the lord but could be sworn before the steward upon the entry of a son into the tenancy of his deceased father. See homage, investiture.

  fee. A fief or estate in land. In medieval times land held from a lord conditional upon the rendering of homage, military and allied services. Land held ‘in fee’ means freehold land.

  fee-farm grant. A fee simple (freehold) grant to a tenant for an annual fixed rent without any other services but forever. This was of great advantage to the tenant and was offered by lords to lure tenants during periods when there was an abundant supply of land and a scarcity of people to till the land. Land held by fee farm grant was immune from interference by the lord of the manor in that, once fixed, the rents remained unalterable and over the years, as inflation kicked in, the rents became a mere pittance. Freeholders were entitled to dispose of their estates as they saw fit but changes in ownership had to be processed through the manor court and an appropriate entry fine paid.

  feoffee. 1: A person who holds land in fee directly 2: Feoffees in a conveyance to use were family intimates who were granted seisin of an estate so that were the lord to die while his heir was a minor the crown would be denied the feudal incidents of relief, wardship and marriage.

  feoffment. An early form of conveyance effected through the ceremonial livery of seisin. Seisin (ownership) was passed when the parties and witnesses to the conveyance physically entered upon the land, the vendor symbolically handed a piece of turf or keys to the purchaser, uttered an appropriate verbal transfer and the transaction was confirmed by a written deed. Deeds of feoffment are recognisable because the action clause contains the phrase ‘given, granted, alienated, bargained and sold, and enfeoffed’. The feoffment, like the bargain and sale, was too public an affair for many landowners. A third form of conveyance, the lease and release, a secret yet valid instrument, gradually superseded both.

  fee simple, tenure in. Tenure by freehold, to all intents and purposes an absolute and unlimited tenure, often requiring the payment of a fixed sum known as a chief rent or fee-farm rent. A fee simple estate was held by a person in his own right, free from condition or limitation. The fee simple could pass to any heir unlike the fee tail which descended to a single class of heirs (the issue of the donee). See allodial tenure, fee-farm grant.

  fee tail. (Fr., taillé, cut down) An estate restricted to a specified line of succession, i.e., to a person and his lawful heirs. See entail.

  felony. A grave crime such as murder, burglary and house-breaking which was punishable by death and forfeiture of land and goods.

  feme covert. (Fr., literally, a woman covered by her husband) A doctrine of English common law well into the eighteenth century which held that a married woman, being under the protection of her husband, was to all intents and purposes legally non-existent. When acting with her husband it was considered that she had no independent will and all her actions were excused because they were performed by his command.

  feme sole. (Fr., literally, a woman alone) A spinster, widow or divorcee. A feme sole trader was a married woman entitled to engage in business in her own right independently of her husband.

  fencibles. Soldiers or militiamen intended for service in the country in which they were raised for the duration of hostilities. Between 1793 and 1802 fencible regiments were raised in Britain and Ireland, some of whom, largely Scottish, volunteered for service in Ireland.

  fenianism. See Irish Republican Brotherhood.

  feodary. A vassal or feudal tenant who holds land of a superior, subject to homage and services.

  feretory. 1: A shrine for relics 2: A room or chapel reserved as a feretory.

  fess. In heraldry, a broad horizontal band crossing the centre of an escutcheon.

  feudal incidents. The crown’s ancient entitlement to wardship, marriage, relief and escheat which were forgiven by the Tenures Abolition Act of 1662.

  fever hospitals. Following harvest failures in 1816 and 1817, Ireland was devastated by a typhus epidemic which lasted until 1819. In order to contain the epidemic fever hospitals, financed by grand jury presentments of up to twice any sum raised by local subscription, were constructed to contain the epidemic. After 1818 fever hospitals were constructed in every county and borough. However, although augmented by the construction of temporary hospitals, they were unable to cope with typhoid on the scale generated by the Great Famine. More people, it appears, died from fever than from malnutrition during the 1840s. See ague and Health, General Board of.

  fianna. An ancient Gaelic military order which supported the chief lord and maintained order and whose history is heavily interlaced with the fabulous. It forms part of the Ossianic Cycle which deals with the adventures of Fionn MacCumhaill, his son Oisín, grandson Oscar and other warrior-heroes. (Dillon, Early Irish literature, pp. 32–50.)

  fiant. (L., Fiant litterae patentes, make open letters) A warrant under the privy seal to chancery for the issue of letters patent under the great seal for commissions, grants of land, office, privileges or pardons. In the case of grants of land the warrant named the individual beneficiary and specified the value of land to be granted. Fiants were authenticated by the signature of either the sovereign, the lord justice or the lord deputy of the time. In terms of historical value the patent rolls (on which letters patent were recorded) should properly be of greater interest to the historian than the fiants. In many cases, however, letters patent were not enrolled. Furthermore, the patent rolls were destroyed in 1922 and so patents not found in the calendars of patent rolls – and never enrolled – may be found by reference to the fiants which brought them into effect. (PRI rep. DK, Appendices to 7–9, 11–13, 15–18, 21; Irish Fiants of the Tudor sovereigns.)

  fiat. (L., Let it be done, let there be made) A decree, an authoritative command or order.

  fibula. A brooch, buckle or clasp, often richly ornamented and used to fasten a cloak or other item of dress.

  fief. A feudal estate of land held in return for the payment of military and allied services to the overlord. See fee.

  field. In heraldry, the colour of the ground or surface of the shield, usually of metal, colour or fur. The two metals are or (gold) and argent (silver) and the colours are gules (red), vert (green), azure (blue), purpure (purple) and sable (black). The furs are ermine (white with black spots) and vair (bluish-grey and white cup-shaped design).

  fieri facias. Commonly known as ‘fi. fa.’, a writ lying for a person who has recovered judgement for debt and damages in the courts which commands the sheriff to levy the amount of the judgement on the defendant’s goods. The sheriff has the power to take anything of the defendant except the clothes he is wearing but is not permitted to break open the door of his house to exercise the writ. A stranger’s goods in the possession of the defendant are not subject to the writ.

  filacer. An official who filed writs and issued process thereon.

  filius/filia. Son/daughter.

  final concord. See fine.

  fine. 1: A payment 2: In land contracts a payment upfront to secure admission to a tenancy (see entry fine) 3: A collusive legal action in which a tenant-in-tail agreed to a judgement being entered against him. It was a fiction initiated to conv
ey a piece of land and confirm a change of ownership or to cancel a previous deed. Originally the tenant allowed himself to be sued for wrongful possession by the person to whom the land was being conveyed, acknowledged the plaintiff’s claim, had it approved and then had the title insured by registering it in court. Later the process became a pure formality conducted by lawyers. A final concord (an indented record of the case) was produced in triplicate, the foot of which (the foot of fine) was entered in common pleas. The upper left side was retained by the purchaser (the querent), the upper right hand side by the seller (the deforciant). A fictional sum was entered at the bottom of each part together with the seller’s warranty to defend the purchaser’s title to the property. Post-medieval fines are often accompanied by either a conveyance or a mortgage. Levying a fine was the only means by which a married woman, with the consent of her husband, could dispose of land until 1834.

  Fines were also resorted to to bar an entail although the estate produced was a ‘base fee’, a fee simple estate which persisted only as long as the entail would have continued had it not been barred and which terminated when the entail would have ended. Say Mr Green has a life estate, with remainder to Mr Brown in tail, remainder to Mr White in tail. If Mr Brown bars his entail in favour of Mr Black, Mr Black’s estate endures only as long as Mr Brown or any of his issue lives whereupon the original entail becomes active again and the estate devolves to Mr White and his issue. Unlike the recovery, levying a fine did not require the consent of the tenant in possession but a recovery was far more effective and produced a fee simple estate. English fines acts in 1489 and 1540 and the Irish Fines Act (10 Chas. I, c. 8, 1634) overturned the prohibition on the barring of entails which the statute of De Donis Conditionalibus had sought to restrict. The courts, in any case, were anxious to keep alive the principle of the alienability of land. The 1834 Fines and Recoveries Act (4 & 5 Will. IV, c. 92) abolished the need for fictive collusion by providing for the barring of an entail by the execution of a disentailing assurance. Henceforth the tenant in tail perfected a conveyance using words that a fee simple owner used to pass the fee simple. (Megarry, A manual, pp. 55–61; Wylie, Irish land law, pp. 221–224.)

  finial. In Gothic architecture, the carved ornamental foliage adorning a spire or pinnacle.

  fire, ordeal by. In medieval times, the means by which an accused person cleared himself of an accusation either by walking barefooted and blindfolded over red-hot ploughshares or by grasping a red-hot iron in the hand. Feet or hands were then bound and if after three days the wound had healed the accused was declared innocent. If they remained unhealed he was guilty.

  fireboot, firebote. A tenant’s entitlement to an allowance of fuel from the land he occupies.

  firkin. 1: A small cask or barrel 2: A measure of capacity which varied according to commodity but which in England was equivalent to a quarter barrel or one half of a kilderkin.

  First Fruits, Board of. First fruits represented the first year’s revenue of all Anglican ecclesiastical benefices which was payable as royal taxation after the Reformation (25 Hen. VIII, c. 22), replacing payments to the papacy known as annates. Clergymen were also liable for the twentieth parts, a tax of 12 pence in the pound annually out of all benefices as they were valued at the Reformation. In 1711 the twentieth parts were forgiven and the first fruits were granted to the Board of First Fruits, a body established for the purpose of buying up impropriations (tithe in lay hands). Composed chiefly of Anglican prelates, the board was empowered to finance the building and reparation of churches, purchase glebe land and construct glebe houses. It was funded from 1778 by an annual parliamentary grant – usually of about £5,000 – and received £46,863 as compensation for the loss of clerical boroughs at the Act of Union. The annual grant was increased to £60,000 in 1813 but reduced to £10,000 in 1823. In all, more than £1 million was disbursed between the Union and 1823. Initially the money was used to provide interest-free loans to clergymen to build glebe houses. From 1808 (48 Geo. III, c. 65) the board was given the freedom to apply the funds as it saw fit and it began to make non-repayable grants to clergymen with low incomes. This impacted significantly on church organisation. The number of benefices increased by 25%, there was a 30% increase in the number of churches, the number of glebe houses rose from 354 to 829 and the number of absentee clergymen declined. In 1833 the board’s functions and income were transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for Ireland as part of the reforming Church Temporalities (Ireland) Act. See impropriate.

  first instance, case of. A case other than one on appeal.

  flachter. A type of push plough used to remove the scraw or sod and prepare the turf for cutting. It consisted of a semi-circular or shovel-shaped blade mounted on a shaft which was topped by a broad cross-bar. The blade of the flachter was driven under the sod by powerful thrusts of the thigh against the cross-bar. (Evans, ‘The flachter’, p. 82–7.)

  fletcher. A person who makes or deals in arrows or bows and arrows.

  Flight of the Earls. The departure from Ireland on 14 September 1607 of Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, and Rory O’Donnell, earl of Tyrconnell, Cuconnacht Maguire and about 100 others, the reasons for which remain unclear. Apologists for the earls claim the flight was precipitated by fears that the government was plotting against them or present it as a tactical retreat to seek aid personally from Philip II. Others have argued that the extension of English law to Ulster, the persecution of Catholics and attempts by the government to drive a wedge between Gaelic overlords and their vassals represented developments to which the earls were unable to adapt. Government apologists claim the earls fled to escape justice following the discovery of a plot by O’Neill to seize Dublin Castle and establish a new government. Their flight without permission created the opening for the plantation of Ulster. (Canny, ‘The flight of the earls, pp. 380–99; McCavitt, ‘The flight of the earls, 1607’, pp. 159–73.)

  flotsam. Goods afloat in the sea after a ship has sunk or run aground.

  flux, bloody. Highly infectious, bacillary dysentery which was transmitted by contaminated food, fingers and flies and characterised by bowel colic, painful and exhausting straining and a bloody discharge from the bowels. It was recorded in Ireland as early as 763 ad and was known as ruith fola. According to Gerard Boate, a seventeenth-century Dutch physician, dysentery was so common in Ireland that the English inhabitants called it the ‘country disease’.

  folio. 1: A leaf of a manuscript 2: A leaf number as in f.8, which means folio 8. The reference f.8r. indicates the front of the leaf (recto), the side to be read first, f.8v. is a reference to the back of the leaf (verso).

  Foras feasa ar Éirinn (A basis for knowledge about Ireland). Written by Geoffrey Keating (1580–1644?), an Old English Catholic priest, Foras feasa ar Éirinn is a narrative history of Ireland down to the twelfth century. A mixture of history, myth and religion, Keating’s history tells the story of the Catholic community in Ireland with particular emphasis on the shared heritage of both native Irish (Gaeil) and Old English (Sean Ghaill) Catholics. Probably completed in 1634 and not printed for nearly a hundred years, it was the most popular book ever written in Irish and circulated widely in manuscript form. Keating collected a vast amount of material including stories, historical tracts and poems and gained access to manuscripts such as the Book of Leinster. He used succession lists of Irish kings as the framework to hold together his narrative. Keating was well versed in the writings of Welsh, English and Old English commentators on Ireland as is evident in the preface to the book where he savages, what he claims were, the false accounts of Ireland produced by Giraldus Cambrensis, Edmund Spenser, William Camden, Richard Stanihurst, Meredith Hanmer and Fynes Moryson. He was born in Tipperary, a descendant of early English settlers, and was educated to the church at Bordeaux and (probably) Rheims before returning to serve in Ireland in the early seventeenth century. (Keating, Foras feasa ar Éirinn; Cunningham, The world of Geoffrey Keating.)

  forestall. 1: To wayl
ay 2: The offence of impeding normal trading by preventing, purchasing or diverting goods before they reach the market in order to raise prices. Also known as regrating.

  forma pauperis. Permission granted by the courts to a pauper to sue without cost. It was introduced by 10 Chas. I, c. 17 (1635) and was allowed where a pauper swore that he was not worth five pounds and acquired a certificate from a lawyer stating that he had good cause to sue.

  form of the beads. Introduced in 1538 by the Protestant archbishop of Dublin, George Browne, the ‘form of the beads’ was a statement of faith to be read during divine service. It repudiated papal authority, pronounced papal bulls and excommunications worthless, affirmed the supremacy of the monarch and outlined church teaching (which, at that time, differed little from Catholic teaching). (Maxwell, Irish history, pp. 123–4.)

  ’49 officers. Officers and soldiers who had served in Ireland before 5 June 1649 and who were entitled to arrears of service pay (‘49 arrears’) which were to be discharged out of forfeited land in Ireland.

  forty-shilling freeholder. See franchise.

  fosse. A defensive ditch around a farmstead such as a ringfort.

  fosterage. The Gaelic practice of fostering out children with the intention of developing or reinforcing political and military connections between the lesser and greater lords. Lesser septs paid to foster the child of a noble family and to have their own children fostered in the homes of nobles. Thus the whole business of fosterage was usually accompanied by the transfer of cattle. Fosterage facilitated the assimilation of the fostering sept into the lord’s protection and affinity. Together with gossipred, it was banned by the English administration in 1366. See Kilkenny, Statutes of. (Fitzsimons ‘Fosterage’, pp. 138–49.)