Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History

by Joseph Byrne

  original writ. A writ in fixed or certain form which issued from chancery to initiate a real (land) action at common law and to summon a defendant in a personal action.

  orthostat. (Gr., orthós, straight + statikós, causing to stand) An upright boulder serving as the wall of a megalithic tomb.

  OSA. Order of Saint Augustine. See Augustinian.

  Ossory, Red Book of. See register, episcopal.

  ousterlemain. (Fr., to remove the hand) 1: The taking of land out of the king’s hand following a judgement for a plaintiff who claimed that the crown had no title to it. Ousterlemain also applied to the extinction of a guardian’s control over an estate upon the coming of age of his ward. The action on attaining majority of suing out ousterlemain to obtain possession of an estate is the same as the action of suing out livery. Males came of age at 21 years, females at age 16 2: The writ or judgement associated with such an action. See livery, to sue out and majority.

  outdoor relief. The provision of relief to paupers through the poor law system but without the necessity for them to enter the workhouse. Outdoor relief was specifically prohibited under poor law but the failure of public works schemes to meet the needs of the distressed in 1846–7, the financial strain on the exchequer and the realisation that it would be cheaper simply to feed the people prompted the government to re-consider. Under the Temporary Relief of Distressed Persons in Ireland Act (10 & 11 Vict., c. 7), or the Soup Kitchen Act as it was popularly known, public works were phased out by late spring 1847 and replaced by soup kitchens where direct relief in the form of cooked food or soup was to be provided to the distressed. Soup kitchens, run by local relief committees and funded by local contributions and a matching government grant, were to operate until autumn 1847 after which the provisions of the Poor Law Amendment Act (10 Vict., c. 31) – which allowed for outdoor relief under poor law for the first time – would come into play. The aged and infirm, children and widows with two or more dependent children would be entitled to relief either within or without the workhouse. The able-bodied could receive outdoor aid (in the form of cooked food) only in the most desperate circumstances for a period no longer than two months and only if the workhouse was full or infected with fever. In return they were required to work for ten hours at tedious, repetitive and unproductive tasks such as stone-breaking, tasks intentionally designed to discourage applicants from seeking relief instead of productive employment. A requirement that the destitute attend each day at the workhouse to collect the cooked food was intended to restrict the number of applicants for outdoor relief and the delegation of food distribution to shopkeepers or meal contractors meant that there were fewer and less accessible distribution points than had been the case with the soup kitchens. Another factor which inhibited the take-up of outdoor relief was the controversial ‘quarter acre clause’ (Gregory Clause) in the Poor Law Amendment Act which deemed that occupiers of more than a quarter acre of land could not be classed as destitute and were therefore ineligible for poor law relief. Thus the starving were required to yield up their means of future subsistence and enter the workhouse if they were to be relieved. Although the quarter acre clause proved a most effective way of restraining applicants from applying for relief, a staggering number of people presented themselves for aid. By February 1848 445,000 people were receiving outdoor relief and by June that figure had risen to 830,000. Soup kitchens, outdoor relief and rate-in-aid were the means by which the government progressively heaped responsibility for the economic burden of relief on the poor law unions of Ireland. See Malthus. (Kinealy, This great calamity.)

  outfangtheof.(OE, fang, to lay hold of, seize) A medieval manorial franchise which has been interpreted to mean either the right of the lord to seize and prosecute a thief living beyond the manor but captured within or the right of the lord to pursue and seize a thief outside his jurisdiction and to bring him back to try him in his own court. The most likely interpretation is the latter for there already existed a separate franchise, infangenetheof, which permitted the lord to prosecute thieves caught within the jurisdiction of the manor.

  outlawry. The legal process by which a person was deprived of the protection of the law, forfeited his goods and chattels and the power to seek redress in any court beyond attempting to reverse the outlawry by writ of error. Formally, a person was outlawed after writs of capias, alias, and pluries were returned by the sheriff non est inventus (he is not to be found). An exigent issued to the sheriff to demand the defendant’s appearance at five successive county courts completed the process, failure to show rendering him automatically outlawed. See attainder.

  outshot. In vernacular architecture, a small rectangular projection in the wall of a cottage designed to contain a bed. It was usually screened by a curtain. The outshot was commonly referred to as a cuilteach (back house) in Irish, less usually as cailleach. (Lucas, ‘Contributions’, pp. 81–98.)

  overseer. A parish official. Church-wardens bore the responsibility for assisting the poor of their parish but they were assisted by parishioners acting as overseers. The overseer’s main function was to assist in the collection of parish cess and distribute relief to the poor. He also aplotted or assessed the parish for the parish cess. In the eighteenth century the overseer became a statutory post.

  Owners of land of one acre and upwards in the several counties, counties of cities and counties of towns in Ireland, Return of (1876). Issued by the Local Government Board and modelled on similar publications covering England and Wales, the Return of owners lists in alphabetical order the names and addresses of owners of one statute acre and upwards for each county, together with the extent and valuation of their lands. Also included are the numbers of owners of less than one statute acre in each county and the total valuation of such lands together with the grand totals for each county and provincial and national aggregates. (Return.)

  oyer et terminer, commission of. (Fr., to hear and determine) A commission which developed in the thirteenth century to try and judge criminal cases. Commissions of oyer et terminer were issued for the determination of specific individual cases of a serious nature such as treason or murder or an epidemic of a certain type of crime which had broken out over a wide area.

  P

  pad. An easy-paced horse.

  paindemaine. A fine bread.

  Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis. An anonymous seventeenth-century verse composition in Gaelic which satirises those Irish natives who rented land from English settlers and helped them develop their estates. The author derides them for their vulgar aping of the new gentry and their fashions while patronage of traditional poetry and music was in serious decline. (Bergin, ‘Pairlement’, pp. 35–50, 127–31, 137–50, 220–36.)

  palatinate. A liberty. A major lordship which exercised jurisdiction exclusive of the royal courts with the exception of the four reserved pleas of rape, arson, treasure trove and forestalling and correction of officers. Palatine rights were delegated by the crown to the lord so that he was, in effect, a royal official – though a hereditary one – and entitled to the dues and profits that would otherwise accrue to the king. Within the palatinate the lord’s writ ran and the lord’s peace was kept but it was the king’s law that was administered. Royal officials could not enter unless the lord failed to execute a royal writ. Palatinates were administered as small-scale states. The senior official was the omnicompetent seneschal who exercised the same functions within the palatinate as the justiciar did for the whole country. Other officers included a chancellor, treasurer, an escheator, sheriff and serjeants. The palatinate of Tipperary retained its distinct jurisdiction until 1715 when it became defunct with the attainder of the second duke (2 Geo. I, c. 8). (Murnaghan, ‘The lordship’, pp. 846–59.)

  Palatines. Refugee peasant families from the Palatinate of the Rhine who settled in counties Limerick and Kerry (and in smaller groups in Dublin and Wexford) early in the eighteenth century. In all over 800 families arrived in Ireland and a supervisory commission allocated them by lots to a
number of landlords. Each family received an annual government allowance of 40 shillings to encourage them to settle. The Palatines conformed to Anglicanism and responded warmly to Methodism but remained culturally and socially aloof from local communities. Although initially successful, the colony was rapidly thinned out by emigration and by 1726 only 126 families remained. (Hick, ‘The Palatine’, pp. 113–132.)

  Pale. The English Pale in Ireland comprised the counties Dublin, Kildare, Louth and Meath, the areas of medieval and early modern Ireland where royal writ ran most completely. See maghery.

  paleolithic. (Gr., paleo, ancient + lithos, stone) The earliest stone age period.

  paleography. The study of ancient writing and inscriptions. See secretary hand.

  palimpsest. A manuscript containing an erased yet slightly visible text beneath a new text. Manuscripts were so effaced on account of the scarcity of parchment. The term is used in historical geography to describe a hidden or partially hidden landscape which, if interpreted correctly, can yield evidence about earlier land use.

  palisade. A defensive barrier composed of upright stakes driven into the ground.

  pall. (L., pallium) A robe worn by an archbishop or bishop at his inauguration, the presentation of which indicates his elevation to the episcopacy. The pall is a charge (device) on the heraldic escutcheons of the archiepiscopal sees of Armagh and Dublin.

  Palladian. A constantly evolving architectural style which persisted well into the nineteenth century. It was based on the work of Andrea Palladio (1518–1580), a sixteenth-century Italian architect who drew his inspiration from an eclectic range of sources including the classical architecture of ancient Rome, the mannerism of Michaelangelo and Vignola, Bramante and the Byzantine architecture of Venice. Inigo Jones was captivated by Palladio’s work when he journeyed through Italy in 1613–14 and used it as a basis for renewing the dated architecture of contemporary England. From 1700 there was a Palladian revival which gained supremacy around 1730. Palladio’s Four books of architecture were consulted by, among others, Christopher Wren. Bellamont in Co. Cavan, Lord Charlemont’s Casino in Marino, Co. Dublin and the provost’s house in Trinity College are examples of Palladian architecture in Ireland.

  Palles Commission. A royal commission appointed to investigate the working of the intermediate education system from its establishment in 1878. Reporting in 1899, The commission heavily criticised the narrow examination programme on offer and acknowledged the heavy burden placed on schools by the payment-by-results system. Palles, nevertheless, recommended the retention of public examinations and a modified payments-by-results system whereby grants would be paid in block rather than on the basis of individual examination results. The commissioners proposed a greater emphasis on mathematics and science and to that end suggested a special equipment grant for the teaching of science. See secondary schooling. (Palles.)

  pannage. The right to graze swine in the woods.

  parc. An artificial intertidal growing bed for oysters comprising sections of the foreshore marked off with stones, walls of mud, wattle or cement to retain a couple of inches of water at low tide.

  parcener. An heir.

  paring and burning. The practice of paring and burning the sod to increase the potato yield in marginal areas by adding phosphates to the acidic soil. The benefits were short-term and the land rapidly reverted to waste within a few years. Also known as bettimore.

  parish. An ancient ecclesiastical division denoting the jurisdiction of a priest. The medieval parish became the civil parish of the Established church, the smallest administrative unit of civil government. It was responsible for the upkeep of roads within its boundaries and for the welfare of the aged, sick and abandoned, all of which were overseen by the general vestry and financed by the parish cess. The civil parish was disestablished by the passing of the Church Temporalities Act (3 & 4 Will. IV, c. 37, 1833). This act revoked the right of the church-wardens to levy parish cess and thereby ended its civil role. Catholic parishes, a relatively modern creation owing to the difficulties presented by the Reformation, the turmoil of the seventeenth century and the penal laws, continue to be formed in the developing suburbs of the larger towns and cities. See six-day labour.

  parish school. Legislation passed during the reign of Henry VIII (28 Hen. VIII, c. 15, 1537) laid upon the clergy of the Established church the duty to establish a network of English schools throughout Ireland, a duty witnessed more in the breach than in the observance. All beneficed clergymen were required to keep or cause to be kept within their vicarage or rectory an English language school. The statute was poorly implemented and was effective only within the Pale. Additional legislation from 1695 (7 Will. III, c. 4, 8 Geo. I, c. 12 and 5 Geo. II, c. 4) yielded greater results for parish schools began to emerge in numbers throughout the eighteenth century. Heavily oriented towards advancing Protestantism, the schools proved unable to attract Catholic pupils. By 1832 there were only 782 in existence with a total enrolment of 36,498 children. (Eleventh report of the commissioners of the board of education in Ireland, HC 1810–11 (107) VI; Akenson, The Irish education experiment, pp. 21–4.)

  park. In medieval documents the term refers to the engrossing of open-field strips. Thus a park is an enclosed field. (Otway-Ruthven, ‘Enclosures’, pp. 35–6.)

  parliament. The word parliament means parley or discussion so any meeting could be called a parliament. In medieval times it referred to a formal meeting of the king in council with attendant judges to consider petitions for redress of grievances. The king could, of course, call upon anyone he chose to assist in council and the need to involve men of consequence in decisions about military matters led to an enlargement of that body. The summoning of magnates and ecclesiastics to the Irish council in 1264 represented the appearance of the first recognisable Irish parliament. Under feudal law freemen could only be taxed by their consent and this principle ensured from 1297 that representatives of the counties and liberties (the commons) became an indispensable part of every parliament. Burgesses (representatives of the towns) and clerical proctors (representatives of the lower clergy) appeared later. In the late fourteenth century the lords were detached from the council to become a distinct house but made little impact until the sixteenth century. Notwithstanding these developments, the justiciar (the king’s representative in Ireland) continued to summon the great council – a body which comprised much the same personnel as parliament and performed similar functions – to deal with military affairs. Important medieval legislation included the Statutes of Kilkenny, an attempt to halt the creeping Gaelicisation of the colony, and Poynings’ Law, a Tudor initiative intended to curb overly independent chief governors but which severely limited the ability of the Irish parliament to originate legislation. Poynings’ Law and the 1720 British Declaratory Act ensured the formal subordination of the Irish parliament to Westminster until both were repealed in 1782–3. In a practical sense, however, the Irish legislature was not toothless. From the seventeenth century Poynings’ was partially circumvented by the practice of transmitting heads of bills (see statute) and truculent parliaments could and did refuse to vote subsidies in an effort to force the administration to compromise. Administrative counter-measures included sweeteners such as the grants of sequestered monastic lands which eased the passage of the Henrician church reformation laws. Later, offers of pensions, sinecures and government posts were freely employed. Stiff measures could also be brought to bear to ensure the successful passage of legislation. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries government majorities were ensured by the creation or elimination of boroughs and the opposition of the clerical proctors to the Henrician reforms resulted in their expulsion from parliament. Until the eighteenth century parliament met only when there was business to be transacted or when the crown was in need of subsidies or taxes. Long intervals, sometimes of up to 25 years duration, separated successive parliaments. After 1713, however, parliament assembled every second year and from 1785 it met annua
lly. In according parliament an eight-year duration, the 1768 Octennial Act abolished the law which allowed for dissolution only upon the death or proclamation of the sovereign. From the seventeenth century it is possible to refer to a parliament of all-Ireland in the geographical sense but it could never be described as a representative assembly. Native Irish representatives hardly ever appeared in it, Catholics were edged out in mid-seventeenth century and eliminated entirely by its close and the Catholic franchise was denied absolutely from 1727. Throughout the eighteenth century it was the exclusive organ of the Protestant landed ascendancy. Over two-thirds of the seats in the commons were filled by the nominees of borough patrons and the remainder were elected on a narrow property-based franchise. Until the late 1760s the business of ensuring parliamentary majorities for government bills was managed by undertakers (usually the speaker of the house of commons) in return for a share in the disposal of patronage and a say in policy. Thereafter the task of managing parliament was assumed by the now permanently resident lords lieutenant. Patronage and bribery were part and parcel of the way in which accommodations were reached in the eighteenth-century parliament. That reality is reflected (albeit to an unprecedented level) in the promises of office, favour and compensation which seduced many members to vote for the extinction of their national assembly in 1800. A more public-spirited concern for enhancing the role of parliament and improving the social and economic condition of the island is revealed in the ‘sole right’ and ‘Woods Halfpence’ controversies, opposition to the pension list, the introduction of (modest) Catholic relief acts and the campaign of the ‘patriot’ party to secure better trading conditions and legislative freedom. Party-style politics was a late development, members usually voting as individuals or on the basis of kinship or sectional interests. An embryonic Whig-Tory division emerged in England and Ireland (1704–1714) over the controversies regarding the royal succession, religious toleration and the role of parliament but lapsed after the Tories were excluded from office. Although an Irish Whig party was formed in 1789 the party system developed much slower in Ireland. The enlargement of the franchise and the home rule crisis in the 1880s provided the basis for the emergence of disciplined, highly-organised popular political parties with elected members of the Nationalist and Unionist parties pledged to work and vote along party lines. The transactions of both houses of the Irish parliament from the mid-seventeenth century to the Act of Union can be found in Journals of the house of commons of the kingdom of Ireland (19 vols, Dublin, 1796–1800) and in Journals of the house of lords of the kingdom of Ireland (8 vols, Dublin, 1783–1800). See afforced council, cess, franchise, lords, Parliamentary Register, privy council, statute, tory, whig. (Johnston-Liik, History; Richardson and Sayles, The Irish parliament.)