Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History

by Joseph Byrne

  widow’s dower. Also known as jointure, it was the entitlement of the widow of a chief tenant to one-third of the estate of her deceased spouse during her lifetime. In the eighteenth century it was usually an annual allowance equivalent to one-tenth of her dowry.

  Williamite Confiscation (1690–1703). The confiscations which followed the defeat of the Jacobites in the war of 1689–91 led to a decline of one-third in the proportion of land held by Catholics in Ireland from 22% in 1688 to 14% by 1703. This was a relatively mild decline when compared with a proportional Catholic loss of two-thirds after the earlier Cromwellian and Restoration settlements and was largely attributable to the fact that William was anxious to transfer his forces to the continent. To do so, however, he was forced to treat generously with Jacobites who were still in arms at Limerick and Galway. All who were admitted to the benefit of the articles of Limerick and Galway secured their estates (almost one-half of the land in Catholic hands in 1703 was held by articlemen). Others were pardoned and, with the war concluded, the government had no appetite to prosecute Jacobites who had not yet been outlawed. Less fortunate were those who were in France when the siege of Limerick ended, those who had been killed or taken prisoner in battle and the many Catholics who had submitted after the defeat at the Boyne. These, together with those who opted to leave and fight in France, suffered forfeiture of their estates. See Limerick, Treaty of. (Simms, The Williamite.)

  wills. Until the seventeenth century the feudal rule of succession by primogeniture made it legally impossible under common law to devise freehold land by will. Nevertheless a landowner could achieve precisely the same effect by conveying his property in trust to family intimates to dispose of upon his death according to the uses declared in his will. See use. In 1634 the Irish Statute of Wills (10 Chas. I, sess. 2, c. 2) permitted for the first time the transmission of freehold land by will provided the testament was in writing. No signature or witnesses were required until the Statute of Frauds (1695) enacted that all wills involving real estate be signed by the testator in the presence of three witnesses who must also append their signatures in the testator’s presence. It was always legal to bequeath personalty (moveable goods or chattels) and oral bequests were regarded as valid until the 1837 Wills Act (7 Will. IV & 1 Vic., c. 26) which required all wills of realty and personalty to be signed and witnessed by two people in each other’s presence. Until 1858 testamentary jurisdiction lay with the ecclesiastical courts. Thereafter responsibility for proving wills was transferred to a civil court of probate, the Principal Registry in Dublin, whose records (but not the indexes) were consumed by the fire in the Four Courts in 1922. This was a great loss for wills and inventories offer rich pickings to historians re-constructing the social and economic world of earlier societies. The loss was partly mitigated by the acquisition of testamentary extracts compiled from probate records in the nineteenth century by Sir William Betham and others and an extensive collection of wills has been assembled by the National Archives courtesy of solicitors’ offices throughout the state. See probate, use. (Berry, Register; ffolliott and O’Byrne, ‘Wills’, pp. 157–80; Phair, ‘Sir William Betham’, pp. 1–99.)

  Windsor, Treaty of (1172). A concord between Henry II and Rory O’Connor wherein O’Connor acknowledged Henry as his overlord and agreed not to upset the status quo by disturbing those areas, including Leinster and that part of Munster from Dungarvan to Waterford, where the Norman conquest was most complete. O’Connor was to make a tribute of one hide from every ten animals slaughtered. For his part, Henry recognised O’Connor as king of Connacht and empowered him to judge or remove any of that province’s lords who rebelled against either man or who refused to pay tribute. When necessary he could call on the assistance of the constable. Henry also announced his intention to make his son, John, king of Ireland. The treaty was broken by Henry in 1177 when he took counties Cork and Limerick into his own hands and granted away Desmond and Thomond.

  ‘wings’. Sops to Protestant sensitivities contained in the unsuccessful 1825 Catholic emancipation bill, so called because they were intended to help the bill fly through parliament. They proposed the payment of Catholic clergy from state funds (thereby increasing government leverage over the church) and the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders. Daniel O’Connell agreed to the ‘wings’ to facilitate the bill’s passage through parliament. He was criticised for sacrificing the franchise and the issue split the Catholic movement but he recovered. In an open letter the English reformer William Cobbett denounced O’Connell and asked the Irish freeholders: ‘Did you … ever dream that Emancipation could possibly mean disfran chisement?’ See veto controversy.

  winnow. To remove the chaff from the grain by fanning.

  withernam, capias in. A writ for reprisals or compensation. In an action of replevin where goods were unlawfully seized and removed from the jurisdiction of the sheriff so that he was unable to return them to the plaintiff, a writ of capias in withernam was issued directing him to seize goods in lieu of those taken and deliver them up to the aggrieved party.

  woad. A herb of the mustard family, the leaves of which were used to make a blue dye.

  Wood’s halfpence. In 1722 a controversy arose over the granting of a patent to the English iron merchant William Wood to mint an Irish halfpenny. Fearing a debased coinage with the profits going to English speculators and resenting the absence of an Irish mint, the Irish ascendancy raised hell over the issue and the patent was withdrawn. Jonathan Swift helped frustrate the proposal by penning the critical Drapier’s Letters.

  wool-fells. Unsheared sheepskins.

  workhouse. Workhouses were constructed under the Poor Law Act (1838) for the relief of the poor. They were located centrally in each poor law union and 163 were built in the nineteenth century. See poor law.

  workhouse test. A principle adopted to ensure that only the genuinely distressed would apply to the workhouse for relief. Conditions within the workhouse were designed to be less attractive and therefore ‘less eligible’ than conditions outside. The dietary regime was monotonous and inferior and daily life was characterised by regimentation, discipline and hard labour.

  worsted. A fabric made from closely twisted yarn that was spun from long staple wool to produce a smooth compact finish. It was used for carpet-making, knitting and embroidery.

  wreck of the sea. Goods or cargo cast ashore by the sea from a stricken vessel which were properly crown property but frequently granted to subjects and monastic institutions as a franchise.

  writ. 1: The written command of a law court (judicial writ) or sovereign. Writs were used by the crown to convey grants of lands, to grant commissions or to convey instructions in the form of charters, letters patent and letters close. All writs had to be accounted for. Local officials such as the sheriff must return the writ endorsed with details of action taken in the case 2: A summons used to commence an action (original writ). Until the nineteenth century no action could commence in the common law courts without the issuing of a writ from chancery. Specific writs applied in each legal action and failure to select the appropriate writ, however conclusive the evidence, was a guarantee that the suit would fail. Writs were also prohibitively expensive. See certiorari, civil bill, error, forma pauperis, habeas corpus, mandamus, withernam.

  Wyndham Act (1903). Sponsored by George Wyndham, secretary of state for Ireland, the Irish Land Act (3 Edw. VII, c. 37, 1903) remedied a major deficiency in the earlier Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act (1891) which had tied landlord income from the sale of their holdings to government stock. In the intervening years the value of such stock had decreased by a fifth and landlords were disinclined to sell in such circumstances. Wyndham’s act replaced the stock with cash payments and, as an added incentive, a 12% bonus on the purchase price was offered. The act abolished the guaranteed deposit stipulation that had been introduced by the 1885 Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act and which had also proved unattractive to landlords. Henceforth, the land commissioners, through
their agents, the estates commissioners, were empowered to purchase whole estates rather than individual holdings. Once agreement was reached between a landlord and his tenants on the terms of the sale and the necessary paperwork completed, all documentation was submitted to the commissioners for consideration. If satisfied, the commissioners advanced the entire purchase price in cash and vested the holdings in the tenants in fee simple subject to repayment at the rate of 31/4% over 681/2 years. £150 million was allocated by the government to fund the scheme and about 220,000 holdings were purchased. Two succeeding acts improved the plight of poorer tenants. Under the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act (7 Edw. VII, c. 56, 1907) the estates commissioners were given the power of compulsory purchase to acquire the holdings of evicted tenants and reinstate them. Birrell’s Irish Land Act (1909), which authorised the compulsory purchase of land in congested districts, resulted in the acquisition of 600,000 acres and the sale of 50,000 holdings.

  Y

  yawl. A fishing vessel, a wherry.

  year day and waste (Fr., ann jour et wast). A feudal incident and a form of escheat. The crown was entitled to receive and hold the land of an attainted felon for a year and a day and to profit (waste) its natural resources, in other words, to exact as much profit from the estate for the duration of a year and a day.

  Year of Grace. See evangelical revival.

  Yelverton’s Act. The 1782 act (21 & 22 Geo. III, c. 47) which, following the repeal of the Declaratory Act by the British parliament a month earlier, amended Poyning’s Law (1495) and established the legislative independence of the Irish parliament. Henceforth the power of the lord lieutenant and the privy councils of Ireland and Britain to alter or originate bills for Ireland was removed. The king retained the power to suppress legislation but neither he nor the parliament at Westminster could alter bills approved by both houses of parliament. A year later the Renunciation Act (23 Geo. III, c. 28) confirmed the right of the Irish parliament to legislate exclusively for Ireland. Yelverton’s Act was named for Barry Yelverton, MP for Carrickfergus, who first moved the bill. See ‘patriot’ party.

  yeoman. 1: A prosperous tenant 2: A prosperous tenant who held land in freehold.

  Yeomanry Corps. An almost exclusively Protestant military force of voluntary part-timers established in 1796 (37 Geo. III, c. 2) by the lord lieutenant, Earl Camden, to shore up the inadequacies of the politically and religiously unreliable militia and to replace the regulars who had been drafted abroad to meet the French threat. Heavily infiltrated by Orangemen, the yeomanry corps had a propensity to engage in sectarian outrages and earned a reputation for brutality and indiscipline during the 1798 rebellion. In 1830, after a ten-year lapse, the yeomanry corps was revived to meet the challenges of the tithe war but its re-emergence inflamed rather than eased tensions and it was disbanded in 1834. (Blackstock, An ascendancy army; Morton, ‘The rise’, pp. 58–64.)

  yoke. A short cross-beam upon which a purlin rests. It was fixed to the roof trusses just below the apex. See cruck.

  Young, Arthur (1741–1820). An influential English agriculturalist and writer, Young’s own excursions into farming and estate management proved, paradoxically, unprofitable. He toured Ireland in 1776 and from 1777 was employed as agent to Lord Kingsborough in Co. Cork for two years. His A tour in Ireland, a two-volume travel book containing a wide-ranging commentary on contemporary Irish agriculture, was published in 1780. Young used official sources as well as personal observations and records compiled as he progressed through 29 counties of Ireland. In some instances his vision of Ireland is fanciful but he was scathing of the evils of landlordism and advocated the creation of new employment opportunities to counter the losses which attended the spread of pasture. (Young, A tour in Ireland.)

  Young Ireland (1842–48). Founded in the early 1840s by Thomas Davis, John Blake Dillon and Charles Gavan Duffy, Young Ireland was a mainly middle-class, non-sectarian, repeal movement which proposed a nationality embracing all creeds, classes and races within Ireland. Young Irelanders aimed to create internal union and external independence. The chief vehicle for the dissemination of Young Ireland ideals was the Nation newspaper. Initially the Young Irelanders were members of the National Repeal Association but they became disenchanted with Daniel O’Connell’s attitude to federalism (a local legislature dealing with domestic affairs but subordinate to Westminster), his stance on the Queen’s Colleges bill and his renunciation of the use of force. They seceded in 1846 to establish the Irish Confederation when O’Connell required members of the Repeal Association to eschew the use of physical force. Sparked by news of the French revolution in February 1848 the Young Irelanders launched into the single engagement ‘battle of Ballingary’ (‘the battle of Widow McCormack’s cabbage patch’) in July, a fiasco that resulted in the transportation or flight abroad of the movement’s leaders. Although the movement had little popular or clerical support, was poorly structured and fizzled out miserably, Young Ireland bequeathed a legacy of romantic nationalism to later generations. (Davis, The Young Ireland.)

  Young Ulster. A secret organisation, founded by Frederick Crawford in 1892 to oppose home rule for Ireland, which enjoyed a brief existence before being swallowed up by larger anti-home rule bodies. Membership was open only to those who possessed a gun and 100 rounds of ammunition. In 1913 Crawford became a founder member of the Ulster Volunteer Force.

  Z

  Zoilomastix. (1625–6) An attack by layman and soldier Philip O’Sullivan Beare on the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis and Richard Stanihurst on Ireland, Zoilomastix also contains important biographical detail of an ecclesiastical nature. The original is preserved in the University Library, Upsala, Sweden. (O’Donnell, Selections.)

  Bibliography

  Aalen, F. H., Whelan, Kevin and Stout, Matthew (eds), An atlas of the Irish rural landscape (Cork, 1997).

  ‘Abstracts of decrees of the court of claims for the trial of innocents’ in PRI rep. DK, 19, appendix v (1887).

  Acheson, Alan, A history of the Church of Ireland, 1691–1996 (Dublin, 1997).

  Adams, I. H., Agrarian landscape terms: a glossary for historical geography (London, 1976).

  Akenson, Donald H., ‘Pre-university education, 1870–1921’ in Vaughan, W. E. (ed.), A new history of Ireland, vi (Oxford, 1996).

  — The Irish education experiment (Dublin, 1970).

  — The Church of Ireland: ecclesiastical reform and revolution, 1800–1885 (New Haven and London, 1971).

  Alcock, N. W., Old title deeds (Sussex, 1986).

  Almqvist, Bo, ‘The Irish Folklore Commission: achievement and legacy’ in Béaloideas, 45–7 (1977–9).

  Ancient Irish histories: the works of Spencer, Campion, Hanmer and Marlborough, i (repr., 2 vols, New York, 1970).

  Andrews, J. H., Plantation acres: an historical study of the Irish land surveyor and his maps (Omagh, 1985).

  — ‘The French school of Dublin land surveyors’ in Ir. Geography, v (1967).

  — History in the ordnance map: an introduction for Irish readers (Dublin, 1974).

  — A paper landscape: the ordnance survey in nineteenth-century Ireland (Oxford, 1975).

  — Shapes of Ireland: maps and their makers, 1564– (Dublin, 1997).

  Appleby, John C. and O’Dowd, Mary, ‘The Irish admiralty: its organisation and development c.1570–1640’ in IHS, xxiv, no. 95 (1985), pp. 299–320.

  Armagh Register. Chart, D. A. (ed.), The register of John Swayne ... 1418–1439 (Belfast, 1935); Lawlor, H. J. (ed.), ‘A calendar of Archbishop Fleming’ in RIA Proc., xxx, C, no. 5 (Dublin, 1912), pp. 94–190; Murray, L. P. (continued by Aubrey Gwynn), ‘Archbishop Cromer’s register’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., vi–x (1926–44); Quigley, W. G. H. and Roberts, E. F. D. (eds), Registrum Iohannis Mey, the register of John Mey, archbishop of Armagh 1443–1456 (Belfast, 1977); Smith, Brendan (ed.), The register of Milo Sweetman ... 1361–1380 (IMC, Dublin, 1996); Sughi Mario Alberto (ed.), Registrum Octaviani alias Liber Niger; the register of Octavian de Palation,
archbishop of Armagh, 1478–1513 (IMC, Dublin, 2000).

  Arnold, L. J., The Restoration land settlement in county Dublin, 1660–1688 (Dublin, 1993).

  — ‘The Irish court of claims of 1663’ in IHS, xxiv, no. 96 (1984–5).

  Asplin, P. W. A., Medieval Ireland, c. 1170–1495 (Dublin, 1971).

  Atkinson, Robert (ed.), The book of Ballymote (Dublin, 1887).

  — (ed.), The Yellow Book of Lecan (Dublin, 1896).

  Barnes, Jane, Irish industrial schools 1868–1908: origin and development (Dublin, 1989).

  Barrow, L., The round towers of Ireland (Dublin, 1979).

  Barry, John, ‘Guide to the records of the Genealogical Office, Dublin, with a commentary on heraldry in Ireland and on the history of the office’ in Anal. Hib., 26 (1970).

  — ‘The appointment of coarb and erenagh’ in IER, 5th. ser., xciii (1960).

  Bartlett, Thomas, ‘Defenders and Defenderism in 1795’ in IHS, xxiv, no. 94 (May 1985).

  — The fall and rise of the Irish nation: the Catholic question, 1690–1830 (Dublin, 1992).

  Bartlett, Thomas and Jeffrey, Keith (eds), A military history of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996).