Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History

by Joseph Byrne

  crowstep gable. A stepped gable.

  cruck. (Literally, crooked) A naturally-curved, timber blade or truss rising from the floor, from below the wall-head or from the wall-head to the apex of the roof. In pairs or couples they are known as cruck trusses and several pairs form the support framework for the roof. Cruck trusses are differentiated by the type of cross-member used to secure each pair. A tie-beam secures the trusses at wall-head height; a collar-beam (or open cruck) knits the trusses near the apex. A truss is not invariably a single timber for two pieces may be scarfed (overlapped) to form a continuous blade. See couple, coupled house.

  crusie lamp. A pear-shaped, iron pan filled with oil with a strip of twisted cloth laid along the lip to serve as a wick. Originally the wick would have been of rushes and the oil from fish, lard or even butter. Many crusie lamps had a lower pan to collect oil from the wick.

  Crutched Friars. See Fratres Cruciferi.

  cuddy. (Ir., cuid oíche, a night’s supper) The food and drink consumed by a Gaelic lord and his retinue as he coshered or progressed through his tenants between New Year’s Day and Shrovetide. See coshering. (Simms, ‘Guesting’, pp. 79–86.)

  cúige. (Ir., one-fifth) In geographical terms refers to the largest spatial subdivision of Ireland, the province. It was known in Gaelic as ‘one-fifth’ because anciently there were five provinces in Ireland, Ulaidh (Ulster), Midhe (Meath), Laighin (Leinster), Mumhan (Munster) and Connacht, each of which was dominated by a great dynastic family. Ulaidh and Midhe were controlled by the O’Neills, Laighin by McMurrough-Kavanagh, Mumhan by the O’Briens and Connacht by the O’Connors. Apart from the main churches which have (or claim to have) retained a provincial structure continuously since the Synod of Kells in 1152, little use has been made of the province as an administrative division. See provincial council and composition for early modern experiments.

  cuirass. Defensive plate armour which protected the body from neck to waist, comprising breastplate, backplate and metal hoops for the hips. Cuirassiers were mounted soldiers who wore such armour.

  culdee. (Ir., Céile Dé, servant of God) The culdee monastic movement emerged as a reaction to the apparently relaxed discipline which characterised the older monastic foundations during the seventh and eighth centuries. A minority among the monks of their day, culdees often lived within larger communities but devoted themselves to an austere, ascetic life and adhered to the strict observance of their rule. Married men could become culdees but their wives had to live without the priory. Notable culdee leaders included Maelruain (d. 792), abbot of Tallaght, and Dublitter of Finglas (d. 796). (Gwynn, The rule of Tallaght; O’Dwyer, Célí Dé.)

  culm. Coal slack

  culverin. A long, slim-barrelled, sixteenth-century cannon, 5.25 inch bore, which fired an 18- to 20-pound missile. It was the heaviest gun in ordinary use at the time. A demi-culverin had a bore of about four inches.

  cumal. 1: A female slave. 2: A unit of value. Under Brehon law fines and articles were calculated in units of cumals. The éiric (compensation) for the murder of a freeman, for example, was seven cumals. Originally seven female slaves would have been exchanged by way of recompense but later this translated into an equivalent number of cattle, the basic currency of Ireland down to early modern times. Thus a cumal was a notional number of cows.

  Cunningham acre. A spatial unit of measurement employed in parts of Ulster, equivalent to 6,250 square yards. See acre.

  curacy, perpetual. A lifelong appointment to a parish that did not have a vicar and out of which the whole of the tithe was paid to someone other than the appointee. Thus the curacy was without endowment. Parishes served by a perpetual curacy were those which, in pre-Reformation times, remitted tithe to a monastic institution which appointed the curate. After the monastic dissolution the tithe passed into lay hands giving the lay impropriator the right to present to the parish. He paid the curate a sum for his troubles but retained the surplus. See appropriate, impropriate, rector, vicar.

  curate. A parish priest’s appointed assistant.

  cure of souls. A benefice with an attached congregation. Some benefices had no souls to be ministered to (non-cures). In such cases the clergyman received the related emoluments or tithe but performed no duties.

  curia magna. See court baron.

  curia parva. See court leet.

  curia regis. (Med. L., the king’s court) The king’s court or council but in Ireland – because the king so rarely appeared – the justiciar’s council which functioned from the beginning of the Anglo-Norman conquest and from which the criminal jurisdiction of king’s bench evolved.

  currach. A round-bottomed, keelless, west coast skin-boat that is propelled by oars. Formerly consisting of a hazel rod framework with a tanned hide covering, modern builders have replaced hazel with wooden laths and cloth now serves in place of hide.

  currier. A tradesman who dressed and coloured leather after it was tanned.

  cursitor. A court official who drew up writs.

  curtain wall. An exterior plain connecting wall between the towers of a castle.

  curtilage. A fenced or walled yard or court beside and containing a house and outbuildings.

  curtsey (courtesy of England). A widower’s right to his wife’s estate for life providing a living child had been born to them, i.e., a child had cried within the walls of their home.

  custodium, custodiam. A temporary lease of forfeited land perfected by the crown pending a more permanent grant.

  custody. An ecclesiastical province of the Franciscans who had five custodies in Ireland centred at Dublin, Drogheda, Cashel, Cork and Nenagh.

  custom, great and ancient. The great custom, or magna custuma, was a medieval levy on the export of wool, wool-fells and hides from all ports in Ireland.

  custom of the manor. The rules and obligations which governed the relations of tenants to each other and to the lord. These differed from manor to manor.

  customary tenure. A manorial tenure held not by deed or lease but according to the custom of the manor.

  custos. In medieval Ireland the custos filled the office and exercised all the powers of justiciar when the justiciarship was vacant or when the justiciar was in England, a task later fulfilled by the lords justice.

  custos pacis. See keeper of the peace.

  custos rotulorum. Keeper of the county records until the passage of the county courts act in 1877, the custos rotulorum was the chief civil officer in the county with responsibility for the appointment of the clerk of the peace. He also administered the oath of office to the sub-sheriff. Normally the post was held in conjunction with the county governorship. See county governor.

  custumal. An early manorial survey or inventory detailing all the revenue entitlements of the manorial lord. It usually included the names of the tenants, particulars of their lands and rents, services owed, their rights and occasionally the custom of the manor. It was superseded by the extent which, in addition to the foregoing, included details about the demesne land (the land held by the lord himself) and was compiled to establish the annual value of the manor so that the lord could decide whether it was more lucrative to let the land or to work it.

  cutting and spending. A term used to describe the various impositions of Gaelic lords on their clients or vassals. Cuttings were levies such as tributes or the obligation to muster a specified number of horse or foot-soldiers during a rising out. Spending refers to any exaction which involved the spending or consumption of the client’s goods as was the case, for example, with coshering and coyne and livery. In return, the lord protected the client from external hostile incursions and hence the phrase, ‘spend me and defend me’. (Simms, ‘Guesting and feasting’, pp. 79–86.)

  D

  d. (L., denarius, pl, denarii) The abbreviation used to denote a penny.

  daguerreotype. Invented by Louis Daguerre in Paris in 1839, the daguerreotype was the product of an early photographic process in which an impression was taken upon an iodine-sensitised s
ilver plate and then developed by exposure to the vapour of mercury. (Chandler, Photography, pp. 4–20, 22–26.)

  damask. A shiny, woven fabric of linen, silk or cotton. Damask linen was introduced into Ireland in the seventeenth century by Huguenot refugees who settled in Co. Armagh.

  darrien presentment, assize of. An assize conducted to determine who was the last person seised of the right to present to a vacant ecclesiastical living.

  daub. 1: Clay, mud, plaster or mortar mixed with straw and stiffened with wattles to form the walls of a cabin 2: A wall so constructed.

  deacon. The lowest degree of holy orders.

  dean. The head of the clergy in a deanery or division of a diocese. In eighteenth-century Ireland Anglican deans did not exercise a supervisory jurisdiction over the clergy as in England and the office of rural dean was almost extinct. The absence of an efficient middle management layer led to a lack of communication between the clergy and the episcopate. William Bedell, bishop of Kilmore, created new deans in the seventeenth century and they began to re-appear in numbers from the mid-eighteenth century. By 1820 16 of the 22 dioceses had adopted the system of rural dean. Deans were often cathedral dignitaries or outstanding members of the parish clergy. Their duty was to co-ordinate religious policy and ensure that parochial performance was satisfactory. In a cathedral the dean was head of the chapter and therefore had considerable temporal duties in managing the revenue and property of the cathedral. He convened and presided over the chapter meetings, gave possession of stalls and benefices to the members of the chapter and ensured that they fulfilled their duties. The dean preached in the cathedral and in the churches of the parishes from which he drew an income. He was responsible for the spiritual welfare of the parishes which comprised his deanery and at least once triennially he was required to visit every church within his jurisdiction. Some deaneries had no cure of souls attached and so the office was a pure sinecure. Formerly the crown had patronage of the decanal offices except those of Kildare and St Patrick’s cathedral (where the deans were elected by the chapter) and Clonmacnoise (which was collative by the bishop of Meath). Nowadays the dean is chosen by the bishop with the exception of St Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin, where the dean is elected by the chapter.

  deanery. A dean’s appointment, the intermediate jurisdiction between a parish and a diocese.

  Deasy’s Act. See Landlord and Tenant Law Land Act (1860).

  de bene esse. A phrase which signifies to allow anything to stand as well done for the present until it comes to be fully examined or tried. Grants of land made conditionally by commissioners at Loughrea to Connacht transplantees in the 1650s to maintain themselves while they awaited a final decree were termed de bene esse. Such grants were preliminary to the adjudication of a second set of commissioners sitting at Athlone who were to examine the qualifications of the transplanted according to the terms of the Act for the Settling of Ireland (1652) to determine whether they were entitled to permanent grants.

  debenture. 1: A bond backed by a financial consideration rather than secured by particular assets such as land 2: During the Cromwellian period, a certificate detailing the amount of money owed for military service in Ireland which was to be redeemed in confiscated land. Debentures were frequently sold on as soldiers decided to return to England rather than settle in Ireland.

  debt, writ of. An instruction to the sheriff to order a debtor to return money owing to a creditor or be summoned to appear before the justices of assize.

  Declaratory Act (1720). The British Declaratory Act (6 Geo. I, c. 5) resolved any uncertainty regarding the British parliament’s power to legislate for Ireland and the role of the Irish house of lords in exercising appellate jurisdiction over decisions of the Irish courts. It asserted the right of the imperial parliament to legislate for Ireland and declared the British house of lords to be the final court of appeal in these islands. The act added to the disabilities imposed on the Irish parliament by Poynings’ Law (1494) and confirmed the subordination of the Irish parliament to Westminster. In June 1782, in response to agitation conducted by the ‘patriot’ party and the Volunteers, the act was repealed at Westminster (22 Geo. III, c. 51) and the Irish peers were restored to their final judicature. In July (21 & 22 Geo. III, c. 47) Poynings’ Law was amended in Dublin and the legislative independence of the Irish parliament was established. See Yelverton’s Act.

  decorated style. The intermediate Gothic style of architecture which evolved from the pointed style and is characterised by the use of decorative heads, fan vaults, smaller wall areas and greater ornamentation on the stone, notably in the geometrical tracery on the windows. (Stalley, ‘Irish gothic’, pp. 65–86.)

  decree nisi. Every divorce decree is initially a decree nisi, granted on condition that it does not take effect until made absolute which follows in due course provided no circumstances or reasons emerge in the interim to render it void.

  De Donis Conditionalibus (1285). (L., concerning conditional gifts) De Donis Conditionalibus (13 Edw. I, c. 1) was enacted to ensure that family estates remained within the family by restraining the alienation of land and the barring of entails. This antagonised many landowners who believed that land should be freely alienable and considered such restraints as contrary to common law. To circumvent (but not contravene) the act and facilitate alienation, the courts accepted two forms of fictitious action, the common recovery and the fine, both of which barred an entail. Thus, despite De Donis, the courts ensured the continuation of the principle of the alienability of land. The Fines and Recoveries (Ireland) Act of 1834 abolished fines and recoveries and henceforth a tenant in tail could bar the entail by executing a simple deed of conveyance known as a ‘disentailing assurance’. See fine, recovery. (Wylie, Irish land law, pp. 218–224.)

  Deeds, Registry of. Established in 1708 (6 Anne, c. 2) to restrict the possibility of land passing into the hands of Catholics, the Registry of Deeds is a repository of records of land transactions such as leases, conveyances and mortgages together with wills and marriage settlements where they pertained to land. To register a deed, a copy or ‘memorial’ was made of the original which was then signed by two witnesses, one of whom witnessed the execution of the original deed. This witness then swore before a justice of the peace that the memorial was a true copy of the original and this sworn memorial was presented at the registry. The memorial was transcribed into a large ledger and the memorial was filed away in the vaults. It is the ledger of transcribed memorials that researchers see. (Phair, ‘Guide to the Registry’, pp. 257–276; Roebuck, ‘The Irish registry’, pp. 61–73.)

  defalcations, defalks. Deductions.

  defeasance. A condition in a deed or contract, the performance of which defeats or voids the deed.

  defective titles, commission for. A commission for defective titles was the means by which landowners with uncertain titles under English law or possessed of concealed lands acquired clean title in return for rents and services. Such commissions were designed to end the depredations of discoverers who were prying into land titles in the hope of ferreting out unsound titles and concealed lands. Four commissions for defective titles were issued in the seventeenth century. The first was established in 1606 by James I to provide an opportunity for the Ulster Irish to secure valid title to their lands. The commission was empowered to compound with those whose titles were unsound and issue new patents. When a patent was issued the patentee came within the compass of the feudal tenures system and was liable for crown rent, alienation fees and the feudal incidents. This was highly advantageous to the crown. With the support of government officials, however, New English adventurers exploited this commission to challenge titles – often of dubious standing under English law anyway – and sought to have them revoked in the hope of securing cheap leases and ultimately freehold possession. Successful adventurers also managed to acquire estates under civil (socage) as opposed to the more onerous military tenure (knight-service). A second commission in 1615 failed to curb the act
ivities of adventurers and the intention to secure the Irish in their titles remained unrealised. A third, promoted by Wentworth in 1634, emerged during the ‘Graces’ controversy when, amongst other things, the Old English were seeking to establish on a statutory basis the security of land held for the previous 60 years. Ostensibly this commission was intended to assuage the concerns of landowners but Wentworth was preparing to increase royal revenue through a thoroughgoing revision of the terms on which land was held from the crown and to increase that revenue by granting new patents which incorporated a change from socage tenure to the more lucrative knight-service. See ‘thorough’. Discoverers prowling in the wake of the Restoration land settlement left many proprietors uneasy about the safety of their titles and prompted Charles II to issue a fourth commission for defective titles, the Commission of Grace, in 1684. The commission was renewed by his son James II a year later and about 500 titles were confirmed. Some Protestant proprietors, conscious of the influence of the Catholic earl of Tyrconnell over the king, feared this commission would be used to undermine their substantial gains under the settlements. Tyrconnell, however, intended far more than that. In 1689, with a Catholic majority in each house of parliament, he had the entire settlement voided. See ‘patriot parliament’.

  Defenders. A Catholic network of secret societies that emerged in Armagh in the early 1780s to resist the disarming raids by the Protestant Peep O’Day Boys and whose activities were largely concentrated in south Ulster, north Leinster and north Connacht. The Defenders were associated with the United Irishmen and participated in the 1798 rebellion. Very little is known about the structure of the society although it appears to have had a regional and national dimension which other secret agrarian movements lacked. Ideologically, the Defenders appear to have combined a mixture of agrarian, religious, tithe and county cess grievances with broader concerns and were influenced by the French Revolution and the activities of organised Catholic groups like the Catholic Committee. See Ribbonism. (Bartlett, ‘Defenders’, pp. 373–94; Garvin, The evolution, pp. 27–9, 37–9.)