Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History

by Joseph Byrne

  deforcement. The forcible dispossession or withholding of property or goods from the rightful owner.

  delegates, court of. A post-Reformation innovation comprising a commission of delegates appointed by the lord chancellor to hear and determine ecclesiastical appeals formerly made to Rome. It was inaugurated in 1537 by the Act of Appeals (28 Hen. VIII, c. 6) which outlawed appeals to Rome and survived as a court of appeals in matrimonial and ecclesiastical causes until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869. The court of delegates lost its appellate role in testamentary cases in 1856 when the civil court of probate was established with appeals to the court of appeals in chancery. See prerogative and faculties, court of.

  demesne. Land held by the manorial lord and not set out to tenants. It was farmed by tenants owing labour services and by hired labour. Leasehold was first used on demesne land and became a lucrative source of income for the lord because it was not circumscribed by the custom of the manor. It could be leased at its true market value and was subject to reviews. In leasing demesne land the lord no longer required labour services. Rather than forego this right, labour services were commuted to a cash payment known as quit-rent.

  demi-jures. Sheriff’s peers, 48 of whom sat in the lower house or commons of Dublin corporation together with 96 councillors elected by the guilds of the city.

  demise. 1: To lease 2: The lease itself.

  demurrer. A defendant’s assertion during trial that does not deny the veracity of the allegation against him but that the allegation in itself is not sufficient to justify the legal action.

  denisation, grant of. A grant of naturalisation under letters patent.

  deodand. (L., Deo dandum, a thing to be given to God) In medieval law a horse, cart or any personal chattel that caused the death of a person. It was forfeited to the crown and used for pious or charitable purposes to appease the deity.

  deposition. A sworn statement.

  depositions of 1641. Thirty-two volumes of depositions taken from (largely Protestant) eyewitnesses to events dating from the outbreak of rebellion in Ulster in 1641 until the pacification of the country in 1652. Some of the material is clearly hearsay and fanciful but many deponents provide detailed and highly localised accounts of the events they had witnessed or endured. The collection is held in Trinity College, Dublin.

  deprivation. The revocation of a benefice by an ecclesiastical court for offences committed against clerical discipline.

  deputy-lieutenant. The chief governor of Ireland was styled deputy-lieutenant when the nominated lieutenant was in a minority. If the lieutenant was a member of the royal family he usually remained in England and nominated a deputy in his stead.

  derbfine. (Ir., true kin) The kin group, all of whose members have descended through the male line. It was from this group that the tánaiste or heir to the lord was chosen. See Brehon law.

  Derricke, John. An English engraver whose Image of Ireland (1581) contains 12 heavily-prejudiced representations of life in Ireland in the later sixteenth century. Each image is accompanied by a verse composition which denigrates the Irish or extols Lord Deputy Sidney. The images include representations of a native Irish cattle-raid, a Gaelic lord feasting on the fruits of the raid, Sidney leaving Dublin Castle, a Sidney victory over the Irish and Gaelic lords on their knees before him.

  destrier. A war-horse or charger.

  detinue. 1: An action at common law for the recovery of a personal chattel (or its value) which had been wrongfully detained. The action could be taken for the recovery of the actual property (replevin) or for its market value (trover) 2: The illegal detention of a personal chattel from another.

  de Tocqueville, Alexis (1805–59). French nobleman, scholar and author of Democracy in America, de Tocqueville spent six weeks in Ireland in July and August 1835 with his friend Gustave de Beaumont. During his brief stay his travels took him south to Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford and Cork and then along the west coast from Killarney to Galway from whence he returned to Dublin. The Frenchmen attended assizes, interviewed Catholic and Protestant clergymen and visited Newport Pratt, Co. Mayo, where they encountered a whole population dying from starvation. De Tocqueville’s writing on Ireland is dominated by three themes: poverty, the hatred of the poor for the gentry and the deep bond between the poor and the Catholic church. (Larkin, Alexis de Tocqueville.)

  Devon Commission (1843). A royal commission of inquiry into the state of law and practice in relation to land in Ireland. It was prompted by William Sharman Crawford’s unsuccessful bid in 1835 to introduce legislation to compensate evicted tenants for improvements they had made. Robert Peel established the commission to inquire into the occupation of land in Ireland. As the commissioners consisted of Irish landlords they were unlikely to advance a radical programmes of change in the system of tenure but they did confirm the benefits of tenant-right in those areas where it prevailed. They recommended the introduction of a bill to give tenants compensation for improvements but it was defeated in parliament when introduced by Stanley in 1845. The establishment of the Devon Commission represented the first time in which the Irish landed system as a whole was placed in the area of reform. Its report is extremely valuable to local historians for it contains detailed interrogations of landlords and farmers on conditions in the localities. (Devon.)

  dexter. In heraldry, the right hand of a shield from the point of view of the person bearing it.

  dicker. A pack of ten hides.

  dignity. A cathedral office such as dean, chancellor or prebendary. These offices were greatly prized for they were often supported by the income of several parishes and the emoluments could be considerable.

  Dignitas Decani. A sixteenth-century chartulary which contains a collection of charters, papal bulls, royal letters, patents, acts of parliament, episcopal correspondence and deeds pertaining to the dean and chapter of St Patrick’s Cathedral. (White, The ‘Dignitas Decani’.)

  dillisk. Dulse, an edible seaweed.

  dinnshenchas. Placelore.

  diocesan schools. Diocesan schools were introduced by 12 Eliz., c. 1 (1570) which enacted that ‘there shall be henceforth a free school within every diocese of this realm of Ireland and that the school-master shall be an Englishman or of the English birth of this realm’. Little came of this initiative and by 1791 only 18 of the 34 Protestant dioceses had fulfilled the legislative requirement. Their impact was insignificant for they had in all but 324 pupils enrolled. By 1809 the number of diocesan schools had declined to 17 and by 1831 only 12 were operating. The Irish Church Act (1869) protected the life interest of the diocesan schoolmasters but an amending act in 1872 – which permitted them to commute their interest – effectively terminated the diocesan school system. (Diocesan Schools; Akenson, The Irish education experiment, pp. 25–7; Quinn, ‘The diocesan schools’, pp. 26–31.)

  diocese. The district or jurisdiction of a bishop. Irish dioceses derive from three twelfth-century synods, Cashel (1101), Rathbreasail (1111) and Kells (1152), which reshaped the ecclesiastical administration of Ireland along continental lines. Thus the largely monastic basis of administration was replaced by a structure which consisted of four provinces (Armagh, Cashel, Kells and Dublin) each of which was an archbishopric and 22 dioceses. These remained unchanged in the Church of Ireland until the nineteenth century when the Church Temporalities Act reduced the number of archbishoprics to two (Dublin and Armagh) and ten bishoprics were united with their neighbours. After the Reformation the Catholic church found it difficult to maintain an episcopal structure within the area controlled by the Dublin administration. Under the direction and supervision of Rome, absent bishops were replaced by regulars and regular clergy performed diocesan tasks that were normally the remit of the seculars. By 1630 nearly every diocese had a resident ecclesiastical authority in the form of a bishop. In the second half of the century many sees fell as a consequence of the Confederate rebellion, the Williamite war and the Banishment Act of 1697 (9 Will. III, c. 1) and it was n
ot until the middle of the eighteenth century that an effective diocesan administration along episcopal lines emerged.

  direct-entry house. A house with a front door opening directly into the living space at the opposite end of the room to the hearth. Direct-entry houses were typically features of the western half of the country. See hearth-lobby house, jamb.

  directory. A listing of names and addresses. The first small-scale Irish trade and commercial directories appeared in the eighteenth century. Over time they expanded to incorporate the legal and clerical professions, the gentry, government and municipal officials and a host of other occupations. Specialised ecclesiastical and medical directories appeared in the nineteenth century and street-by-street listings of householders were carried by publications such as Alexander Thom’s annual Irish Almanac and Official Directory which appeared in 1844. Directories often contain notes on the history, topography, economic development and administrative structure of towns as well as lists of the principal inhabitants and professional and business people. The best collection of Irish directories can be found in the National Library of Ireland. (ffolliott and Begley, ‘Guide to Irish directories’, pp. 75–106.)

  discoverer. An amending act (8 Anne c. 3, 1709) to the 1704 ‘popery act’ (2 Anne, c. 6) introduced the discoverer who was enabled to obtain possession of a Catholic’s land where he could show that there had been an evasion of the penal land laws. In practice the majority of discoveries were collusive actions agreed between Catholic landowners and Protestant intimates to secure an estate from hostile discoverers but families were often riven by the activities of discoverers within. See Penal Laws.

  discovery. The pre-trial disclosure of facts or documents pertaining to a court action.

  Disestablishment. See Irish Church Act.

  dispensary. Privately funded local health centres first appeared in the eighteenth century to provide health care for the poor, maternity facilities and inoculations. Their numbers grew after 1805 (45 Geo. III, c. 110–111) when provision was made for partial funding by local subscription and matching grand jury grants. Subscribers were entitled to issue tickets to the sick to enable them to attend the dispensary where a medical officer was employed to provide free medical attention and medicines. By 1840 there were over 600 in operation, supported by the provision of an infirmary and fever hospital in each county. In 1851 responsibility for the dispensaries was transferred from the grand juries to the poor law unions under the Medical Charities Act (14 & 15 Vict., c. 68). The poor relief act of the same year laid upon the boards of guardians of each poor law union the duty of dividing their union into dispensary districts, in each of which a local committee comprising poor law guardians and ex-officio guardians were to maintain a dispensary and appoint and pay a medical officer. Under the 1898 Local Government (Ireland) Act dispensary committees were abolished and their duties placed in the hands of the boards of guardians. In the 1920s the dispensary network came under the control of boards of health and public assistance and from 1942 the county councils assumed responsibility for their maintenance and upkeep.

  dissenter. A person who dissented from or opted out of the established church, the Church of Ireland. Dissenters did not conform to Anglicanism or subscribe to its forms of worship and so are also known as nonconformists. Included among the dissenting tradition were Presbyterians, Baptists, Independents, Quakers, Huguenots, Moravians and Methodists. Although the term dissenter is usually understood to embrace non-Anglican Protestants, Catholics were also technically dissenters and all ultimately became liable to the penal laws.

  dissolution. Initiated in 1537 as part of Henry VIII’s ecclesiastical reforms, the dissolution of the monasteries in Ireland led to the closure and confiscation of about 130 houses by the close of the century. Dissolution was both a means of extending the Henrician reformation – the monastic regular orders remained loyal to papal authority and opposed Henry – and an instrument for increasing royal revenue. The blow was softened by the granting of life pensions to members of religious houses (but not to mendicants) and the passage of relevant legislation was facilitated by sweeteners to the Old English gentry in the form of additional land grants. Major beneficiaries included senior administrators such as the lords deputy, Leonard Grey and Anthony St Leger, and about 20 New English settlers. The suppression was not a cataclysmic event for monastic life was already in decline and the bulk of Irish monasteries remained untouched, located as they were in areas under native Irish control beyond the compass of central administration. Nor did it turn out to be a revenue cash cow for less than £2,000 accrued to the exchequer from the dissolution. (Bradshaw, The dissolution; Mac Niocaill, Crown survey; White, Extents of Irish.)

  distaff. In genealogy, the female or maternal side of the family.

  distraint. See distress.

  distress. A distraint. The remedy by which landlords sought to secure the payment of arrears by seizing the goods of a debtor, selling them and retaining what was owed. The procedure fell into disuse because of technicalities which had been introduced for the benefit of the tenant, the non-observance of which voided the whole proceeding and exposed the landlord to heavy damages. A proper demand for rent must be made, only the landlord or his agent could make the distress, entry to a premises could not be made by breaking a door and distresses were prohibited between sunset and sunrise and on Sundays. Certain goods were exempted from distress as were stranger’s goods found on the premises. Under Deasy’s Act (Landlord and Tenant Law Land Act, 1860) distress could not be made for arrears of rent due for more than a year. The net effect was that a legal proceeding by distress for the recovery of arrears of rent was almost always adopted.

  district court. The modern successor to the petty sessions.

  district electoral division. Formerly a poor law division, a district electoral division comprised a number of townlands grouped together for local electoral purposes.

  doffer. A textile worker who removed the full spindles or bobbins of wool or cotton from the carding cylinders to make room for empty ones.

  dolmen. See portal dolmen.

  Dominican Friars. The Dominican or Black Friars were mendicants who settled in Dublin and Drogheda in 1224. By 1300 they had about 24 friaries, rising to 38 by the time of the dissolution of the monasteries (1538–42). Founded in 1215 by St Dominic, the order was particularly dedicated to preaching and hence the abbreviation, OP, the Order of Preachers.

  domicilium. In Catholic baptismal registers, place of residence.

  donjon. The keep or great tower of a castle.

  Doric. The earliest and simplest of the three Greek orders of architecture, the Doric style is distinguished by fluted columns that lack bases and stand directly on platforms. The capital is a plain flat square beneath which is a convex moulding and below this again a number of small rings or channels.

  dorse. The back of a document, hence the term ‘endorse’.

  double pile. An eighteenth-century house style comprising an arrangement of six rooms in two ranges (piles), each range of three rooms built one behind the other. The ranges were separated by two middle rooms. The middle room to the front of the house, the entrance hall, opened onto rooms on either side. The main reception room lay to the rear of the entrance hall and it too opened onto a room at either side. The main elevation of a double pile house was three, five, or seven windows wide, arranged symmetrically. The style was introduced to Ireland by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in 1731 with the construction of Cashel Palace in Co. Tipperary.

  doublet. A tight-fitting jacket worn between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.

  doubling ordinances. Royal ordinances issued in 1643 and 1647 which offered to double the amount of land due to any adventurer who contributed an additional quarter of his original subscription to fund the suppression of the Irish rebellion. The generosity of these terms was enhanced by the fact that the allotments were to be made in Irish rather than in English measure. After the Restoration in 1660, however, the doubling
allowance was cancelled and adventurers received land equivalent to the actual value of their adventure. Subsequently they also had their land grants retrenched by a third.

  dovecote. A pigeonhouse or columbarium used to provide meat to the lord’s table.

  dower. The right of a widow to a life estate in one-third of her husband’s realty (real estate) where that estate was held in fee simple (freehold). It did not apply in cases where the property was a life estate, a joint tenancy or was leased.

  dowry. An endowment of property or money brought by the wife to her husband upon marriage.

  Down Survey (1654–56). A mapped record of land forfeited as a consequence of the 1641 rebellion, suggested and supervised by William Petty and so called because the forfeited estates were measured and plotted down on maps. The Down Survey lacks the detail provided by the Civil Survey inquisitions but provides a more precise measurement of estates. Barony, parish and townland are the divisions employed in the survey. Baronial entries commence with a description of soil quality and a listing of rivers. Then follows a list of the parishes in the barony and related observations. Detailed parish entries note boundaries, soil quality and the number of forfeited townlands contained therein. The most important parts of the survey – the schedules of forfeited lands – are contained in the terriers and accompanying numbered parish maps. Lands classified as ‘Protestant Lands’ were not measured as these were not to be re-distributed. (NLI, MS 714; Larcom, The history of the survey; Ó Domhnaill, ‘The maps’, pp. 381– 392.)

  dragoons. Heavy cavalry.

  Drapier’s Letters. A series of seven letters penned anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1724–5 which attacked the English government proposal to mint copper halfpence for Ireland and rejected the legitimacy of the Declaratory Act, arguing that Ireland, as a kingdom no less than England, had the right to make laws for its own governance. See Wood’s Halfpence. (Swift, The Drapier’s letters.)