Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History

by Joseph Byrne

  tánaiste. (Ir., second) The successor designate of a Gaelic lord, elected by the derbfine or kin group. In English this system of succession is known as tanistry.

  tanistry. The practice of replacing a dead Gaelic lord by his tánaiste, or deputy who was elected during the lord’s lifetime by the derbfine and who usually acquired his position by demonstrating that he possessed the martial skills and intelligence required for the job. Tanistry was designed to secure the survival of the sept by ensuring that the fittest were advanced to the lordship but it also encouraged division and uncertainty as the various aspirants jockeyed for power. The crown policy of receiving the surrender of Gaelic lands and re-granting the surrendered lands with title valid under common law and succession by primogeniture was designed to eliminate tanistry and create a feudal relationship between lord and crown.

  tate, tathe. A Gaelic spatial measure equivalent to 60 acres in Fermanagh and Monaghan. It was known as a balliboe in Tyrone. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Monaghan and Fermanagh were subdivided into a number of ballybetaghs, each of which was divided into quarters, each quarter containing four tates of 60 Irish acres. Hence, a rough table of equivalence reads:

  60a. Irish = 1 tate/balliboe

  4 tates = 1 quarter (240a. Irish)

  4 quarters = 1 ballybetagh (c. 1000a. Irish)

  In Monaghan the tate corresponds with townland boundaries and civil parish boundaries almost always correspond with ballybetaghs. See acre.

  team. See toll and team.

  teasel. A prickly herb whose flower contained hooked bracts that were used in the woollen industry to raise a nap (a downy or hairy surface) on woollen fabric.

  temperance society. Concern over the excessive consumption of alcohol and its effects on family and society prompted the emergence of temperance and total abstinence societies in nineteenth-century Ireland. The campaign to suppress intemperance was characterised by conflicting approaches towards resolving the problem. Temperance, meaning moderation, did not imply teetotalism and throughout the century a verbal war was conducted between the advocates of moderation, which included the bulk of the Catholic hierarchy, and those (such as Fr Theobald Mathew) who saw total abstinence as the only way forward in the battle against insobriety. Initially the impetus for moderation derived from Protestants in the 1820s who opposed spirit consumption, believing that spirits – rather than wine or beer – were the primary cause of drunkenness. Increasingly, however, total abstainers, who claimed that short-term pledges of abstinence were useless, came to occupy centre stage in the campaign to suppress intemperance. Fr Mathew, a Capuchin, embarked on a total abstinence crusade which peaked in the early 1840s and resulted in over half of the population of Ireland committing themselves to teetotalism. However, the movement was heavily tied to the cult of Mathew’s personality and after the Great Famine teetotalism declined. From the 1860s, with some Catholic support, Protestant-dominated temperance societies focused on securing legislative action to restrict opening hours. The most successful and enduring legacy of the struggle against intemperance was the founding in 1889 by the Jesuit, Fr James Cullen, of the Total Abstinence League of the Sacred Heart, a body which later metamorphosed into the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart or the Pioneer League. Eschewing populism, Cullen created an elite association of committed total abstainers who would act as pioneers for the slow, steady conversion of insobriety in the country. (Malcolm, ‘Ireland Sober; Townend, Father Mathew.)

  templars. See knights templar.

  temporalities. The benefices, possessions and resources of a church.

  tenant-in-chief. See capite, in.

  Tenant League (1850–1859). The Tenant Protection Society, an agrarian combination, was founded in Callan, Co. Kilkenny, in 1849 to seek parliamentary support for changes in land law. It aimed to secure the fixing of rents by independent evaluation and agreements between tenants that they would not acquire the holding of an evicted tenant who had been prepared to pay the independently-fixed rent. In 1850 representatives of various tenant-right societies met in Dublin and founded the Tenant League. The league sought to achieve fixity of tenure, lower rents and legal protection for Ulster custom (tenant-right) through political means and formed itself into a political party. The two leading figures in the League were the former Young Irelander, Charles Gavan Duffy, and Frederick Lucas, an English convert to Catholicism. To achieve critical mass the Tenant League joined with the Catholic Defence Association (a group of Irish Liberal MPs who were campaigning for the repeal of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill), simply adding their goal of lower rents and protection of tenant-right to those of its ally. The alliance pursued an independent policy in parliament and opposed all governments that would not meet its demands. With clerical support the 1852 election returned 48 members of the alliance to Westminster but it was immediately riven by the acceptance of posts in the new administration by two of its leading members, William Keogh and John Sadleir. The alliance was reduced to 26 members in 1853 and to 12 two years later. It finally collapsed over an 1859 Tory parliamentary reform bill and the Tenant League went out of existence in its aftermath having made no progress on its aims. (Comerford, ‘Churchmen’, p. 400 passim; Whyte, The Tenant League.)

  Tenant Protection Society. See Tenant League

  tenant-right (Ulster custom). The custom of having the option of renewal upon the termination of a lease. Originating in the seventeenth century as a lure to attract tenants, it represented an acknowledgement of the tenant’s right to remain in possession as long as he paid rent and fulfilled his obligations, to sell his interest without reference to the landlord and to receive compensation for improvements in the event of eviction. Under tenant-right an outgoing tenant could sell his interest in a holding – even a yearly one – although no valuable improvement had been made and despite the fact that the his interest had no legal standing. There were also restrictions on the amount a tenant’s rent could be increased because of improvements effected on his holding. Ulster custom was a custom and not a right and was always liable to the caprice of the landlord. Fixity of tenure and free sale were attractive to tenants who did not possess tenant-right but they came at a price. Tenant-right might cost up to 40 times the annual rent to the incoming tenant. It was legalised by statute in those areas where it existed by Gladstone’s Landlord and Tenant Act (1870). Following on the heels of the recommendations of the Bessborough Commission (1880), the Land Law Act (1881) gave statutory recognition to the claim for fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure.

  tenement. 1: Latterly and colloquially, a term used to denote a dilapidated urban building let by room or rooms 2: In the Civil Survey (1654–6) it is used to describe a small land-holding (including house and garden) let to a tenant 3: In the Tenement Valuation or Primary Valuation of Tenements (1846–52) the term refers to any land, house, mill, bog or fishery. See Griffith’s Valuation.

  ten pound castle. A tower house constructed with the aid of a subsidy of £10 which was offered in the four counties of the Pale between 1429 and 1447.

  tenure. (L., tenere, to hold) The manner and conditions by which land is held or occupied. Tenure answers the question ‘how is the land held?’ See copyholder, customary tenure, entail, fee simple, fee tail, freehold, frankalmoigh, grand sergeanty, knight-service, lease, lease for lives, lease for three lives renewable forever, petty sergeanty, seisin, socage.

  Tenures Abolition Act (1662). The legislative instrument (14 & 15 Chas II, c. 19) that abolished almost all forms of feudal tenure and most of the incidents including aids, wardship, marriage, and alienation fines. Existing tenures were converted into free or common socage (freehold) and all future tenures must be in common socage. Heriots and rents were preserved as were tenure by copyhold – which may not have existed in Ireland – and frankalmoign which did. The crown was recompensed for the loss of associated income by the imposition of a hearth tax.

  termon land. An endowment of land granted to a monastery o
r parish church by a Gaelic lord in return for prayers and masses, the income from which was to be used to maintain the church. Typically the land was leased to a local sept or septs in return for dues or rents and the lessees were also required to provide refection to the bishop on his visitation. See coarb, erenagh.

  ternybeg. (Ir., tiarna beag, a little lord) In the eighteenth century, a middleman.

  Terry Alts. A nineteenth-century secret combination which agitated against the payment of tithe. Operating in counties Westmeath, Limerick, Galway and Clare, the Terry Alts offered largely non-violent resistance to the assessment and collection of tithe.

  terrier. A written commentary containing details supplementary to a map. The terriers which accompany the maps of the seventeenth-century Down Survey, for example, bear a description of each barony and parish together with the names of the occupiers and the extent and the quality of each numbered plot. A glebe terrier was a written description of the church and accompanying glebe land together with a map or maps which were kept to show the bishop on his visitation.

  Test Act. Anglican concern at the growth of Presbyterianism led to the appending by the English privy council of a test clause to the repressive anti-Catholic legislation of 1704 (2 Anne, c. 6, s. 17). It required all office-holders to receive communion according to the Anglican rite within three months of taking office and to acquire a certificate vouching for this. By this means Presbyterians were expelled from all civil and military offices under the crown and lost control of the northern boroughs, notably their strongholds of Belfast and Derry. Between 1704 and 1780 Protestant dissenters, although disbarred from municipal corporations, remained eligible to vote in the county constituencies and to sit in parliament. Eased somewhat by a series of indemnity acts (See Toleration Act), they became eligible again for public office when the test clause was repealed in 1780 (19 & 20 Geo. III, c. 6). The repeal of the Test Act, however, did not guarantee that they would actually be appointed. Presbyterians, unlike Roman Catholics, were now permitted to bear arms and participate in civil life. See Penal Laws, Presbyterian. (Beckett, Protestant, pp. 40–52, 83–105.)

  tester (testoon). A shilling of debased issue which entered circulation c. 1542–3 during the reign of Henry VII. Although nominally of the value of 12 pence, its value sank as low as sixpence and it was later taken out of circulation.

  tester bed. A bed with an overhead canopy.

  testes adfuerunt. In Catholic marriage registers, the names of the witnesses present at a marriage.

  thallage, thawlogue, thawluck. A half-loft located on either side of a chimney canopy.

  theodolite. A surveying instrument used for measuring horizontal and vertical angles. Modern theodolites have been greatly elaborated to incorporate a telescope instead of sights, a level, a compass, a vernier scale (for measuring very small fractions of degrees), a micrometer and a vertical circle for measuring altitudes of elevations and depressions.

  thingmote. In Norse Dublin, a mound near Suffolk Street where arbitrations were conducted.

  Third Order Regular. See Franciscan Third Order Regular.

  Thirty-Nine Articles. A statement of the doctrines of the Church of England adopted by the English bishops and clergy in convocation in 1562 and incorporated almost in their entirety in the Irish Articles of Religion in 1615. The articles affirm predestination and royal supremacy and endorse clerical marriage. Papal supremacy, Catholic ceremonies and traditions and the Anabaptist doctrine of the community of property are repudiated.

  tholsel. Town hall.

  ‘thorough’. A term used to describe Lord-Deputy Wentworth’s policy of maximising crown income by increasing the efficiency of the machinery of state, notably the courts of castle chamber, wards and liveries and high commission together with the commission for defective titles. In purely financial terms Wentworth succeeded but his despotism, together with the replacement of senior officials by trusted nominees, unleashed an antagonism which rebounded on him when the Irish house of commons provided the evidence which sent him to his death in 1640. (Kearney, Strafford, pp. 69–84.)

  ‘Three F’s’. The three f’s of fixity of tenure, fair rent and freedom of sale, collectively known as tenant-right, constituted the campaigning goal of agrarian agitators after the Great Famine. Tenant-right was legalised by statute in those areas where it existed by Gladstone’s Landlord and Tenant Act (1870) and was given statutory recognition just over ten years later in his Land Law Act (1881).

  Threshers. A non-political protest group, reminiscent of the Whiteboys of the late eighteenth century, which emerged in Connacht in 1806–7 agitating on the issue of tithe, priests’ fees, wages and land prices.

  Thurles, Synod of (1850). The first major gathering of the Catholic episcopacy for centuries, the Thurles synod was convened by the newly-appointed archbishop of Armagh, Paul Cullen, to deal with the controversial Queen’s Colleges issue and to establish uniformity of discipline and devotional practice within the church. Although a majority of the bishops present voted a policy of total non-co-operation with the new university colleges, some favoured a more moderate line. Measures to counter the activities of Protestant missionaries were agreed. In pastoral matters the synod required that children of mixed marriages be raised as Catholics and directed that baptisms and marriages be conducted only in church. See Ecclesiastical Titles Act. (Larkin, The making, pp. 27–57.)

  tidemill. A mill operated by harnessing the power of tide. Tidemills were constructed on narrow inlets and comprised a retaining wall and gate through which the rising tide flowed. At high tide the gate was closed. The retained sea-water was released through a millrace at low tide, powering the millwheel as it escaped.

  tide-waiter. A customs and excise official who met ships arriving on the tide, boarded and searched them, searched all passengers and seamen embarking and disembarking and checked all goods being loaded or unloaded. (Ní Mhurchadha, The customs, p. 34.)

  tie-beam. See cruck.

  tiercel. A male of any kind of hawk, particularly a peregrine falcon or goshawk.

  tipstaff. A court attendant or crier.

  tithe. Payment owed to the church, nominally equivalent to one-tenth of earnings although in Ireland that proportion was rarely exacted. It was paid in kind until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when cash payments were substituted. Originally tithe was not absolute property but assigned in trust for the discharge of certain religious duties. After the Reformation it was unpopular in Ireland because the burden fell on the majority Catholic peasantry who benefited little from the recipients, the clergymen of the minority Church of Ireland. William Blackstone’s neat eighteenth-century definition of tithe as ‘the tenth part of the increase arising yearly from the profits of the land, the stock upon lands, and the personal industry of the inhabitants’ identifies the three categories under which tithe was exacted. The profits of the land accrued from crops such as cereals, vegetables and fruit was known as predial (praedial) tithe. Lambs, colts and calves together with the products of animals such as milk, cheese, butter and eggs were deemed mixed tithe and the fruits of labour and industry were known as personal tithe. Tithe was levied on the potato crop only in Munster and parts of south Leinster where it was considered a staple like wheat or barley. Grasslands were exempt from 1736 until the Tithe Composition Act of 1823, thereby ensuring that the grazier and landlord interest, the richer section of the community, was heavily advantaged.

  Tithe was also divided into two classes, great and small. This division derived from the medieval monastic practice of assigning the small tithe (the personal and mixed tithe and minor crops such as fruit or vegetables) to a vicar in return for the performance of religious duties. The great tithe of wheat, barley, oats and hay was paid to the monastic rector. After the dissolution the great tithe devolved to the crown and was granted or sold to laymen or bishops or cathedral chapters. Consequently tithe was not necessarily paid to the clergyman of a particular parish. He may not have been entitled to receive a
ll or even any of the tithe. See perpetual curacy. Lay impropriation resulted in a significant loss of income to the Church of Ireland. As late as 1832 over one-seventh of parochial income was impropriate.

  Tithe was collected not by a clergyman but by a tithe-farmer or tithe-proctor acting on his behalf. The clergyman received a fixed sum and the excess was retained by the proctor who was thereby motivated to exact every last penny. Inevitably the proctor was unpopular in local communities and particularly when he arrived to conduct the contentious annual valuation. Tithe was a recurring grievance throughout the eighteenth century yet anti-tithe agrarian societies often appeared more exercised about regulating the rate at which it was exacted than with the principle of tithe per se. See Whiteboys. The Tithe Composition Act of July 1823 (4 Geo. IV, c. 99) was introduced to remove some of the objectionable features by providing for the voluntary commutation of tithe to a fixed charge on the land. Commissioners appointed by the incumbent were to meet with parishioners to agree on a fixed sum to be paid by the parish. Parochial assessments were then conducted and the charge apportioned among tithe-payers relative to the amount and quality of land each held. This new charge did not fluctuate annually as it had done when the proctor valued the land and was to remain operative for 21 years. Pasturage was also brought within the compass of tithe. The Tithe Composition Act was not a success and contributed to the tithe war which began in November 1830 at Graiguenamanagh, Co. Kilkenny. Again the issue was the level at which tithe was exacted. The 1823 act had linked tithe with the average price of corn during the previous seven years, a period of high prices. When grain prices collapsed tithe-payers considered the fixed rate excessive. The situation was further aggravated in the 1820s by the campaign for Catholic emancipation. After the granting of emancipation in 1829 a vacuum was created which was filled by anti-tithe agitation. Finally, there was a sectarian overlay to the conflict. Catholics were growing ever more reluctant to contribute to an institution that reviled their beliefs and offered nothing in return.