Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History Page 11

  Congregationalists. See Independents.

  Connacht, Annals of. Attributed to the Ó Duibhgeannain family, this Connacht collection covers the period stretching from the early thirteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries and derives from a fifteenth-century work by the Ó Maoilchonaire family. The text is close to the similarly-derived Annals of Lough Key and was used as a source for the Annals of the Four Masters. (Freeman, Annála Connacht.)

  Connacht, Composition of. See composition.

  connywarren. A rabbit warren.

  Conradh na Gaeilge. (Ir., Gaelic League) An Irish language revival movement founded in 1893 by Eoin McNeill and Douglas Hyde, Conradh na Gaeilge promoted the use of Irish through language classes, social evenings and the publication of literary work. It published an Irish language newspaper, An Claidheamh Soluis, and established An tOireachtais, an annual cultural festival. Its non-political status attracted an eclectic membership which included Protestants and unionists but campaigns to ensure that Irish was retained as a subject in secondary schools and to make it a compulsory matriculation subject in the National University of Ireland added a political cutting edge to its activities. Hyde, a Protestant Gaelic scholar, resigned when it became apparent to him that heavy infiltration by the Irish Republican Brotherhood had turned the movement into a separatist organisation. Many of the 1916 rebels were members as were Sinn Féiners and later, the IRA.

  conscience, court of. A small debts court associated with municipal corporations where summary jurisdiction was exercised. Jurisdiction was limited to sums of up to 40 shillings and defaulters were liable to imprisonment. The judge was usually the mayor or the ex-mayor for the year following his term of office. (Hughes, ‘The Dublin court’, pp. 42–9.)

  consistorial court. A diocesan ecclesiastical court of the Established church. Until the passage of the Probate Act of 1857 (20 & 21 Vict., c. 8), wills were proved and letters of administration granted in the consistorial court. Other matters dealt with included tithe disputes, matrimonial causes, clerical misconduct and immorality. The judges in the 20 consistorial courts were appointed by the bishop and were known as vicars-general. Although in many dioceses the vicar-general was a lay lawyer, surrogates could be appointed and these were usually clergymen. He was assisted by a registrar who retained custody of the records and entered the decisions of the court. Where a deceased person had an estate worth more than five pounds in another diocese (bona notabilia) the issue of probate and administration was referred to the prerogative and faculties court of the archbishop of Armagh. Four metropolitan courts exercised original jurisdiction in the archiepiscopal dioceses and served as courts of appeal from the consistorial courts in their respective provinces. Testamentary jurisdiction was transferred to a secular court of probate in 1857. Eleven district registries replaced the consistorial courts and the jurisdiction previously exercised by the prerogative court was henceforth exercised by the principal registry in Dublin. The Irish Church Act abolished the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts in 1869. See probate.

  constable. 1: A manorial or parish official elected annually at the court leet and later at the quarter-sessions to keep or supervise the watch. This unpaid office was introduced in medieval times by the same legislation which instituted the watch. The petty constable was required to assist in distraints, whip convicts, enforce the Sabbath and extinguish fires. Paid substitution was permitted but the constable himself was unpaid. Catholics were banned from holding the post of constable until 1718 when discriminatory legislation lapsed and thereafter the majority of constables were probably Catholic. Until 1734 a high constable was appointed for each barony at the quarter-sessions, later at the Lent assizes. See police, watch and ward 2: An officer given command of an important castle and garrison or an army.

  Constantine, Donation of. A document of disputed authenticity in which the fourth-century Emperor Constantine is purported to have granted the popes temporal as well as spiritual authority over Rome and Western Europe. Although generally regarded as an eighth-century forgery, the Donation was employed to advance papal claims against the temporal powers. On the basis of Constantine’s grant, John of Salisbury, secretary to the archbishop of Canterbury, extracted the bull Laudabiliter or the Donation of Ireland from the English pope Adrian IV in 1155. This bull, the authenticity of which has also been disputed, permitted the intervention of Henry II in Ireland for the purpose of reforming the Irish church.

  constat. (L., It is certain) 1: A certificate issuing out of the court of exchequer stating what appears on record concerning a matter upon which a defendant intends to move for a discharge or upon which he intends to plead 2: A copy or exemplification of the enrolment of letters patent under the great seal.

  constitutional settlement (1782–3). See Yelverton’s Act, ‘patriot’ party.

  contumacy. Contempt. A refusal to recognise the jurisdiction or obey the summons of an ecclesiastical court or to present oneself before it, the penalty for which could be excommunication.

  conventicle. Originally a Sunday afternoon gathering of Lutherans to review the morning’s sermon and engage in devotional reading and discussion. In Ireland and England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the term came to refer to a non-conformist assembly during the period when such assemblies were regarded as seditious and heretical. Conventicles were outlawed in 1664 under the Conventicle Act (16 Chas. II, c. 4).

  Convention of 1660. A convention of 137 Protestant delegates elected on the basis of the parliamentary constituencies which met in Dublin between March and May 1660 to shepherd the country through the uncertainties attending the collapse of the Commonwealth. The convention was promoted by a group of officers who had deposed Edmund Ludlow (the English republican commander-in-chief of the army in Ireland) and the civil administration in a coup d’état on 13 December 1659. A range of issues including universities and schools, trade, revenue and expenditure and the maintenance of ministers were considered by the assembled delegates but their key concerns were enshrined in a declaration drawn up to validate the assembly and to state its objectives. The members pledged support for the army, repudiated the tyranny of the Rump, asserted the right of Ireland to have its own parliament and to tax itself and claimed that Ireland was not bound by acts emanating from the English parliament. They proposed a learned, preaching ministry organised on a parochial basis and supported by tithe but there was to be no room for extremists such as Quakers, Baptists, Sectaries or Independents. Principally, the convention was anxious to have confirmed all grants of forfeited land and leases made since 1653 and to this end agents were dispatched to England to lobby the newly-restored king. Their almost complete success in this regard is recorded in the king’s gracious declaration of November 1660 which was legislatively enacted in the Act of Settlement in 1662. To support the army a poll tax ordinance was issued, requiring every person above the age of 15 to pay a levy graduated according to social rank. The army, however, benefited little from this ordinance for the bulk of it was presented as a gift to Charles II. (Clarke, Prelude; McGuire, ‘The Dublin convention’, pp. 121–146.)

  Convention Act (1793). Introduced against the background of the French revolution, the Convention Act (33 Geo. III, c. 29) was an attempt to repress agitation in favour of electoral reform and Catholic emancipation and to neutralise the activities of the United Irishmen and the Catholic Committee, both of which had recently held conventions. It outlawed all gatherings which claimed to be representative and which assembled for the purpose of petitioning the crown or parliament for changes in the law. The Catholic Committee had, in fact, dissolved itself after the passing in the same year of Hobart’s Catholic Relief Act of 1793 (see relief acts). The act was invoked successfully against a revived Catholic Committee in 1811 and against its successor, the Catholic Board, in 1814. See Catholic petition.

  conventualism. The position adopted by a faction within the Franciscans which opposed the severity of the rule of absolute personal and communal poverty. A massiv
e increase in membership led the conventuals to believe that settled houses must be established and this implied communal possessions. Conventuals thus became associated with a laxity of discipline. They were opposed by the observants, zealots who pressed for a literal interpretation of the rule. Guided by the moderation of St Bonaventure the order managed to plot a safe course through the minefield but on his death the old dissensions reappeared. The outcome was a division in the order between the conventuals and the observants. In Ireland the majority of Franciscan friaries were observant by 1538. Some commentators maintain that one of the attractions of observance for native Irish friars was that it enabled them to detach themselves from their Anglo-Irish conventual superiors. However, although observance achieved greater success among the Gaelic Irish, some friaries under Anglo-Irish control also adhered to the observance. Other orders, including the Augustinians and the Dominicans, also experienced observant reforms and the Capuchins, a Franciscan offshoot founded in 1525, were an even more austere observant group.

  convert rolls. Certificates of conformity to the Established church were enrolled on the convert rolls which were records of chancery. When the ‘Act to prevent the further growth of popery’ (2 Anne, c. 6) was passed in 1703, converts from Catholicism to Protestantism were obliged to give proof of conformity. This involved the acquisition of a certificate from the bishop of the home diocese declaring that the person named had renounced Catholic doctrine and sworn the oath of abjuration at a public service. From 1709 (8 Anne, c. 3) conformers were also required to take communion from an Anglican minister within six months of declaring themselves Protestant. Only by conforming could a Catholic evade the disabilities imposed on property and profession by the penal laws. The original convert rolls were destroyed by fire in 1922 but two volumes of calendars are preserved in the National Archives. In all, they contain the names of almost 6,000 people who conformed between 1703 and 1838. (O’Byrne, The convert.)

  conveyance, deed of. Introduced by the Real Property Act (1845), it replaced the more cumbersome lease and release and bargain and sale methods of conveyance and established the modern deed of conveyance.

  convocation. The bicameral clerical body of the Established church which dealt with church matters, taxation and crown subsidies. The upper house comprised the archbishops and bishops while representatives of the lower clergy sat in the lower house. Until the creation of the General Synod and the Representative Church Body in 1870, it was the assembly of bishops and clergy of the united dioceses of the Established church, the representative body of the church. It met after the restoration in 1661 until 1666 and from 1704 to 1711 but never sat again despite petitions to the crown for permission to do so. No convocation was permitted between 1711 and 1869. The episcopacy petitioned unsuccessfully in 1861 and again in early 1869 for permission to hold a convocation to discuss disestablishment. Gladstone refused permission unless they were prepared to deal solely with the means and mode of disestablishment and not the question of disestablishment itself. The episcopacy rejected this and the issued died. The convocation of Canterbury met only once between 1717 and 1847 and that had been a formality. See Irish Church Act (1869), Church of Ireland.

  cony. A rabbit.

  conyger. (Ir., coinicéir) A rabbit warren or connywarren.

  cooper. A cask maker.

  co-operative movement. The co-operative movement was founded by the Irish Protestant unionist Sir Horace Plunkett following the success of a small co-operative store on his family estate. Plunkett believed there was too much emphasis on tenure and anti-English agitation in Ireland at the expense of increasing the quality and presentation of Irish produce to compete with cheap food imports. The first co-operative society was founded in Doneraile (Co. Waterford) in 1889 and there were 33 creamery and co-operative societies in existence within five years. Plunkett also founded the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, an umbrella group which propagated the co-operative message through its organ, The Irish Homestead. By 1914 there were about 1,000 affiliated societies operating with an annual turnover of £3.5million, of which the creameries accounted for two-thirds. The co-operative movement operates to this day from the same headquarters in Merrion Square, Dublin, that it occupied in 1908. (West, Horace Plunkett, pp. 20–35.)

  copia vera. Documents which contain the words copia vera are true copies and not originals.

  coppice. A wood or grove. Woods were often coppiced or pollarded (cut back) to ensure a steady supply of rods for basket-weaving or thatching. Coppicing was carried out at the base of a tree to produce many shoots rather than one trunk. See pollard.

  copyholder. A tenant who held land on terms set out in a copy of the manorial court roll. It is not certain to what extent, if at all, this form of tenure existed in Ireland.

  coracle. A Boyne, circular currach consisting of a hide-covered framework of woven hazel rods. Coracles were worked by two men, one kneeling in front, the other facing backwards to handle the net. (Shaw-Smith, Ireland’s traditional crafts, pp. 95–6.)

  coram rege. (L., before, in the presence of the king) The perambulatory king’s court before it became fixed in one location. In Ireland, the justiciar’s court, later the king’s bench.

  corbel. A stone or wooden wall projection which supports a roof beam.

  corbelled roof. A roof constructed of ascending layers of overlapping stone which converge at the top.

  cordwainer. A shoemaker.

  cores. Coarse, often slightly chipped, flints which are the waste or discarded material of a flint toolworks.

  Corinthian. One of the three Greek orders of architecture, Corinthian columns are characterised by capitals richly ornamented with flowers and leaves. See Ionic, Doric.

  corn laws. Early in the eighteenth century an outbreak of cattle murrain on the continent encouraged Irish farmers to convert tillage land to pasture. The graziers were aided by the Irish parliament which exempted pasturage from tithe. Bounties paid on the export of English wheat coupled with tariffs on Irish corn being carried into England acted as disincentives to Irish arable farmers and the shift to cattle-raising accelerated when the British market was opened to Irish cattle in 1758. The Irish parliament voted bounties several times to corn exporters to aid the movement of grain to Dublin but the premiums were tied to grossly unrealistic price levels and proved ineffectual. The introduction of a bounty on the inland carriage of corn in 1759 provided the impetus for an increase in the area of land under tillage but it was the enactment of Foster’s Corn Law in 1784 (23 & 24 Geo. III, c. 19) that transformed the face of Irish agriculture. A combination of export bounties and tariffs on imported grain coupled with the increasing demands of a burgeoning British population and restrictions on imports from continental Europe led to a twelvefold increase in grain exports to Britain between 1780 and 1820. Grain exports remained strong over the following decades but government interference in the markets increasingly attracted the ire of anti-protectionists. When the potato crop – the food that facilitated the export of grain – failed in 1845 and 1846, the government dithered over the question of repealing the corn laws. Irish merchants and traders opposed the introduction of free trade in corn claiming that reports of food shortages in Ireland were exaggerated but the British Anti-Corn Law League proved a more powerful lobbyist and the laws were repealed in July 1846. In theory cheaper imports should have lowered the price of grain locally but it was three years before the measure became fully effective. In the interim the government resolved not to meddle in the market, refused to impose a temporary embargo on the export of corn and agreed with the merchants not to sell corn below market prices. Thus the repeal of the corn laws owed more to ideological principles than to the need to provide food for the starving in Ireland. In the long-term the repeal of the corn laws encouraged a shift away from tillage back to livestock-farming which remains the predominant characteristic of Irish agriculture down to this very day.

  cornet. The bearer of regimental colours.

  cornic
e. An ornamental moulding projecting from the higher reaches of a wall.

  coroner. The office of coroner emerged in Ireland in the thirteenth century. Then, as now, he was required to investigate sudden or unexplained deaths a function deriving from his duty to secure the pecuniary interest of the crown and remembered in his original title – ‘crowner’. Treasure trove, wreck and sudden death (the chattels of a suicide or the thing which caused the death were forfeited as were the chattels of a convicted felon) all touched upon the prerogative entitlements of the crown and the inquest conducted by the coroner was the means by which such rights were established. His duties were many. He was required to receive abjurations of the realm made by felons in sanctuary; to hear appeals, confessions of felons and appeals of approvers. He had to attend or organise exactions and outlawries in the county court. He was obliged to secure all forfeitures of lands or goods to the crown, secure the appearance of witnesses and keep a record of what had happened. The coroner might be required, either alone or with the sheriff, to perform any other administrative duties and he must have enough land in the county to answer the king. He was elected by the oath of 12 men in the county court. The coroner was also the keeper of the pleas of the crown. He recorded the accusations and preliminary pleadings which took place between one eyre and the next so that cases could proceed when the justices arrived. See abjure the realm.