Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History Read online

  dripstone. A stone or hood moulding protruding over a window or door, the function of which was to divert rainwater.

  drisheen. A sheep’s blood pudding traditionally associated with Co. Cork.

  drugget. A coarse woollen fabric.

  duanaire. A Gaelic poem-book or anthology.

  Dublin Bench. The justiciars’ court and sometimes known as the chief place or county court of Dublin, it was the principal royal court in Ireland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was presided over by the justiciar and from about 1400 was re-styled the king’s bench.

  Dublin Metropolitan Police. The failure of the parish watch to deal with public disorder in the city led to the establishment in 1786 of a centralised, permanent and uniformed police force in Dublin. After several reformations this force metamorphosed into the Dublin Metropolitan Police in 1838. Modelled on the London Metropolitan Police, the DMP remained outside the control of the national Irish constabulary until its demise in 1925 when it was incorporated into the garda síochána. (de Blaghd, ‘The DMP’, pp. 116–126.)

  Dublin Philosophical Society (1683–1708). Founded in Dublin by William Molyneaux on the model of the Royal Society in London and with a membership drawn largely from the graduates of Trinity College, Dublin, the Philosophical Society was the earliest of the learned societies to appear in Ireland. Though its existence was short-lived and punctuated by periods of inactivity, the society attracted many prominent figures including William Petty (first president), Narcissus Marsh, George Berkeley and William King. The society’s transactions revolved to a great extent around the reading of scientific papers at meetings and experimentation of a practical nature. (Hoppen, ‘The papers’, pp. 151–248; Idem, ‘The Dublin Philosophical Society’, pp. 99–118.)

  Dublin Society. See Royal Dublin Society.

  dues, small. Small dues were fees paid to the local Anglican minister by all parishioners for christenings, churchings, marriages and funerals. Catholics and Protestant dissenters had to pay these fees even though no ceremony was ever performed. They also had to pay dues to their own ministers for the performance of the actual ceremony. Small dues were a vexation which, along with the rate at which tithe was fixed, featured amongst the complaints of agrarian combinations such as the Oakboys. They also led to the emergence of the couple-beggar who offered cut-price rates for marriages. In the mid-eighteenth century small dues amounted to 2s. 6d. for marriage, 1s. 6d. for christenings, 1s. for funerals and 4d. as a composition for offerings at church festivals. See burials.

  dulse. Dillisk, an edible seaweed.

  dún. (Ir.) A drystone defensive enclosure similar to a rath and dating to the Iron Age.

  during good behaviour. See quamdiu se bene gesserint.

  during pleasure (durante beneplacito nostro). See quamdiu se bene gesserint.

  Durrow, Book of. A seventh-century ornamented copy of the four gospels which, according to the Annals of Clonmacnoise, had magical qualities. It contains 248 folios and is held in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. (Evangeliorum.)

  ‘Dutch Billy’. A gable-fronted, urban dwelling influenced by Dutch building principles.

  E

  Eadem. (L., same) A footnote convention used to repeat the name of the immediately preceding female author but a different work. Eaedem is used where the work is that of a number of female authors. See Idem.

  easement. A right over a neighbour’s land conferred on a landowner by virtue of his ownership, including right of way, light, support and water.

  Easter. A term in the legal and university year commencing shortly after Easter. See sittings.

  Ecclesiastical Commissioners. See Church Temporalities Act.

  ecclesiastical courts. Ecclesiastical courts dealt largely with marriage and testamentary matters, ecclesiastical administration, cases of clerical misconduct, defamation and suits for the payment of tithe. There were 26 in Ireland: the court of prerogative and faculties, 24 consistorial or diocesan courts and the ecclesiastical court of Newry and Mourne. The four metropolitan courts (the diocesan courts of the archbishops) also exercised appellate jurisdiction for the province. Appeals from the metropolitan courts were heard in the court of delegates. Ecclesiastical courts were conducted under the jurisdiction of the bishop but he was not permitted to preside over them. Instead responsibility for their conduct was delegated to a vicar-general, a clergyman or lay person with a secular degree of doctor of law. See consistorial court, court of delegates, court of prerogative and faculties.

  Ecclesiastical Titles Act (1851). A draconian piece of penal legislation (14 & 15 Vict., c 60) directed against the Catholic hierarchies of Britain and Ireland, triggered by the papal decision to restore a Catholic episcopacy in Britain and by the action of the Irish Catholic bishops at the Synod of Thurles in denouncing the Queen’s Colleges and the treatment of tenants by landlords. Piqued at this demonstration of Catholic insolence, Lord John Russell, the Whig prime minister, proposed to end papal aggression by penalising the assumption of any territorial title in the United Kingdom by any Catholic archbishop, bishop or dean and by declaring all deeds and documents signed by them to be illegal. All bequests for the maintenance of such offices and charitable bequests devised in trust to a bishop by virtue of his office were to be voided and forfeited to the crown. The act, passed in July 1851 against the advice of the law officers, was ineffectual. No one was ever prosecuted and it was repealed in 1871 (34 & 35 Vict., c. 53). The idea of the Whigs introducing penal legislation and Russell’s attacks on Irish Catholics in parliament proved damaging only to the party and himself. The Whigs lost influence in Rome and Ireland and within a year Russell was eclipsed by Palmerston. By including Ireland in the legislation he also succeeded in creating an independent Irish party in the house of commons. See Catholic Defence Association. (Kerr, ‘A nation of beggars’? pp. 241– 81; Larkin, The making of the Roman Catholic Church, pp. 81–5, 92–5, 99–100.)

  economy fund. The corporate income of a cathedral. The fund derived largely from the rents on cathedral lands and renewal fines, the principal claim on which was the maintenance of the cathedral building.

  Education, Commissioners of. Established in 1806, the inquiry of the Commissioners of Education was a reconstitution of a 1791 Irish parliamentary commission of inquiry whose report was neither published nor presented in parliament. See Education, Report on. The commissioners produced 14 reports on contemporary educational provision in Ireland by the close of operations in 1812, the most significant of which – the fourteenth – provided the blueprint for the national system which emerged in 1831. Its key recommendations included the establishment of a permanent body of education commissioners to administer parliamentary grants to schools for the poorer classes and to control textbooks. Under the proposed system no attempt would be made to influence or alter the religious beliefs of the pupils and to this end the report distinguished between literary and moral education (which the commissioners regarded as the realm of the state) and religious education (which they acknowledged was the prerogative of clergy of the respective denominations). The commissioners’ reports impacted little on contemporary provision for the state was already funding Protestant education societies such as the Incorporated Society (charter-schools) and the Association for Discountenancing Vice but they contributed significantly to the growing consensus about the shape of educational provision that would ultimately emerge. (Fourteenth report from the commissioners of the Board of Education in Ireland, HC 1812–13 (21) V. 221; Akenson, The Irish education experiment, pp. 76–80.)

  Education Inquiry (1824–27). The Irish Education Inquiry was established by royal commission in 1824 in response to Catholic disquiet over the activities of state-funded, proselytising educational societies, the paucity of funding for Catholic schools, the administration of the lord lieutenant’s school fund and the extensive state support for the Kildare Place Society. Of the five commissioners all but one, Anthony Blake, were Protestants. In addition, Leslie Foster
, MP, was a member of the Kildare Place Society and William Grant supported the London Hibernian Society. Nevertheless, the commission’s nine reports – based on statistical evidence, oral and written submissions and exploratory interviews with Catholic prelates – condemned the Protestant educational bodies, recommended the reduction and ultimate withdrawal of public money from the Kildare Place Society and proposed the absorption of existing voluntary schools into a state system under a new board of management. This board, the commissioners recommended, would oversee schools of general instruction in which Catholics and Protestants would receive a common literary and moral but separate religious education. To this end two lay teachers should be appointed to each school, one of whom must be a Catholic in a predominantly Catholic area or a Presbyterian in a predominantly Presbyterian area. Although Protestant ministers would have access to the schools for the purpose of religious instruction, the spiritual education of Catholic children would fall within the compass of the lay Catholic teacher. The board would receive title to all schoolhouses and be the sole authority for teacher appointments and dismissals. It would hire inspectors, control all moneys related to school-house maintenance and would exercise jurisdiction over texts for general instruction. Despite numerous attempts to bridge the gulf between the Anglican and Catholic hierarchies concerning gospel extracts to be used during common instruction, the commissioners failed to come up with a formula to satisfy all sides. The commission’s failure to achieve consensus resulted in the appointment in 1828 of a select committee of 21 members under Thomas Spring-Rice which proposed a system of united education under a salaried board of education that would safeguard the religious beliefs of pupils. Ministers of all denominations would oversee the religious instruction of their respective denominations and, subject to approval, the board would print books recommended by the different episcopal authorities for religious instruction. Four days were to be set aside for combined literary and moral education, the remaining two days being assigned for separate religious instruction. School buildings (subject to local provision of a site), teacher-training and gratuities, school requisites and the appointment of inspectors would be funded or part-funded from public money. The report of the select committee was opposed by the Established church and welcomed by Catholic prelates. Nothing came of it, however, until 1831 when its key recommendations became the founding principles of Stanley’s new system of national education for Ireland. The second report of the commission of Irish education inquiry (1826–7) comprises an extensive survey of existing school provision at parish level abstracted from the returns of Protestant and Catholic clergymen. Teachers’ names and salaries are given, together with details on attendance, religious composition of the pupils and school location. (Education Inquiry; Akenson, The Irish education experiment, pp. 92–102.) See Education, National System of.

  Education, National System of. The national system of primary education was established in 1831. The regulations for the conduct of the system were founded not on statute but on a series of instructions contained in a letter from Edward Stanley, chief secretary for Ireland, to the duke of Leinster. These regulations derived primarily from an 1828 select committee report on Irish education (see Education Inquiry) that had in turn been informed by earlier commissions and inquiries. Stanley’s original letter has not survived but two slightly different versions were published during the early years of the system (see Akenson below for both versions). In his letter, Stanley reviewed developments in Irish education to date. He declared the Kildare Place Society, then in receipt of considerable public funds, to be incapable of allaying Catholic fears of proselytisation and therefore not a fit body to be entrusted with responsibility for national education in Ireland. He then proceeded to outline the system that was to be established in Ireland. A superintending board of education, the Commissioners of Education in Ireland, was to be created, composed of men of high personal character including leading ecclesiastics of high rank from the different denominations. This board would exercise complete control over schools that connected with the system. The chief purpose of the national system was to educate children of all persuasions in the same school. Accordingly the board would look with favour on joint applications for aid from Catholics and Protestants. A local contribution of one-third of school building costs together with provision for furniture and books and a contribution towards a teacher’s salary were required for any school to receive public funds. Schools would be kept open four or five days each week for moral and literary instruction and the remaining day or two was to be set aside for the religious education of pupils by their respective clergymen. The commissioners would exercise complete control over the funds voted by parliament and over the textbooks to be used in the schools. Local managers would have the right to appoint and dismiss teachers but the commissioners also had the power to dismiss in cases where they were dissatisfied with the conduct of the school. Teachers were to be hired from model or training schools to be established by the board. However well-intended, the national school system very rapidly drifted away from the blueprint outlined by Stanley. The churches exerted powerful pressure on the weak supervisory board of education and within decades the system became de facto denominational. For many years the Church of Ireland refused to have any dealings with the national system, many Anglican clergymen believing that the education of children was properly a matter for the established state church. An Anglican institution, the Church Education Society, was founded to compete with the national system but by the 1870s the expense of maintaining the society drove it into the state system. The board of education published annual reports on all aspects of the administration of the system and accumulated a vast amount of detailed information on local schools through the reports of visiting inspectors, applications for connection, school registers, correspondence, records of salaries and grants and the investigation of complaints. Detailed studies of many local national schools are possible using these sources which are held in the National Archives. See Cowper Commission, Belmore Commission, general lesson, model schools, payment-by-results, Powis Commission, Stopford rule, vested schools. (Akenson, The Irish education experiment; Coolahan, Irish education, pp. 3–51.)

  Education, Report on (1791). In 1788 a committee of the Irish house of commons was formed to examine contemporary educational provision. The work was concluded in 1791 but the report was neither presented nor published and no copies of it have survived. However, the committee’s findings were made available to the Commissioners of Education Inquiry (1806–12) and the Endowed Schools Commission (1856) and it is through their reports that the 1791 report can be reconstructed. The parliamentarians were severely critical of existing educational provision (see diocesan, royal, parish and charter schools) and developed a set of proposals designed to rid the school system of contentious sectarian features. They proposed to place the parish schools under local control (involving lay Catholic representation) and grant access to clergymen of all denominations to minimise the possibility of proselytisation. Overall direction and supervision of the system would be vested in a state central board of control. Although these proposals remained dormant for decades they set the agenda for the early nineteenth century debate on education out of which the national system emerged in 1831. (Corcoran, State policy, pp. 149–191; Akenson, The Irish education experiment, pp. 69– 74.) See Education, Commissioners of.

  effigy tomb. A tomb bearing a likeness of the deceased. The sides of the tomb may be adorned with coats of arms and religious iconography, all of which help to identify the deceased and illuminate aspects of contemporary religious devotion. Also known as a table tomb.

  éiric, éraic. (Ir.) A body fine (compensation) payable under the Brehon law system for homicide. The payment was in two parts, payment for the injury (éiric) and an honour price (lóg n-enech) related to the rank of the individual killed. The éiric comprised a fixed payment of seven cumals (female slaves but more usually their equivalent value in livestock) for a freem
an and was paid to the derbfine or agnatic kin of the dead man. One-third of the éiric was paid to the victim’s lord if he played a part in securing the fine. The honour-price was divided between the victim’s maternal and paternal kin. In the event of a murderer defaulting, the blood fine devolved to his kin group and if they failed to provide compensation the victim’s kinsmen were obliged to wage a blood-feud to exact retribution.

  ejectment. Eviction, the legal remedy for the non-payment of rent.

  ell. A linear measure equivalent to 45 inches, used to measure linen cloth.

  eloign. (Fr., eloigner, to remove to a distance) To carry off goods beyond the jurisdiction of the sheriff. See withernam.

  embattled. An architectural term to describe a building boasting battlements. These were not always for defensive purposes. The parish churches of the fifteenth century (and the Gothic revival churches of the nineteenth) were embattled for decorative purposes.

  embracery. The offence of influencing a jury illegally and corruptly.

  embrasure. A window or door with internally bevelled or chamfered sides.

  enceinte. An enclosing wall or fortification.

  Encumbered Estates Acts. Steep poor law rates and declining rental income during the famine drove many landowners into insolvency. The Encumbered Estates Acts (11 & 12 Vict., c. 48, 1848 and 12 & 13 Vict., c. 77, 1849) were intended to resolve the problem of massive indebtedness by facilitating the sale of encumbered (indebted) estates, discharging the debts and providing purchasers with clean title. Properly this should have been the responsibility of chancery but that court proved unable to meet the challenge of large scale indebtedness. The government hoped the new legislation would break the log-jam and transform the face of Irish agriculture with an injection of capital from Britain. The 1849 act superseded and improved the earlier act (which would have clogged up the courts with disputes about title) by providing for the establishment of an encumbered estates court presided over by three commissioners or judges to process the sales. The legislation stated that where any land or lease of land was subject to encumbrances the value of which exceeded half the net annual rent, any encumbrancer (creditor) on such land or lease could apply to the commissioners for the sale of the land or lease and so discharge the encumbrances thereon. All encumbrancers, except the person on whose application the sale had been ordered (and even the latter if the commissioners allowed), could bid for the encumbered property and the successful bidder was vested with an indefeasible title by the court. The judges were authorised to arrange exchanges and divisions – even if lands were not subject to be sold under the act – if this would facilitate the sale of the encumbered property. They were also empowered to sell lands included in different applications in the same sale. The act did not provide, as the Devon Commission had recommended, that any of the purchase money should go to tenants who had carried out permanent improvements. It simply allowed for the replacement of one landlord by another. By 1859 over 3,000 estates amounting to some five million acres had passed into the hands of new (mostly Irish) landlords, many of whom immediately set about evicting tenants. In 1858 the encumbered estates court was superseded by the landed estate court which, in turn, became the land judges court in 1877. The records of sales conducted under the encumbered estates acts can be found in the National Archives. Advertisements for the sale of properties, known as estate rentals, contain much to interest the local historian including maps, extents, contents, valuation, details of title together with tenants’ names, their rents and tenure. (Lyons, Illustrated incumbered estates.)