Library Forum

Thanks Paddy for the interesting (and entertaining ) reading. Just one query tho, does the RofBMD office in Ennis cater for all of County Clare or only the Ennis Registration district? Re Ennis accomodation I would recommend the new Rowan Tree Hostel which is only a moderate drop kick from the Clare...

Thank you Paddys for that education. Incidentally, Paddy W since I am proudly Australian I am not prone to using American translations. As Paddy C pointed out there are other uses of the word turf. One that has become most common in this country is for those squares or rolls of cultivated grass than...

In Griffith's Valuation in the townland of Lisheen, Clondagad Parish there are 25 names bracketed together as being occupiers of a 31 acre allotment for which the Immediate Lessor is a Madame Dele Haye. The Description of Tenement is "Land(bog)". Would I be justified in assuming that this was the lo...

Sharon, at your suggestion I have perused the census numbers for the six townlands of the Ball Estate. By far the greatest change occurred between the 1841 and 1851 censuses. During the remainder of the period up to 1891 the numbers remained relatively stable or showed a gradual decline. The changes...

When the EPPI website was in full swing I managed to download summary pages from Parliamentary reports on each of the censuses 1851 through to 1891. Each of these reports had summary statistics going back to 1841, except the 1891 report which only went back to 1851. My interest was in the two parish...

Several times lately I have come across reference to the effect that Fort Fergus landlord Major William Ball was responsible for the eviction of some 200 families from the adjacent townland of Inishdea during the 19th Century. See, for instance: http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/places/ballin...

Another example of the difficulties faced here is my search for Connor Philips in the townland of Caherea in Clondagad Parish. The original page of Griffiths Valuation shows Caherea divided into 51 allotments, with Connor coming in at No 18. The first problem comes when you call up the map, you are ...

Thanks for signposting that site Paddy. It has helped me to locate a couple of properties. However I struck a snag in trying to pinpoint two of my Murphy forebears in the townland of Inishdea . The map references do not appear to relate to the map provided. Michael Murphy is said to occupy Allotment...

Thanks for those comments.
Iwill look up that reference.
Murf

On my recent trip to Ireland I uncovered the will of my great grandfather Michael Murphy of Ballycorick. One of the bequests in the will was to one of his sons in the form of his ownership of a pew in the Ballycorick Church. Can anyone tell me was (is) this common practice in Ireland, i.e. that fami...

Ah yes, the Boxing Day picnic races. Thanks for that. Seems a simple Google search may have answered my question, but then I wouldn't have got your interesting slant on it, would I? I did a little exploring on the NSW indexes and found that Patrick Hartigan Sr (20) arrived in Australia on the John T...

Some time ago, in a dusty old secondhand bookshop, I seized upon a copy of John O'Brien's book of Irish- Australian bush verse entitled " Around the Boree Log ". As I thumbed through the pages familiar phrases came leaping out from forgotten corners of my memory where they had lain dormant since my ...

Thank you Tom for sharing that fascinating story. I guess that it's very much a matter of trying to sort the wheat from the chaff here. Michael MacMahon in his Agrarian Conflict in Clare: 1815 - 1831 (see Clare Library History Section) gives the stoning version of the incident as reported in the Cla...

Following my query re violence at Ballycorick in 1831, Peter Bierne of County Clare Library has kindly provided this excerpt from the Clare Journal, 9 June 1831 which summarises the final day's proceedings of the Special Commission. Because it contains many names I felt it worthy of a separate posti...

Many thanks Paddy for your efforts.
It's all in much clearer focus now.

Kevin Murphy