I have been trying to work out what townlands were in Kilrush Poor Law Union (PLU) at the time of the Great Famine in the late 1840s, which has proven a somewhat trickier task than I expected.
I am making an implicit assumption that may turn out to be inaccurate, namely that townland boundaries have not been altered since first laid down by the Ordnance Survey between 1824 and 1846 (see
http://osi.ie/About-Us/History.aspx ).
Earlier in this thread, I made the equally rash assumption that the boundaries of (district) electoral divisions remained unchanged from the introduction of Poor Law Unions in 1838. (I am also implicitly assuming that 'electoral division' (ED) and 'district electoral division' (DED) are synonymous, but that too may prove a rash assumption!)
I have now learned at
http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-r ... guardians/
that
The 130 Unions established in 1838 were divided into 2,049 electoral divisions (later increased to 3,438 electoral divisions when the number of Unions was increased to 163).
All this is relevant to Kilrush PLU, for one of the new Unions established c.1850 was Killladysert or Kildysert, which included parts of the original Kilrush and Ennis Unions.
According to
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Kilrush/
Kilrush PLU originally comprised 13 EDs:
Kilballyoan, Kildysert (2), Kilfidduan (2), Kilkee (3), Killard (2), Killiner, Killofin (2), Kilmacdooaun (2), Kilmihil, Kilmurry (4), Kilrush (5), Knock, Moyarta (3).
(The numbers in brackets indicate the number of Poor Law Guardians elected for each ED.)
To complicate matters further, it's not clear whether Kilmurry above refers to Kilmurry Ibrickane (which remained in Kilrush) or Kilmurry McMahon (which went to Killadysert) or to both combined.
According to
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Ennis/
Ennis PLU originally comprised 18 EDs:
Bunratty, Clare, Clondagad (2), Clonlea, Cloony, Dysert, Ennis (7), Feenagh, Inagh, Inchacronan (2), Kilconry, Kilkreest, Killoan, Kilmaley (2), Newmarket, Quin (2), Ruann, Templemaley.
According to
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Kildysart/
by the time Kildysart PLU was established, it comprised 11 EDs:
Ballynacally, Clondagad, Coolmeen, Kilchreest, Kilfiddane, Killadysert, Killofin, Kilmurry, Liscasey, Lisheen, Rinealon.
The anglicised spellings of several of these EDs are quite different from those used in 1838.
Ballynacally, Coolmeen, Liscasey, Lisheen and Rinealon were presumably each carved out of one or more of the 1838 EDs.
Looking at the 1962 map at
http://www.logainm.ie/eolas/Data/Brainse/sw-sheet.jpg
one is tempted to guess that the present day Clondagad and Kilchreest DEDs were originally in Ennis Union, and that the present day Kilfiddane and Killadysert DEDs were originally in Kilrush Union. However, it is anybody's guess which Union (or Unions) the present-day Liscasey DED was in back in 1838.
I've given up on finding the answers online, but hopefully someone reading this can help.
I thought the CSO might have an online breakdown of 1841 population statistics by townland and DED, which would help, but was disgusted to find that it has removed the useful tables that I cited earlier in this thread from its website in order
to improve the structure and manageability of the CSO website and to allow us to plan for future improvements.