Hi Rob
Yes, looking at the information on the civil parish of Feakle (
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... feacle.htm) I can see that Scolp, Knockathunna, Lower Corbeha, Rieskmore, Derryfaddha, Upper Corbeha, Dromindura, Lanaught, Acres and Fahy Halloran were considered to be subdivisions (or sub-denominations) of Faha.
Parishes in Ireland tended to be much larger than parishes in England*, and so, in the making of the Ordnance Survey map, 1842, it was decided that the smaller unit of Townland would be recognised as the basic unit. Decisions were made as to which places would be deemed townlands, and which not. Griffith’s Valuation,1856, is based on the 1842 Ordnance Map and on these “official” townlands. Looking at Griffith’s Valuation (on the same site), I can see that Acres, Corbehagh, Derryfadda, Drumandoora, Fahy, Knockatunna, Lannaght and Scalp made it into the map and onto the official list, but Rieskmore and Fahy Halloran did not – those two places must have been subsumed into one (or two) of the other townlands.
A Paper Landscape: The Ordnance Survey in Nineteenth Century Ireland, by J. H. Andrews, (1993), has this piece on pp 56,57:
The rest of his [Colby’s] instructions were chiefly concerned with matters of organization and with various measures for securing accuracy. Chains and Theodolites were to be frequently checked, the dates of the work and the names of the surveyors were to be recorded, and a formidable range of documents was to be listed and preserved. Especially rigorous precautions were to govern the Survey’s dealings with Griffith’s boundary department. An officer and two sappers were to perambulate each boundary in company with Griffith’s representative and boundaries pointed out by the latter were to be visibly demarcated where necessary. The character of the boundary and the names of the persons present at the perambulation were to be recorded in a ‘boundary remark book’ and this information was to be digested after the survey, with more exact notes of bearings and distances, in a document known as a boundary register.
In spite of all this officialdom, people went on using the placenames they had always used, and Fahy Halloran is referred to by Ger Madden in his book,
Sliabh Aughty Ramble (2010). Reading the piece, I can see that you are familiar with the information in it:
November 25: On the Galway border of the parish of Killanena there is a townland called Faha, Faithche Uí Ailmhurain – O’Halloran’s field or open meadow. According to Very Rev John Canon Clancy PP who served in Killannena for a short time in the 1920’s, and wrote a Short History of the Parish of Killanena (1963), Faha was part of the lost parish of Frenagherta. The name appears in Pelham’s Map of 1770.
Restoration work was carried out on the ruins of the 15th century church in Faha graveyard by East Clare Heritage in the early nineties. Only a portion of the east gable has survived. Tradition has it that a local man named “Mac Gabhann” was ordained here by Bishop Oliver Plunkett during penal times.
Writing about the antiquities in the parish of Feakle, in his Odnance Survey Letters (1839), John O’Donovan is a bit dismissive of the ruins of the chapel in Faha:
Of the Parish of Feakle.
Tulla, 22nd November 1839.
Dear Sir, the next Parish I have visited is the wild and extensive one called Feakle a name which is well known throughout Ireland through the facetious poem of Bryan Merriman …[a description of some antiquities here] …There is nothing else of any interest to the antiquarian in this Parish but a small Church and graveyard in the Townland of Fahy north, but this I have not visited, having been informed that it is modern and in a rude pointed style.
The Antiquities of County Clare, Edited and indexed by Maureen Comber, Clasp Press, 1997.
The townland of Faha is in the civil parish of Feakle, but in the Roman Catholic parish of Caher Feakle, also called Killinena:
https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0768. A transcription of the registers, which have survived, is available under “Donations” :
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... ex_bmd.htm. There is a huge gap in the records in the 1840s, but it is great that the records for 1842 have survived, giving us an idea of the large population in that area before the Great Famine.
Sheila
*In
Soupers and Jumpers: The Protestant Missions in Connemara 1848-1937, by Miriam Moffitt (2008), the author says that people in England, who sent money to the missions in Ireland, could never understand the missioner complaining that he had trouble getting around his parish.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/evan ... r-1.921338