Tithe v. Griffiths land areas

kildarejohn

I was comparing the records in Tithe Applotements (Nat. Archives website) versus Griffiths Valuation (askaboutirl / findmypast) and I noticed that for particular families I was looking at they had a bigger area of land in acres in Griffiths (1850's) v. Tithes (1820's). At first I thought my families had just got more prosperous, but then I noticed that other families had bigger acreage too, and some townlands seemed to have higher total acreage.

Anyone know reason for this? - did Tithes use Irish Acres and Griffiths English statute acres - if so what is conversion factor?
Or did the actual boundaries of townlands change between these dates?

shanew

as far as I remember Griffith's used Statute/English Acres - I've seen some Tithe records that mentioned Irish acres and another with Plantation acres, so not certain that they were consistent. One of my ancestors is shown with 12 acres (no unit specified) on the Tithes and just over 13 on Griffiths.

just spotted this on the homepage '...The acreages given in the Tithe Applotment Books are in Irish or Plantation measure, which is 1.62 times larger than statute measure..'

tabbey

As a general rule tithe surveyors used Irish Plantation Measure, because the tithe act was legislated before statute measure became mandatory in Ireland under an act of 1826.

1 acre IPM = 1.62 statute acres.

There is another complication; Griffith excluded land which was not used for production, such as rivers and roads, whereas tithe apploters included it in the area, but at zero value. This seems to be the case here, as 12 and 13 are too close.

Richard Griffith expressed the opinion that in some cases, the tithe men seemed to have a measure of their own invention.

Hermy

tabbey wrote: »

As a general rule tithe surveyors used Irish Plantation Measure...

How did one qualify as a tithe surveyor?

EDIT: Now that I think of it my g-g-g-grandfather was actually a commissioner for Tithes and I'm wondering how he would have got that job.

pedroeibar1

You also need to consider that from the 1730's tithes were not levied on grazing land, only on tillage, so the cost of them fell disproportionally on small tenants, maily Catholics, who might have had leased a couple of acres, much of which would have been under potatoes and oats. Hence the Tithe War

tabbey

Hermy wrote: »

How did one qualify as a tithe surveyor?

EDIT: Now that I think of it my g-g-g-grandfather was actually a commissioner for Tithes and I'm wondering how he would have got that job.

Each Church of Ireland parish had a vestry committee.

For the tithe applotment, a SPECIAL VESTRY committee was given the task. The tithe survey was done by trusted parishioners, approved by the local rector. The special vestry however seems to have been open to all parishioners, including catholics, who were parishioners whether they liked it or not. One of my great great great grandfathers, a catholic, was one of a number of catholics who took part in this committee, but did not belong to the vestry at any other time.Their motivation was to reduce the tithe burden on they and their neighbours. The tithe bill ended up being reduced by ten per cent or so in their parish.

Hermy

Thanks for the reply tabbey.

I had wondered if it was unusual for a Catholic to be involved.

kildarejohn

tabbey wrote: »

Each Church of Ireland parish had a vestry committee.
, a catholic, was one of a number of catholics who took part in this committee, but did not belong to the vestry at any other time.

That's interesting - I had found a person of my ancestors' family name on a Select Vestry list, but since the family was Catholic, I had assumed this man had changed religion, or else was an unrelated person of the same name. Now I realise he could have been both a catholic and on committee.

tabbey

In the case of my ancestor, he only became involved in the special vestry committee. I knew about it from the online pages in the Tithe Applotments. Subsequently I looked at the Select Vestry books for this parish in the RCB library. Over a number of years / decades the attendance at select vestry was small, a hardcore of people for whom the vestry and religion may have been their main social interest.

The online tithe pages for this parish, showed two lists attending separate meetings, with a lot of what may be termed milesian names.None of the latter men were recorded in vestry at other periods, so I do not think there would normally be many catholics involved.

As I understand it, all residents of a civil parish / Church of Ireland were nominally parishioners of that parish prior to disestablishment. They were legally obliged to pay tithes, and on the principle of no taxation without representation, presumably had a right to attend vestry.

I would be interested to hear from others with more definitive expertise on this matter.

Hermy

tabbey wrote: »

I would be interested to hear from others with more definitive expertise on this matter.

Yes, that's something I'd like too.

Here's an entry for my commissioner ancestor, Ignatius Moore of Newcastle, Co. Dublin (link)...